TR-x 145 website

[synth3tk]

Uhm.... I basically agree with Mr. Sisk. You guys have the content, but the delivery could use a little bit of rearranging. Erm..... where to start. Most of this will try to come from a visitor's standpoint, some of it from a developer's view. Don't take any of it personally, I'm just here to help. Here we go.


Splash page:
The scrolling sponsors could probably stand to sit still. I'm pretty indifferent on the Flash intro. One comment on it, though, is that there is a FIRST logo officially made for dark backgrounds, and I would use that instead of the light-backed logo.

There's a lot of content under the intro which, if this is an initial landing page, is probably not the place for it.

The link to becoming a sponsor probably should go, since it leads directly to your HTML page, and not to the page including navigation (more on the frames later), which potentially could lose visitors. Page opens up with no way to navigate, naturally I'm going to close the tab/window.

The counter can probably stay if you really want it, but signing up for Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/) is a much more accurate and in-depth tool to use, and is free. But to each their own.

Awesome background, dude. Not too overpowering, not too obstructive. I like it.

If at all possible or desired, place a timed redirect on the splash page, so that a few seconds after your intro, it goes to the next page.


Main Site:
Delete the frames. Elaboration down the road.

If you are keeping the scrolling marquee at the top of the main body, please insert the code to pause on mouseover. That way, if I'm to click on the link in the scrolling text, I won't get frustrated trying to chase it and give up.

Mentors page, as Mr. Sisk pointed out, needs either a solid background or (my personal choice) lighter text. Maybe meet each other half-way. Some light text and a semi-transparent dark background. Also, fill out the content so that it takes up more space on the page. Either that, or pictures of the mentors in another <div> so that you have a more interesting page. Another note on this part, I thought that when I clicked "Mentors" that I would see a list of the actual mentors, maybe a short bio, and not a blog-style listing. Not necessarily a bad thing (if you decide to make a blog/news section) but it misleads the viewer. Same goes with the "Students" button. Name your navigational buttons appropriately.

"TR-x 145", there's a team picture that's 2427.39KB LARGE!!! EGADS!!!!! Even on a cable connection with 15Mbps/down, it took me a good ten seconds to finish loading the page. There are plenty of free tools and websites that can scale that down, please take advantage of that.
So about the blog-thing I talked about earlier, I didn't know it was on this page. Again, change the text colors and background color/image. Read that? I do not want. (lolcats reference)


iFrames is not iCool:
Definitely shy away from using those frames. At the very least, make it two frames: Navigation on the left, and main content on the right, sponsors on the Sponsors page. But I highly recommend just removing them altogether, leaving them in 1999 where they belong.

Otherwise, it looks like you've got what you need to make the site interesting as far as text and words. You just need to fix the code up so that it's presentable.


You can tell I had nothing better to do tonight, even though I'm actually putting off working on a team video. So don't take this as me flat-out dogging your site, but as a small project to waste time.