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Review for Lemony Fresh
The layout isn’t breath-taking or original. In fact, it resembles one of Wordpress’ many blog templates. Good call to the layout style as this setup works to your advantage. The last thing you want a personal website to do is overwhelm the visitors. I like simple and clean, and what better than a blog/personal.
Information
Site: Lemony Fresh
Type: Personal
Owner: Adam
Reviewed By: Misao
Date Received: 10/28/06
Date Completed: 03/15/06
Preview
Presentation
There are rooms for improvement. The biggest problem I have is the header. I don’t like the fact the text is warped inside a set width, but yet the title is centred aligned to the browser. It looks rather mis-aligned. If it was shifted to the left, with less empty space beneath the title text, the page would look more wholesome. But I like the choice of colours.
The footer background - the part with the white horizontal line just before the footer links - throws the entire layout off. The main reason is the white colour. It doesn’t quite fit into the colour scheme. I recommend sticking with the red colour of the header background or the red colour of the blog/page title.
You’ve passed both XHTML and CSS validation tests though there is one minor error in your coding. There are two style sheet link references, and both of them are completely different from another. Although the two style sheets are working alongside each other, it would be a better idea and a little less confusing to combine the two to one. There is also a small inconsistency in the style sheets. There is a inconsistency in stating the background properties to some of the selectors. For instance, it appears as background: #FFBE80 for the most part, but the background property also appears as background-color: #FFBE80 in the textarea, input, etc. selector.
The homepage looks well organized and easy to navigate. The format of blog entries is also organized so that it is easy to distinguish between entries. The tag, posted, and comment icons as well as the blog stuff icons look a little off due to the different background colour. One big thing I dislike about your site is how external links open in the same browser. It gets really confusing and is quite annoying when I want to visit a link provided in the entry and it makes me leave the site. It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to link them to new browsers.
Content
As stated above, the homepage to entries look very organized. I don’t like the layout for the comments though. The colours provide too much contrast comparable to the site layout. Alternating between shades of gray similar to the navigational background colour would be more suitable and more appealing to the eye. I am a little surprised there are no dates signed with the comments. Wouldn’t it be hard for you to track when the comments were made if you haven’t visited your site in a long while?
About Me
I like your writing style. The way you wrote the first two introduction paragraphs is a great narrative method in drawing your visitor’s attention. There is nothing on this page that give hint to your age? There are a couple errors on the page:
1. “On an usually busy intersection, there was a hospital…”
2. “…out of all the cities I’ve been to (mind you, that’s only five).”
3. “My attitude is introverted �?” my preferred focus is…” - There is a weird symbol imbedded in your writing that I am not too sure if it belongs there.
I enjoy reading the random facts. They are quite interesting though a period is missing from fact #1 and you forgot to capitalize the letter ‘I’ in fact #12. The list of music you enjoy is also rather interesting as I have never heard of most the bands/singers (probably because I mainly listen to popular music). A few grammatical errors are found on this page as well:
1. “The list is in order of favourites.”
2. “Broken Social Scene is my favourite band of all-time.” - The name of a band is treated as a singular noun.
3. “The Arcade Fire is a relatively new band.” - Same error as #2.
4. “Franz Ferdinand was one of the bands that really…” - Same error as #2.
It seems that you and I share several similar interests like a love for crime/thriller novels, graphic novels, manga, and italian food. There is one error found on this page: “Computer games are a wonderful way to pass time.” Computer games are not alive and therefore cannot use time. It would benefit the visitors if the DVD list was organized in alphabetical order by title, which I am surprised isn’t. The same goes for the novel list, the film project list and the television show list. I highly recommend using a different colour to colour the review stars as the pale yellow-orange is really hard to see without squinting.
A few sentences following book/movie/show titles on the ‘Books & Movies’ page are missing periods at the end. If you enjoy crime/thriller novels, I recommend Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta series. It is a wonderful read.
Writings
I did not get a chance to thoroughly read over every single piece of writing but I did get a chance to catch a glimpse into some. The article on using WordPress as a guestbook is written more in the style of a tutorial, and would be more appropriate listed as such. When providing external links within any type of writing, it is wise to have them open in new browsers. That way, readers can continue reading the article at the same time they are visiting the reference. The links are meant to provide references to assist the article, not take the reader away to a new source.
Some of the opinion writings are more essay structured. For instance, provided are the stats of which weapons are used in criminal activities, the availability of weapons, and the glorification of possessing weapons as perceived from an adolescent’s point of view. But you fail to express your opinions on whether ‘Victoria [is] doing enough to prevent knife attacks?’ You are not addressing the concerns raised in the question nor did you answer your own question.
I enjoy the Apple Crumble recipe. Though recipes seem to be a rather odd category to include in a writing portfolio, I like it.
Website
I don’t understand why people always start off these sections with a blurb on how no one reads them (or visit the website) but write these pages or make a webpage. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I do the exact same thing and I don’t quite understand why.
The brief history of Lemony Fresh mainly on the site’s allocation. I think I would be more interested in learning about how the site evolved: what the site was before, and how and why you change it to what it is today. Links to web page reviews should always open in a new browser.
For the links listed under resources, FamFamFam is not linked correctly. It is quite thoughtful of you to credit the sites where you downloaded WordPress plugins. However, I believe the link to Gravatar is not linked correctly since I am taken to a page with only an image of a logo.
I don’t like the opening sentence to the site survey page. I find it a little awkward. Try rewording it to a simplier sentence such as ”I accept all comments/criticism/feedback regarding my site, and I welcome you to fill out the form below.” The input fields for commenting on site content is not aligned properly, and a paragraph break is missing before the ‘anything else’ textarea field.
I am including the review of the footer links here since it fits this category. Though the disclaimer page is rather short and I usually recommend a more specific and detailed page, it got the point across in three simple sentences. The title of the page needs to be changed to Disclaimer to address what the page is.
A contact me link seems to be a better choice to include in the left blog navigation in place of typo submission. A paragraph break is missing before the ‘comments’ textarea field. The accessibility statement is original though some of the information covered on the page are better suited on a separate ‘about site navigation’ page.
The search functions appears to be working properly though the yellow page heading for the results is really hard to make out against the light orangey background. The red colour scheme would be a better choice. The link to the FAQ page (I presume) is not linked correctly. The sitemap is very helpful but there are a few page links that can be removed like test links, which is empty, and testing, which is a password-protected testing page.
Post archive is very neat. So is the guestbook. “I try to return meaningful comments/criticism as a thank-you for leaving a tag (or whichever).” I don’t like the use of it to replace the primary noun. It makes the sentence sound incomplete and failing to serve its function. Does that make sense? Guestbook entries are missing dates. Though this is at your discretion, dates are typically provided with guestbook entries and is recommended.
Links
Anne’s site is down. and it seems to be down permanently. I think she must have closed the site. Academia, the title is aligned incorrectly. Thanks for providing the link to Rhyming Dictionary; it will be very useful to me and I am sure it is for many people.
The links your RSS feed and livejournal accounts are working properly but are not reviewed.
Final Statement
I certainly enjoyed my visit at Lemony Fresh. It is very well organized. The next thing you need to do is make a new entry (the last one dates back to November 2006) and post more writings.