Yeigh - Neigh - Meigh... Critics needed before completion of site

ninebeanrows

http://www.weathercheck.net

Okay before i start transferring data into this sort of design of template? I want your cruel cruel opinions!:D

Just base your opinions on the homepage as the others have yet to be fitted the new look.

Muchas Gracias.:)

Karoma

In short (And ignoring the rough edges which I'm sure you'll get around to...The WC 'logo' thing is just a temporary thing, right?): too cluttered/crammed-in. Perhaps trim it to 3 columns - scrap the Coming Soon one?
Orange on cyan? Retract your cock from my eye socket.

aidan_walsh

too cluttered/crammed-in.

I concur, and I'm looking at it pretty much full screen on a 1280x1024 display. I'm afraid to look at it on a lower resolution.

You don't have to have everything in the same place so the user will see it, some decent navigation would sort that out.

Goodshape

Karoma wrote:

In short (And ignoring the rough edges which I'm sure you'll get around to...The WC 'logo' thing is just a temporary thing, right?): too cluttered/crammed-in. Perhaps trim it to 3 columns - scrap the Coming Soon one? Orange on cyan? Retract your cock from my eye socket.

Nasty. I'd give you more credit if you hadn't posted that 'critique' just two minutes after the OP.


Anyway, yea, not a great looking site but it's passable imo.

Couple of things - are you aware some of the links in the side menu don't work? (I haven't snooped about too much, so there could be more). You can't launch a site like that.

Also, it took me a while to find out how to get back to the frontpage once I left. You should add a 'home' link to the menu.

cgarvey

Better than all the other times you ask for a review, but:

• Why the 2 maps? One for names, one for conditions? Confusing/unecessary
• Need better "conditions" images on the map
• Need to credit source, if applicable (are you just scraping it off other sites? have you permission to?)
• WC (tm) logo needs to go. Now. Seriously!
• Is WC or the logo trademarked? If so, where? If not, remove the TM as it's too amatuerish/wannabe/misleading
• Round the figures in your JS conversion util
• Fix the 404s
• Better tables (either use of graphics, or different colours), as it looks too 90's by having standard tables thrown in there.
• What's the banner graphic to do with weather?
• Why the sub-banner graphic (no weather alert) a graphic, rather than text?
• Have a designer give it a once-over
• Fix your HTML
• Above all else, finish your site before asking for a review!

ninebeanrows

Karoma wrote:

In short (And ignoring the rough edges which I'm sure you'll get around to...The WC 'logo' thing is just a temporary thing, right?): too cluttered/crammed-in. Perhaps trim it to 3 columns - scrap the Coming Soon one?
Orange on cyan? Retract your cock from my eye socket.

You don't like orange on cyan?:eek:

And what do you mean bout the Wc thing? whats wrong with that?

Thanks for your advice!

ninebeanrows

cgarvey wrote:

Better than all the other times you ask for a review, but:

• Why the 2 maps? One for names, one for conditions? Confusing/unecessary
• Need better "conditions" images on the map
• Need to credit source, if applicable (are you just scraping it off other sites? have you permission to?)
• WC (tm) logo needs to go. Now. Seriously!
• Is WC or the logo trademarked? If so, where? If not, remove the TM as it's too amatuerish/wannabe/misleading
• Round the figures in your JS conversion util
• Fix the 404s
• Better tables (either use of graphics, or different colours), as it looks too 90's by having standard tables thrown in there.
• What's the banner graphic to do with weather?
• Why the sub-banner graphic (no weather alert) a graphic, rather than text?
• Have a designer give it a once-over
• Fix your HTML
• Above all else, finish your site before asking for a review!

wow thanks for going to all that trouble mate;)

I'll get fixing:)

ninebeanrows

And the banner is meant to picture people looking up to the sky! And seeing wc logo's flying by:D

Karoma

Goodshape wrote:

Nasty. I'd give you more credit if you hadn't posted that 'critique' just two minutes after the OP.

Oh noes.
He asked for a design critique, not a full snag-list. And the word "cruel" was mentioned. He got it. It was nothing personal. He took it as such it seems.

Re: Wc:
The Wc thing doesn't really work well in such a small size, is inconsistent with the rest of the design, and the "tm" notice is rather large.

"orange on cyan" - oddly enough, no. I don't really like it.


OK, minor snag: You have padding between the green alter box and the top banner on the front-page only, which makes a minor but noticable shift in layout when one clicks on another page.

Adam

Scrolls horizontally on 1024x786... 17" lappie monitor

Rollo Tamasi

You have 5 visible columns on your site. Try to bring that down to 3 and if needs be make the site fully scrollable. Make the menu stand out more. You need a more obvious logo.

Seth Brundle

Weathercheck wrote:

And the banner is meant to picture people looking up to the sky! And seeing wc logo's flying by:D

I must admit that I didn't get that from looking at the pic!


Why have a google search on your site if you are not limiting the search results to your site?

daymobrew

Mr Spell has a look...

home page text wrote:

respite from the rath of the Atlantic storms.

s/rath/wrath/

On http://www.weathercheck.net/thisweek.html - "see our weather alert" link gives 404. Remove "weathercheck.net/" from the link. When corrected the title is "Untitled Document"

http://www.weathercheck.net/alert.html - the background for the left menu is very different from other pages.

