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Hi, I've just started a new site at http://rzlearning.heliohost.org (after the old one failed)
Would you mind rating it out of 20 on these 4 fields?
1. Usability- 1-5
2. design - 1-5
3. Organization- 1-5
4. Anything Else- 1-5
Would you please also explain why?
Thanks so much to sitepoint, there's been a lot of people who've helped me!
I think since the site is about child care you might want to incorporate children's theme. You could use flowers, animals, critters and use colored fonts.
Since you are targeting multicultural community you might want to include pictures of children of different ethinicity.
The bullet list under the 'why us?' section would look better if it is centered too.
You could use children doing different activities as a light background. website needs to show more excitement right now it is rather uninteresting.
You mentioned that the previous site failed. One thing I'd recommend here is that you make it much clearer on the site where this center is located. For example, your page title should be something like "Naperville Childcare" or similar. No one will Google your name, but rather the service you are offering. I'm in Australia, but I'd have to scour your site to know if it's any use to me, which isn't good. Target the site to those who will use it with meaningful headings, and nice clear introduction about what you offer etc. Explaining the site in small text without a larger-text introduction will lose visitors. I'd suggest some big text at the top of the page summarizing exactly what you offer.
Note that some of the images in the slideshow don't load.
Meh, it's a site for adults, not for kids. I think that a clean, professional look is better.Originally Posted by germkiller
the design is simple but it should be attractive to children . use atemplate that contains related to children
ralph-
what browser are you using?
I've had some issues in safari
Agreed. There's no indication on the first page where the site is located. I would suggest putting the address and phone number down in the footer. Make it easy to find you!
Agreed. I would prefer a clean professional look as well. So for me, I would prefer that baseline font went. I don't mind it in the headings (don't like it, but it doesn't bother me), but the whole site being in that font bothers me.
Other comments:
- Gotta watch the color scheme. The background washes out depending on how your monitor is calibrated (I've got two, and one is fine, the other is washed out). If you're going for an apple-ish feel, I'm not sure that's the feel you want for a daycare.
- It's hard to gauge usability on just the home page, and it doesn't look like any of the child pages work yet.
- Watch your grammar and spelling. Some of the content is clunky and I found it hard to read. Perhaps taking it away from "your child" and "he/she" and "his/her" and moving it to "each child" and the generic "they" would help greatly. The tutor page is a great example of this. I had to read it several times for it to make sense.
What do you recommend for a background, Dave?
I'm not sure. I would probably pick a richer/darker earth or jewel tone as it will draw your eye to the content, but that's just me.
Dave, I changed the color to a light blue. Could you look at it again?
The page has changed a lot since I first looked. There are issues in other browsers as well. It looks a bit broken up in Chrome. On some pages there are no styles for your nav, because they target class="nav" in the HTML, while you have class="menu" in the HTML on some pages. (E.g. programs.)
Ralph,
Yeah, I've got rid of a lot of useless javascript, replaced the slideshow with my own, and got a different lightbox. Do you think the new site is better than the old one? I'm completely redoing the site, so right now the only working page is the index.
Thanks for your advice!
I find the font a little hard on the eyes, to be honest. Also there were some comments above that are worth considering.
Is the site still under development? As the payment page is a 401 broken link and clicking on the Programs top nav menu link takes me to a page which has then lost the navigation menu bar formatting which shows it as a standard bullet point list.
Think you should move your "We are music, fun, sports, and education all bundled into one" from the 'We Are Run-Ze" text on front page in to the banner as a tag line to get over straight away the key part of what you do.
I also think you need to bring "Serving the Naperville community since 2008" out more than just regular text in the 'We Are Run-Ze", as where you are is key to whethe people can use you at all.
You also mention you have Flexible times in your Why Us, this is good but I think you should have a more specific definiton to state the min and max times parents can drop off between, otherwise is your 'flexible time' the same as my idea of a 'flexible time' when I need to drop off at 6am and pick up at 7pm?
If at first you don't succeed... buy it from someone else
Life's to short to be wasting time trying again and again!
Techno wonder,
Do you like the background? It use to be horrible. And yes, it's a work in progresss.
Hi Andy,
The background is quite neutral and so I didn't really notice it to comment on initially. It phases to another darker shade of blue half way down the page, I don't think going from the light to the darker blue shade half way down the page adds anything. Maybe if the darker blue started at the top and phased to the lighter blue half way down the page, that would be better?
If at first you don't succeed... buy it from someone else
Life's to short to be wasting time trying again and again!
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