Gem of Gem dot Inamorata’s review:

Presentation:

I’m constantly stressing the importance of a straight-forward navigation, however I don’t exactly want to be attacked by one, either. Every time I glance at your layout, my eyes are automatically drawn to the navigation. I suppose if it made use of some “fancy” design (such as Appasionato), it would have some saving grace. That beige background looks rather out of place there too. I’m assuming that the picture frame uses it, however combined with the darker patterns, the overall effect in the picture is much more pleasant. If I were a first time visitor, I wouldn’t spend more than a couple of seconds here.

I rather like the concept of the picture on the left, as well as the way you chose to “complete” it on the bottom. Great job on integrating it with the light gray background, as well as the focus/blur effects… and that’s about all I like about the layout. It’s a pity really, because it has great potential, if used differently.

My suggestion would be to use a different colored background for the content, and have part of the image overlap said different colored background. You have too many blog entries on the first page. My current screen resolution is 1280×1024px, however I still need to scroll down quite a bit to see the bottom of the design. Have fewer entries, and in such larger resolution have the bottom part show in the first screen.

I highly dislike the purple “sidebar”, because not only does it look out of place there, but the text color is rather hard to read. You should have used the light gray from the main background for it, rather than left it black. Why not have the introductory message on the top of the main page instead? And the exits are fine enough being placed in on a links page; or you could make use of a larger footer, similar to the one in Aneesah’s Hideaway, if you insist on having those on the front page.

While I did say, I like the picture, it is extremely large, and in a resolution of 800×600px it is cut. Also, the entire layout side scrolls when using this resolution. Given the simplicity of the site’s design, I don’t see why it can’t be resized to work in this resolution as well. Oh and another pressing problem: I don’t see your site title anywhere on the front page. Nor do you mention it in the purple sidebar. Is there a reason why? I know I don’t generally look at the browser’s title bar to find said information.

Here is a screenshot of a suggestion on how you could change the layout. It was hastily done in Photoshop, so some things may be slightly misaligned and I was too lazy to change the text color.

Content

I was under the impression that this was a personal site. You don’t exactly mention the type of it anywhere… Well aside “my underwear out on the line”, which would indicate personal site in its nature. Anyway, back to topic, due to this site being personal, I believe it is more logical to put stuff related to you (ie Creator) first, and have the rest after.

= Blog (X) =

I’m not particularly fond of the name you chose for it on the navigation. If you wrote with a smaller font, typing Index or Blog wouldn’t have been so difficult. I see you don’t display any archives, as you’re not making use of a CMS. This is not particularly bothersome for me, but I’d assume it would be easier for you to maintain your blog if you used one. Haloscan opens comments in popup windows, which are blocked by popup blockers, not to mention that hardly anyone these days uses popups. Or if they do, it’s for brief informational data.

It’s a pity really because some of your blog entries are very entertaining, but I only see a few comments here and there. My personal suggestion would be that of Wordpress, I DO admit that it IS rather bloated, but it comes with exellent documentation. I haven’t used other CMS, but Expression Engine seems to be highly regarded as well. Or if you’re uncomfortable with database driven scripts, try Flatpress.

Of course it’s not a requirement to use a CMS, however they come with a lot of features which make browsing blogs a lot easier and more pleasant for visitors. You might want to take that into consideration. Right… so that would be the end of advertising.

I’m rather bothered by the purple box on the right. Not only is the text hard to read, but its content is not so lengthy so as to warrant its existence. I clicked over to Projects and saw that it’s still there. Why? Is it necessary to remind people on each and every page that they have reached your site? You can just welcome your visitors once on your homepage. The screenshot of the suggested layout uses that paragraph as the first one.

Another thing I don’t really get is why you’re displaying links to other sites as the second paragraph in your welcome box. It’s your site, why would you want to direct your visitors elsewhere right from the start? Put these on a links page, or make use of a large footer and put them there.

= Projects =

The purple link hover background is not a particularly vise background choice. I’d use something closer to that shade of beige. The idea is indeed to differentiate hover links from regular ones, but the difference doesn’t have to be that glaring.

I had initially decided not to review this section, seeing that it seems it’s not part of Gem.Inamorata, but then I’d be drastically reducing your content. So I did decide to include it in the review after all.

Instead of opening “Body Language” a new window you should mention that it’s a different site… or well not quite part of your personal site. You could even follow Yahoo’s example, and have some sort of arrow, indicating an “external” link.
Regarding the zine itself: I dislike the layout, however not so much that I wouldn’t read anything. It bring back memories of the magazines I used to read as a teenager. And once I read the introduction my interest is sparked. I found it funny, witty and in many places I could relate to things very easily.

On second thought, I think the layout fits. It is, however, rather impractical seeing as it’s made up entirely of very large images, which may take a lot to load on slower connections. From your description, it seems as if this is only a static project now, however if you change your mind, I’d suggest redesigning it. Use a very simplistic layout (eg. Sarai’s Dark Gray template), and just float the images you use now, to the left and/or right… made smaller of course; I’m thinking a maximum size of 150×200px would be good. It would be a pity to let this go to waste. I truly enjoy reading these articles and will be back later to finish.

The “101 Things in 1001 Days” is scaring me slightly, seeing as I turned 23 last year (not yet 24 hehe). I’m not sure I did half of those… I could never have such determination XP. For point number 8, instead of “agin” you should write again. Haha, I’m loving the little notes under the completed/tried out items… and I really hate lists on web sites, so this is saying something. For the record I did see a movie by myself, twice. It’s so much better with company. I have to tell those snide remarks to someone.