When I click on "Ireland Now" and then on one of the clickable data squares e.g. the temp in Donegal area. The page that comes up has overlapping maps of Ireland.

Gordon

I don't mind the 'wc' logo but the TM is a bit amateur imo also. The logo would make more sense if "Weathercheck" (the top bit with the..erm.. people) was created with that sentiment in mind. You want to create a brand and the top logo doesn't fit with the wctm logo, apart from the similar colour of course.

I agree about the double map thing on the front page. I also don't understand the weather icons on the left hand map. You need clearer icons (without an inner shadow!).

And I also hope you have checked with the content suppliers about dishing out their content onto your site. I remember some time back when you were asking for reviews you stated that you had got permission, but I also remember you saying that you didn't get any replies about permission. I'm saying this because you are making money from advertising, and you are insistant on trademarking your own designs, so I would expect you to show courtesy by either stating your sources, or stating that you have permission to use content from the service provider.

But that's just me.

Oh, and yeah, it scrolls horizontally on my large monitor (20 inch I think). I don't browse websites at maximum screen size, I browse at around 1000 pixels width. Not sure if that's the norm, but it's my opinion..

GoneShootin

less is more


that is all

ninebeanrows

Gordon wrote:

I don't mind the 'wc' logo but the TM is a bit amateur imo also. The logo would make more sense if "Weathercheck" (the top bit with the..erm.. people) was created with that sentiment in mind. You want to create a brand and the top logo doesn't fit with the wctm logo, apart from the similar colour of course.

I agree about the double map thing on the front page. I also don't understand the weather icons on the left hand map. You need clearer icons (without an inner shadow!).

And I also hope you have checked with the content suppliers about dishing out their content onto your site. I remember some time back when you were asking for reviews you stated that you had got permission, but I also remember you saying that you didn't get any replies about permission. I'm saying this because you are making money from advertising, and you are insistant on trademarking your own designs, so I would expect you to show courtesy by either stating your sources, or stating that you have permission to use content from the service provider.

But that's just me.

Oh, and yeah, it scrolls horizontally on my large monitor (20 inch I think). I don't browse websites at maximum screen size, I browse at around 1000 pixels width. Not sure if that's the norm, but it's my opinion..

Thanks for your advice im changing a few things..

The images are not lifted from anywhere just using a script that parses them from the noaa metar database which is publicly available.

Thanks everyone else. Just to illustrate that i was just asking for opinions on the homepage not the other pages.. I'm about to do another facelift anyway so i'll bump this later tonight.

Thanks

ninebeanrows

bump for critical analysis of homepage homepage only

www.weathercheck.net

mneylon

Weathercheck wrote:

bump for critical analysis of homepage homepage only

www.weathercheck.net

I quite like it


A few things:

-Title tag is not going to help you much with seo
-"current wc" - what's that meant to be? If it's meant to be "current weather" then maybe you should state that
-Run your html through a validator - you've duplicated a couple of the tags and seem to have omitted a DTD
- Putting the CSS in an external file will make editing / maintaining it a lot easier

Seth Brundle

Looks better with less columns.
There are three maps now and I don't know what the icons are on the left one (black square and what looks like the moon).
The fax charts and GSF charts icons look very iffy.
I agree about the 'current wc'. Is it about a toilet?
The 'Current weather stats; more current weather @ 5:30 PM' line looks as if there is a tab sized space between 'weather' and '@'.

ninebeanrows

kbannon wrote:

Looks better with less columns.
There are three maps now and I don't know what the icons are on the left one (black square and what looks like the moon).
The fax charts and GSF charts icons look very iffy.
I agree about the 'current wc'. Is it about a toilet?
The 'Current weather stats; more current weather @ 5:30 PM' line looks as if there is a tab sized space between 'weather' and '@'.

Yea changing the wc thing now.

And the icons are moons, there weather icons


What you think about the top banner... im not going to totally change it? But how bad do those clouds look?

Thanks

And thanks Blacknight;)

Seth Brundle

I've never seen those icons before. Why show a moon? Is it to indicate that there will be no cloud tonight? Maybe a key is needed.
As for the top banner - its better than the previous one but I felt it was a little dark and dreary and cold (like the Irish Weather) - it would look nicer if it was somehow showing bright sunny weather. Whats with the iceberg on it?

daymobrew

Weathercheck wrote:

And the icons are moons, there weather icons

I suggest setting the 'title' tag for the icons so that it says 'moons' (or whatever) when you hover over them. It will probably also help screen readers.
Maybe also put "Conditions - Temperature - Air Pressure" under the three maps.

Wow, you are squishing the the UK Fax Charts into those tiny spaces. At that reduced resolution you can't make anything out. I suggest either dropping the actual (resized) images and replacing them with some smaller, static images; or, change the Now/+24/+36 to links to the charts (maybe change to Now/+24hours/+36hours etc).
I see you are squishing the images in the Latest GFS Forecast section too.
Both of these mean unnecessary downloading for people.

Weathercheck wrote:

What you think about the top banner

A red moon and an approaching iceberg? Forecasting the end of the world?