Staff

Past Staff

Review for In Depth

This is definitely going to be a short review, considering the fact that this site seems incredibly small. I like the layout, but at the same time, it gives me a cramped feeling: like there’s too much open space that’s not being used to the full advantage. Everything is crammed on one side and to small spaces, while there’s this huge host of white space just waiting to be used. Even the font is incredibly tiny. [Okay, not incredibly, but I have to lean in to read it.]

Information

Site: In Depth
Type: Blog
Owner: Philene
Reviewed By: Sanosuke
Date Received: 10/15/06
Date Completed: 11/23/06
Preview

Presentation

Layout

So, I like the layout, but there’s so much space left unused that it feels weird to look at. For one thing, your navigation is puny, while it could be way bigger. Either that, or you could enlarge your content area. Either way, something is too small, because there’s all this white space next to the navigation. If you can imagine a person with a head that’s way too big and a really stick-like, skinny body, that’s what your layout looks like right now. The header is large, and it’s supported by a puny navigation.

Your header ends rather suddenly, it’s oddly square and looks like you just decided to cut the flower off. Fading it off a bit more instead of blatantly hacking it off. Here’s a comparison:

Coding

Your coding looks a little messy. Here is a tutorial on how to make tableless layouts. You’re actually half way there, getting rid of the useless tables at the very beginning would make things a lot easier, and it’s not hard at all. You also wouldn’t need all those useless slices anymore.

Your font size, as I’ve mentioned before, needs to be slightly bigger. It looks pretty right now, but it’s not very effective for a blog because even when I’m sitting this close to my computer, I can’t make out a few of the words. Along with that, the hover color for your links need to be darker. Just because I’m mousing over the link doesn’t mean I don’t want to read it anymore.

Content

Femme

First, lets start off with who are you? I can understand if people don’t want to reveal a lot about themselves, but you’re revealing nothing on this page about who you are. You have these interesting blubs about what you like, what you dislike, what your personality is, but there’s nothing about you.

Confused? Let me explain it in this way: when I was typing up the information for this review, I searched your site for your name to put under “Owner”. Typically, if someone wanted to know the basics about a person, they go straight to the “Webmistress”, “Owner”, or in your case “Femme” page. While you have some interesting things about you, you still need the basics: who are you? What’s your name? Where could someone be able to contact you? People might not care in detail about the webmistress/webmaster, but they still want to be in the know about who the webmaster/mistress is.

Phobias

You named the link “Phobias” but you named the page “My Phobias”, consistancy is a good thing, so the link leading to the page should be the same as the page title. I also don’t see the point of having so many blank letters; why not just make a list of phobias alphabetically, instead of leaving those blank letters up?

“Phobia name and description is from” –> “Phobia names are descriptions are from”

Before Death

Again, consistancy. “Before death” or “before I die”, which one is it? Also, a bit more description might be nice: what about before you die? “Things I’d like to do before I die” would be better, but since that’s so long, you could have a subtitle under the header on that page.

Music Studies

This page is interesting. Perhaps dates on when you played these pieces would make it more personal, and also maybe a small blurb about the background of the piece - what did you play it for, what you thought of it, etc.

Writings

The banner for Death Figment is too big for your current layout, consider resizing it. Again, since this is a personal site, more personal information would be nice, like how you thought of the idea, when you wrote the story/poem, etc.

I’ve only read part of your story, mainly because I’m typing this in school, but so far, I like your writing style. You have some coding problems though, from the first paragraph to the paragraph starting “The sweet, serene voice”. There are some line breaks that don’t belong, and it makes the paragraph look jilted.

Resources

You added an extra ” in the link for The Essence of Life, it needs to be removed in order for people to visit that link. Otherwise though, I like how you’ve laid everything out on this page. It’s organized and straight to the point.

Other

“Reviews” is slightly misleading; by “reviews”, visitors usually assuming that you wrote the review yourself. “Review Sites” or “WPRs” might be better.

Though, now that I’m looking at this page, I don’t really see a use for it. You could completely cut out this page and combine it with your Resources page and name it “Linkage” and it would still work out.

Final Statement

Incredibly bloggish. There’s not much here except a blog, if anything, your resources page is more organized and informational than your femme page. I suggest adding more information about you. Who you are and how to contact you should always be on a site, no matter who the site is supposed to be catering to.

I wish you the best of luck on your site.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 23rd, 2006 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Blog. 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.

4 Comments to “In Depth”

Philene Says:
November 23rd, 2006 at 10:03 pm
Thank you for the review.

Corinne Says:
December 8th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
“Incredibly bloggish. There’s not much here except a blog”

I don’t get this part. It is a blog, what is it supposed to look like but a blog.

I disagree with the implied notion that it needs to be more. Who is to say what a “perfect” or correct blog is.

As a website owner/designer, that person should have the right to express themselves however they choose.

You should judge them on what they view is right, not what you think is right.

Sanosuke Says:
December 9th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
People don’t need to be told what they think is right. As much as people like to say they’re ‘impartial’ while reviewing, the fact is that a review is simply someone else’s opinion. If I wanted to know what I thought was right, why would I got ask someone else to review my site?

I agree that a person should be free to express themselves however they want to. I didn’t mean that there has to be more to the site, but that there should be more basic information. If you’re going to open to the public, you might as well tell the public who you are.

But, again, all reviews are just opinions in the end.

Misao Says:
December 14th, 2006 at 1:59 am
“You should judge them on what they view is right, not what you think is right.”

You need to consider the fact that we, as reviewers, cannot in any way understand the website owner’s attitudes, values and views. I cannot possibly judge your site based on what you view is right, because I don’t know what you view is right.

All reviews can offer is someone else’s opinion of the site. Whether the website owner want to use these “opinions” for future reference is entirely up to them.