FIRST Team 1444 Site Design for 2008

[Compnerd]

I have been working on a possible design for our teams 2008 site.

You can look at it here... Http://www.first1444.com/2008 (click "sneak peek" link below the countdown)

And i know that some of you like to look at the HTML coding. Yes. it is set up in frames, and tables. I haven't learned CSS yet, but i am working on learning it now. Just FYI

[Pavan Dave]

I like it. Its more organized than this year's site and is more symmetrical. I like the frames because I use them myself. Can I suggest making the pages shorter. You have to scroll down a little and maybe you could have just the frame scroll similar to THIS page but that is just me. Also the skin on the forums doesn't really match your banner. Maybe plain black with yellow text or anything that is yellow/black/yellow and black will be a big improvement as it will then fit with your theme...black and yellow. Besides that I can thank you in advance for giving me ideas for some work in the summer. Keep up the good work and good luck!
Pavan.

[pheadxdll]

I can say that I don't like it. It doesn't have the sleek look of this modern era. Do NOT use frames either. They're not proper HTML. The links on the side could be text and not images. Let's just say the fonts you choose wouldn't be my favorite. They're also huge. Tune down the font and the page might get smaller. The italic on the front page is pretty anoying. I can't see anybody reading that.

The 2008 website awards is far away 365+ days away. Plenty of time to tune and tweak your site. Good start.

[Compnerd]

Thank you for the comments! As I said, It's a work in progress.

[Ricky2443]

Of course frames are proper HTML, why else would they be coded into the API? You just need to know how to use the correctly. If you can do that then more power to you. Also if you decided not to use HTML frames you can create a frame like effect using CSS, its rather tricky but if works out kind of nice.

[GRaduns340]

I like this one better than the current site, but you should probably bump up the resolution on the images (in addition to some of the above-stated additional comments). The edges look quite pixelated, and it doesn't seem very clean.

[Compnerd]

Ok. I hadn't noticed that. I am planning on redesigning all the banners. These are images, from screenshots i took from our flash site. I am planning on doing a full redesign of the banners.

Is it just the banners, or are other images needing work?

[Compnerd]

Quick question... On the main content frame, would it be better keep the table layout, or have one section per "row" instead of two? I don't know if that makes sense or not...

[Ctrl Alt Delete]

I usually like dark backgrounds because it's easier on the eye, but I don't seem to like the grey contrast that much. I like the yellow, but the images on the nav bar are a bit small.

Just a word of warning coming from someone that has done CSS for a couple of years. 3 column designs are much more complex than 1 or two columns. You might want to look into something called Faux Columns if you're interested. Another thing I would like to remind you of is to use IE a lot while testing since it's the most likely browser to break stuff.

[Gigaman2003]

Its still rough around the edges but im sure you guys will sort it out in time

Originally Posted by Ricky2443

Also if you decided not to use HTML frames you can create a frame like effect using CSS, its rather tricky but if works out kind of nice.

I did this for my personal weblog and it was hard, even when i have a lot of experience in web design.

I managed to get it to the point where it was scrolling the bottom half horizontally using javascript, but also could do it without javascript, but not with the smooth sliding action. All I got out of it though was a pretty template that everyone had some kind of trouble viewing.

But hey I went for the hard to pull off horizontal scroller, if you think you can pull it off then best of luck to you, it's quite an achievement to do that and have a valid, efficient and cross-browser page.

[pheadxdll]

Originally Posted by Ricky2443

Of course frames are proper HTML, why else would they be coded into the API? You just need to know how to use the correctly. If you can do that then more power to you. Also if you decided not to use HTML frames you can create a frame like effect using CSS, its rather tricky but if works out kind of nice.

Frames are not proper HTML- they are deprecated. They are still supported in web browsers because people refuse to stop using them. According to http://rikkus.info/proper-html.html:

"Don't use frames. They're not needed anymore and they break navigation."

"Try to use a logical site structure so people can figure out how to get around without having to have a permanently-visible navigation system. "

Good points. Modern web devolping doesn't include using frames so don't use them.
You can avoid using frames by not prettying it up in CSS, but by having a logical and sophicasticated site structure.

[Compnerd]

I did some major changes to what i had originally. A lot of it was on the coding side, but there have been a lot of content changes.

Please look, and let me know what you think of the new layout!

Thanks,
James

P.S. I killed off the frames

[GRaduns340]

I'm not sure about that font. The majority of people who go to your site aren't going to want to read all the content, so they'll look for the stuff that pops out, and that font doesn't seem to do that for me. I think it's just how narrow it is against a relatively wide body.

[Compnerd]

Originally Posted by GRaduns340

I'm not sure about that font. The majority of people who go to your site aren't going to want to read all the content, so they'll look for the stuff that pops out, and that font doesn't seem to do that for me. I think it's just how narrow it is against a relatively wide body.

What font would work better?