Yes, another site to review.

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Tommy
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Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:54 pm
Location: La Zenia, Spain
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Yes, another site to review.

Post by Tommy »

Hi all,

I have nearly finished my site design, I just need to finish implementing the Flight search engine and the main text for some of the areas of the site but apart from that it is near completition.

I have currently embedded the rentors.org calender into my website so people see the days available but this is just a temp thing until I have written my own control along with the user interface.

all criticism welcome good and bad.

www.casamaria.co.uk

Thanks

Tom
http://www.casamaria.co.uk - La Zenia, Spain
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Garri
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Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2005 7:26 pm

Post by Garri »

Tommy, first impressions? I like it! I particularly like the choice of font in the header, although the strapline "come to relax..." could do without the quotemarks and perhaps be different colour, for some contrast and balance with the Casa Maria title.

However, I don't like the top level nav being crossed into 2 lines (on my screen 'contact us' is under 'home')

The other thing, whilst it's a nice and clean and stylish site I don't know what it is you're offering. Is it a house or a cocktail bar? I can read that it's a 2 bed house from the opening para but it needs to be immediately obvious - possibly have it featured in the header, so we know what it is.

Nice touch would be to show different aspect of your house in the headers, so when I click on another page the header photo is different.

I like the 3 b&w blocks, Golf, Beaches etc. Nice touch number 2: when the visitor mouses over they should turn into colour.

Or, put something in the box that shows us we should click on them. At the moment nothing happens when I mouse-over except the title attribute shows up. Needs to be more obvious - they need to be explicit 'calls to action' e.g. "read more »" with a link.

People still like links, they know them when they see them and they usually click on them if you ask them ;-)

When I mouse over flights 'contact us' shifts over to be under 'flights'.

When I mouse over contact us, the header shifts up slightly, it moves in other words.

Other than that, I like the overall style and think you have something decent here.
Tommy
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:54 pm
Location: La Zenia, Spain
Contact:

Post by Tommy »

Garri wrote: However, I don't like the top level nav being crossed into 2 lines (on my screen 'contact us' is under 'home')

People still like links, they know them when they see them and they usually click on them if you ask them ;-)

When I mouse over flights 'contact us' shifts over to be under 'flights'.

When I mouse over contact us, the header shifts up slightly, it moves in other words.

Other than that, I like the overall style and think you have something decent here.
Thaks for the feed back Garri.

Just a quick question, what size is your monitor and what resolution are you using? I only ask so I can replicate and fix the problem ASAP as I would find this annoying everytime I moused over a link.

Thanks again
http://www.casamaria.co.uk - La Zenia, Spain
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Screen size: 19"
Res: 1280 x 1024

Browser and Platform: Firefox 2 on OSX

More importantly though, I don't know what your site is offering me - it's not obvious. If you weren't posting here on LMH I'd think it was a cocktail bar serving nice seafood, near a beach with golf club ;-)
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mpprh
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Location: Languedoc, France
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Post by mpprh »

Hi others will comment on the artistic merit.

A couple of things (and this could be translation ?) -

Golf. Why not say : Over six golf courses to choose from ...........

Beaches. Why not say : Three blue flag beaches ............

Eating out. Why not say : Fresh fish, tapas and paella ............


And it is worth spending some time correlating keywords with content. The meta tags have no key words - google may not use them, but others do.

Title is .... in La Zenia. The heading (an image or background - so search engines ignore it) talks about Costa Orihuela.

It is worth trying to get consistency across URL, page title, headers, content.

Peter
The Languedoc Page
www.the-languedoc-page.com
Image
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Big Sis..
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Location: Torrevieja and Norfolk
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Post by Big Sis.. »

Hi Tom,

Nice looking site I like the colours etc.
Some of the links dont work but I expect thats because its not finished.
The photos arent great ,
some seem there to 'make the number up'
...Why the dark shot showing that your stairs go down as well as up? I think unless there good photos and add something you shouldnt put them in.
The bedroom shots could be better if you stand on a chair a tip from Paolo in all small rooms]
I going to try to take some more photos like this when were out next week.[Ours arent great either]
Why do we need to see a free standing fan are you saying theres a problem with ventilation?
The pool photo surely you could get one that isnt behind a bush
Even if you take it from a neighbours view as long as your not saying this is our view but just this is the Pool.

Im sure when its finished itll look great though good luck :wink:
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Ju
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Post by Ju »

I like the overall look of the site. But the font is too small to read comfortably. If you want to stick with the white font on blue (which I like) you really need to up the font size. I stuggle to read it and My eyesight is ok and I'm using a "real" monitor. I think anyone with below normal sight on a laptop would really struggle.

Also you could do with a summary - eg number of bedrooms, how many does it sleep etc so that you don't have to read all the text to see if the property is ok for your party.

Ju
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Agree with Ju, text is too small unless you use Trebuchet (which I notice you're using in the 3 blocks). It's a font that lends itself well to smaller text, seems to be more readable than most.

A great tool is: http://typetester.maratz.com/

You can test variations and compare, then when you're happy cut & paste the CSS - beautifully simple!

p.s. I don't know what a "real" monitor is, where can I buy one of those ;-)
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Ju
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Post by Ju »

I don't know what a "real" monitor is, where can I buy one of those Wink
A real monitor is a bog standard monitor, not a flat screen, not a lap top. I find flat screens almost as bad as laptops to read, which is why I don't have one.
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Overboard
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Post by Overboard »

Much as I really like the orange in glass header, I would personally really like to see your 'front aspect of townhouse' JPG there instead (at least on the home page). I always like to see a glimpse of the rental right away and your townhouse looks gorgeous! I really like your layout and colour scheme. Oh, and I'd maybe move the strict no smoking policy thats written in Caps to another page... you want to make that home page as inviting as possible and it just seems a little aggressive on your welcome page.. but maybe thats just me. :roll:
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Big Sis..
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Post by Big Sis.. »

Oh, and I'd maybe move the strict no smoking policy thats written in Caps to another page... you want to make that home page as inviting as possible and it just seems a little aggressive on your welcome page.. but maybe thats just me.
I thought that as well Astra:wink:
Tommy
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Location: La Zenia, Spain
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Post by Tommy »

Thanks all for your responses. I have taken everything onboard and have started already making some changes but havent loaded up to server yet.

eg.

couple of images to go into the front page (of the townhouse),
non smoking will be moved into the T&C's,
removed unnecessary images in the gallery,
changed font to Verdana so spaced out to make easier to read,
texted has been changed in the 3 blocks with it changing so people know it is a link when you mouse over,
Keywords and description have been worked on but think they could do with a bit of tweeking still,
and a few more bits need sorting.

Thanks again for all your responses.
http://www.casamaria.co.uk - La Zenia, Spain
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