Feedback requested for website

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Hi, all. I just finished (well, nearly finished) a website for my family's mosque in Charlotte and now I'd like a few professional eyes to look at it. It's a pretty basic design with the whole site generated via php/mysql. Right now, there's one basic layout throughout the site. For coding purposes, it was easiest to do it this way. The basic structure is my design, the text in the center column was formatted by someone else (who knows nothing about HTML or not using obscenely big fonts). I'm going to make the content administration more restrictive, but I'd like to know what others think about it all. Please provide feedback as you see fit. TIA.



www.ncmuslim.org

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Good for the most part, but kinda cluttered. Try consolidating the bar on the left and the central navbar into a single entity.



    Maybe some drop down Java menus would help.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Placebo

    Good for the most part, but kinda cluttered. Try consolidating the bar on the left and the central navbar into a single entity.



    Maybe some drop down Java menus would help.




    Yeah, I thought about that. There definitely needs to be a distinct reason for putting stuff up in the top bar versus the sidebar on the left if I'm going to keep them both. Thanks.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    resres Posts: 711member
    Overall it is a nice site. There are probably a couple of things I'd consider changing.



    I'd make the header of the left and right columns (Resources and Useful Information) align with each other, or change the look of one of them to differentiate between them. (If the elements look the same, the different alignment can look like a mistake instead of an intentional design choice.)



    Also, the letters of 'Useful Information' are blurred together and hard to read. You might want to change it to an image instead of text.
  • Reply 4 of 8
    You seem to have two primary navigation sources: The links underneath "Resources" on the left, and then the links to the right of "Resources". While this isn't unusual, it can certainly become confusing when presented the way it is. I would shrink the "Resources" block and keep it from competing with your primary links in the middle. I'd probably also drop the "Resources" bar underneath your primary links at the top. May want to embolden those as well.



    Your sections on the right aren't working. The titles that is. Black text on top of a Purple background isn't very readable. White would be a better choice.



    Lastly, your "Feedback/Contact" link is in a pretty low priority part of the site. Normally, I don't really want to listen to the users either, but you probably want to consider moving that to a more traditional position.



    I'm on my way to bed, so you get a quick 'once over'.



    Cheers.
  • Reply 5 of 8
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pensieve

    Hi, all. I just finished (well, nearly finished) a website for my family's mosque in Charlotte and now I'd like a few professional eyes to look at it. It's a pretty basic design with the whole site generated via php/mysql. Right now, there's one basic layout throughout the site. For coding purposes, it was easiest to do it this way. The basic structure is my design, the text in the center column was formatted by someone else (who knows nothing about HTML or not using obscenely big fonts). I'm going to make the content administration more restrictive, but I'd like to know what others think about it all. Please provide feedback as you see fit. TIA.



    www.ncmuslim.org




    My main critic is the obscenely big fonts of the center column, like you pointed it out.

    I think that this column needs some reformating : it destroy the whole design of your web site.
  • Reply 6 of 8
    dmband0026dmband0026 Posts: 2,345member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Powerdoc

    My main critic is the obscenely big fonts of the center column, like you pointed it out.

    I think that this column needs some reformating : it destroy the whole design of your web site.




    Agree. Hit it right on.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    Thanks all. Overall, it sounds like things are "ok", but it could use some tweaking. That's good to hear. As long as it's not offensive. I'm not a designer and all this was hand coded CSS, php, and mysql with a general layout using a table. I'll keep working on it, trying to implement some of the changes suggested. I'll keep ya posted...
  • Reply 8 of 8
    gabidgabid Posts: 477member
    Only three quick comments:



    1. The text of your title "Islamic Center of Charlotte" might be better if it was moved a bit to the right (on top of the graphic) so the "Is.." is on top of white rather than blue.



    2. A lot of the links to the left bring up pages in the middle with a lot of white space, which makes it seem very empty. Myabe even just putting a line at the bottom of your text that matches that which you use to underline your section headers would frame things nicely.



    3. Keep fonts/what you bold constant throughout your pages



    Take all of this advice with the caveat that this is from someone who is planning on buying Dreamweaver just to play around with (yay academic discounts!).



    Good luck though! Quite nice overall.
Sign In or Register to comment.