Thread: Feedback needed
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Unread 09-05-2013, 22:30
MathMaven MathMaven is offline
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AKA: Elisha Sword
FRC #3175 (Knight Vision)
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Join Date: Jan 2011
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Re: Feedback needed

You have a good fundamental layout. At this point, you need to start focusing on the details to elevate your website from "just good" to professional level. Several good suggestions have been made above; following are a few of my own. Please note that some of these are very nit-picky:
  • "Feedback" is one word. You spelled it "feed back".
  • The suggestion above to use flush left or justify for your content is a good one. Centered text just doesn't look quite right.
  • Using white boxes for your content on top of a dark grey background makes your white look very bright and thus is uncomfortable on the eyes. I'd consider using a subtle grey underneath the text (like here on Chief Delphi).
  • The above applies also to your header.
  • While we're on paragraphs, I think the decision above to add some spacing between paragraphs is a very good idea. Doing so will change your content from one big block to a bunch of smaller, more digestible ones.
  • Make sure to italicize every reference to FIRST. The About Us page forgets to, and so does your footer.
  • As mentioned above, About Us, FIRST, and Sponsors link to the same page. This will likely confuse your visitors. Your navigation will be more intuitive if each links to a separate page.
I have a few more, but these reach real nit-pick level.
  • You use long blocks of text with a sans-serif font (Arial). Apparently, serif fonts (like the ubiquitous Times New Roman) make long blocks of text more readable -- this is why many news sites employ Times New Roman, Georgia, or something along those lines. (This doesn't seem to concern Chief Delphi, or any forum site, really.)
  • The line spacing in your paragraphs is a bit larger than I'd like. It think it's approximately 1.5 spaced, whereas on Chief Delphi (and on many other websites) the spacing is closer to (but often slightly larger than) 1.
  • You have occasional grammar errors throughout the website. (e.g., "The award-winning Channel Cats is a FIRST Robotics team. Supported only by sponsors and devoted mentors." [The second sentence is a fragment.])
  • Your About Us page underlines some text. This is not recommended for the the Web because most websites underline hyperlinks, making non-linking but still underlined content confusing for the reader.
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2010–13: FRC Team 3175 (Knight Vision), student, lead programmer
2012–13: FRC Team 3175 (Knight Vision), lead website designer
2014: FRC Team 3175 (Knight Vision), programming mentor

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