Your “Icons” align a bit weirdly. After the first 2 rows, the rest of the rows seem to be aligned more toward the right. I’d suggest not using line breaks at all. Just post them there one after another, because they’ll automatically align themselves correctly. Of course, if you want to use 100% correct coding, put each image inside a list item (<li>) of an unordinary list(<ul>), and float these list items to the left. By the way, image tags must have the alternate text (alt=”") specified at all times, even if left blank.

The icons themselves are not that interesting, nevertheless they all display a certain style, which I think really represents you. Or well, they’re consistent and seem to be of the same style type as the images you use in your layout(s).

= Stories =

The first word is rather hard to read, due the link color, which is more or less the same as the shade of the skin on the girl’s leg. Consider fixing this: it’s rather annoying. I’m of the type who wouldn’t highlight, unless I was in a very stalkerish mood.

“Little, Ironic Smile” had me captivated from the first line which you put as introduction. I really really like it, you write so well, and have such an easy style. I did find the following a bit weird though:

Even though she was still in college and five years younger than he

However, before that, you say:

he was calm and collected at twenty four while she’d just reached twenty and was going every which way.

So, should the difference be four years?

I’m not sure if it is because I’m having a day off today, and am feeling really relaxed, but I really liked “Sincerely” as well. Now don’t take that as an insult, it’s great that you write stuff which I keep liking a lot. In my experience, whenever I found such a writing that I enjoyed, it always seemed to be one of a kind. See? This is another reason for which you should use a CMS. Then you can add these stories as pages and let people comment. I’m sure a lot of them would like these stories a lot. They’re brief, but they don’t seem incomplete. Plus, they all seem so funny, as well as slightly bittersweet. I can’t believe you hadn’t before got an A in an English course (unless you forgot to update your to do list).

Normally, as a reviewer who respects herself, I should read the rest as well. But I’d like to finish this review today… I have slacked off again. I do promise to come back and read the rest though. And you’re definitely on my blog roll (ie link list). In “Creative Journaling” you have an extra > in the last paragraph (”>Claire in Top Form”).

= Photos =

I like them a lot, but you really need to put a bit more effort in arranging them in a more eye pleasing fashion. For example, see Lil’s (Hey Girl) portfolio. I’m told she uses a script called plogger, which is easily integrated into any site. Give it a try.

= Creator =

You’re an English major, that’s nice. I reviewed a girl (twice) who apparently received honors in English, but I rather disliked her writing style: much too school essay oriented. She got right pissed with me for that. I had almost decided that 1) either all English majors suck at writing (lol, yeah I know), or 2) I’m never going to understand their work. Your writing style is very pleasing though. I’m glad I was proven wrong.
Whoa! You definitely like lists… I don’t so I’ll probably just skim through this. I really can’t stand so many list items.

= Gem dot Inamorata=

I was about to finish the review and post it, when it occurred to me that I had not seen the site section. I was expecting it to be linked on the main navigation. Instead of Photos, you could put this, and make photos part of the creator section. By the way, why are you spelling gem without capitalizing the g? Alias or not, it does seem a bit odd for me.

Your previous two layouts quite nice, I especially like the vexel one… though I’m not sure about the yellow. I have some trouble viewing bright colors in large amount.

Coding

I’m glad that you don’t use tables, but you need to read up on more recent coding practices. Yours are rather outdated, and thus affect the ease with which Google may index your site in searches.

You use a correct doctype, but it would be advisable to use meta tags, to ensure that search engines render your site in more relevant searches. Jem’s tutorial on Basic Meta Tags should be a good start, and continue with Rachael’s tutorial for custom keywords.

Moving on, I see that used a div for each link. That’s rather complicated. How about you make use of the two tutorials for Semantic CSS Block Navigation: vertical or horizontal.

Similarly <span> tags are not supposed to be used for titles. Use the heading tags, there are 6 of them h1 - h6. Surely that’s more than enough for your needs. And if not, you can always customize them using CSS. By the way, you do underline titles a bit too often. Don’t underline anything unless it’s a link, or if you want to put some sort of emphasis on it. Use font-weight: bold, change its color, but underlining is considered to be harmful for anything other than links. The default styles in browsers denote links by it, so try to adhere to those accessibility requirements… whenever possible.

Image tags (<img … >) must always contain the alt attribute. When I tried to validate your Icons page, I got a lot of validation errors due to the alternate text missing. If an image serves a purely decorative purpose (eg a fancy separator), then you can leave the alternate text blank (eg <img src=”my_image.jpg” alt=”" />), however in every other circumstance have a short explanatory text. There people who are forced to browse using text only browsers. In such cases, a short explanatory text can be very helpful.

I noticed that you have a tendency to leave some paragraph tags open. If you open a tag, then do make sure that you also close it, to ensure proper display of the web page.

Rating:
I am the type of visitor who is greatly attracted to layouts with a lot of eye candy. Therefore, I generally need a little push to check out sites, which might not make use of these web 2.0 style of layouts. Yours is one of such sites. It’s a pity really, because your site is great. Your writing is excellent.
I was quite surprised actually, because I remember not having liked your site much when I reviewed on YourSite.nu. I have to admit, that it may very well have had something to do that I was frustrated by your dislike of my own site . You need to put a bit more thought into your layouts. It’s fine if you’re not the type to use flashy designs such as say… Guitar Angel, but simple professional layout would greatly benefit your site.
To answer the question you posed in your Creator page: I have indeed enjoyed your little corner of the web tremendously.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Reviews Vera. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.