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Review for Letters to No One
So many hearts. And colourful hearts too! On one hand, they look nice with your choice of colours, but on the other hand, they offer too much colour on the plain simple layout style you’re using. It looks too eye-popping and rather overwhelming. Too much attention is wasted focusing on the hearts - the background - and not on the text; and you want visitors to focus more on your content and not your layout.
Information
Site: Letters to No One
Type: Blog
Owner: Marron
Reviewed By: Misao
Date Received: 04/02/06
Date Completed: 06/29/06
Preview
Presentation
Not saying that I don’t like your layout. The style is rather nice. It is simple, perfect for a blog. But the hearts are rather large and colourful. It allows too much attention. Colour is nice, but you don’t need eight colours on a simple layout with heart stamps as the background. Just a few are good enough, a maximum of five. I like the way you angled the site title though. The links aren’t very noticeable at first. I thought it was part of the background due to the close opacity proximity in colour. Although the hover style is rather cute, try colouring the text, rather than the infinity symbol styling underneath the text. Alt or title tags would help visitors know which link is what before clicking on the link. Your section titles are original but can be confusing with proper directions.
Your entry format is very organized. I like it. But I see that you stagger between entries. The entries date back to March. It’s already the end of June! You don’t need entries from that far behind. I would try to keep the most recent (2-5) entries on the main page and archive the rest. It keeps your main index page tidier and less scroll-y. You should make a ‘Untitled’ title to entries without a title so they don’t appear blank, like your May 29th entry. It looks out of place. The two images to the left of your content are broken files and the links don’t work.
Regarding your comment format, you should try adding a little padding space to the (leave a comment) textbox so the text doesn’t look like it is running into or touching the dashed borders.
You claim valid HTML 4.01 Transitional coding in your source, but when put through validation, you failed with 16 errors. The errors are small errors and refer to the same area of your coding, but even so, you should put your own HTML through validation and correct the errors before posting it online. Besides, there aren’t any other detectable errors in your HTML. Everything looks good, except that you don’t have a link reference to the ‘Cupboard’ section. If this section does not exist, you shouldn’t have bothered making an image to include in your menu bar. What is the point?
You know what you are doing within your style sheet. It looks correct, although there is a way to simplify it. For example:
body{
margin:0;
background-color: #ffffff;
background: URL(images/bg_hearts.gif) top left;
color: #1D1B40;
font-family: verdana;
font-size: 11px;
text-align: left;}
can become:
body{
background: #ffffff URL(images/bg_hearts.gif) top left;
margin: 0;
color: #1D1B40;
font: 11px verdana;
text-align: left;}
Any attributes that start off with the same word and has another suffix added to the end (font-size and font-family) can be combined into one. It takes less time, less space and makes everything so much easier the second time around when you need to make some changes. The same applies to padding. The correct way to specify margin and padding is “MARGIN: TOP RIGHT BOTTOM LEFT”. If you are not going to specify a height like that of #right, then take it out of the style sheet. It is pointless to have “height: ;” there. It doesn’t mean anything.
Your textarea, input and select attribute looks rather funny. You first specify the border as nothing, but you changed your mind later on to add a one pixel solid border. Which is it? You can’t have both. The style sheet will automatically read the attribute with fewer specifications. You have heading2, 3, and 5. What happened to 1 and 4? Use the heading tags in order starting from 1. It makes more sense logically, and you specify the attributes the same way you did with the others.
Content
Pen&Ink
This is certainly a long page. Have you considered using internal links at the top of the page to break the mini-sections down? It would mean less scrolling. I could click on ‘Weblog History’ link at the top of the page, and it will take me further down where the history is located. Once I am done, I can click on ‘Top of Page’ and go on to the next mini-section. It would be easier for the visitor. ActiveJump has a really good tutorial on internal links.
About - This section is rather short and very brief. I do not get the feeling that you are telling us your life story; just a small glimpse into who the blogger is. There are a few mistakes though. ‘Gulliable’ is spelt wrong. I am not sure if this is done purposely but you’re missing spacebars in “(whodoesn’tskipclass)”. You need to rewrite the fourth paragraph opening because at this time, you should already be sixteen. If there is something in the sentence that you no longer need, take it out. There is no need for you to put a strike through the sentence opening. We’re already halfway through 2006. There is a grammar error with the sentence “(which yes to not ratio is one : billion)”. It should read, “The yes to no ratio is one in a billion”. You need to capitalize the word ‘Japanese’ because it is a direct noun. It is the name of a specific language and the word to describe a particular ethnicity.
Contact - It is nice of you to include three emails in which people can contact you at. Always help when one isn’t working. Although you should separate the email addresses with a line break for easier distinction.
Email:
x.kuniko.x[at]gmail.com*
akari.kun[at]gmail.com
akari[at]orangeday.net
Other Websites - I always like promotion of other websites on your blog. However, the links don’t open in a new window and none of them work. The first and last one are not longer online, and the second link leads to a suspended account.
Layout - I like how you describe the making and process of your layout, along with requirements (even though the requirements are more helpful on the index page). Your smiley icon doesn’t work, and external links should open in a new window. That way, when a visitor gets curious and click on it, they won’t be leaving your site altogether. Again, erase statements that you no longer need. The strike is meaningless because the statements you don’t want are still there.
Why - You avoided the whole topic on explaining how you came up with the blog title. We know that you didn’t take it from Harry Potter, so how did you come up with it?
History - It sounds like you’re writing a history on how Shelley’s domain expired one after the other. Try to phrase it so it sounds like you’re talking about Letters to No One’s history. Since you have quite a few errors in this section, I made some corrections to give you an example: “I’ve had a weblog for a few years now. In September/October 2003, (I believe) I started a weblog named Memories, which was hosted by a friend of a friend of mine, Shelley (at that time). It was hosted on her first domain, but when it expired the following year, I moved my weblog to her third domain. Eventually my host had her domain disabled, leaving me looking for a new host. I came across Michelle’s domain, nekopop.net, and Letters to No One was hosted there from around January to October 2005. When my third host went down again, I finally purchased my own domain from Firey.net where my blog is currently located.”
Stamp
You need to update this section. Takiko is no longer your host, Allika, Shelley, and Mori’s domain has gone down, and Yesenia has moved. Is there a reason why the links are display on three different lines rather than on one? Have you thought about making some linkage graphics for visitors to take to link to your weblog in case they don’t like text links?
Final Statement
Your blog is certainly short. I was expecting a little more but I guess this is expected though. One of your sections is non-existent while one section is just a Links page. But then again, a blog doesn’t need a whole lot. You pretty much have it all. The only thing left are the errors. You need a quick touch-up, and the site should look brand new again!