Obiter Dictum

Content Only Review of LoveUnchained.Com
Date Submitted: February 8
Date Completed: August 11

Content

I’m sad to say that from first glance I can already tell that your review isn’t going to be very long or in depth. I will try my best, but it’s very difficult for me to review sites that I can’t read, especially for content-only reviews! As I say in my guidelines, I won’t comment too much on your layout except about that which applies to the content; your sidebar text is TINY and the color choice is awful. I have to strain my eyes just to see the text. On the right/main content side, it’s not much better, though the text is the tiniest bit bigger. Your colors go really well together, I’ll give you that, but not in the way you’ve used them. I realize that you didn’t design the site, but you should still be aware of how your layout displays your content. Okay, enough of that.

You have some unnecessary text laying around in your sidebar. For example, writing

Site Purpose: The purpose of this site is to provide all Romione shippers (persons who like Ron and Hermione as a couple) with a place to have fun, celebrate and learn more about the couple. We also strive to bring you up to date news on all happenings in the HP world.

You could easily shorten that paragraph by either getting rid of “Site Purpose:” or “The purpose of this site is,” and it would still get your point across. No need to bog it down by the longest possible thought you could get across. It’s also not clear what you’re “celebrating.” (Then again, I’m not into HP fandom, so perhaps it is just something that eludes me. :P) Read the rest of this entry »

Combined Review of Stand-in-the-rain.net
Date Submitted: Jan 27
Date Completed: July 15

Design

Ohh goodness. As you can see from the screencaps, your site looks different in IE and Firefox, and I can only imagine the differences in other browsers. I don’t know if you use IE or Firefox (or something else)… I just hope it’s meant to be centered. That said, you might want to revise your code a bit. Clearly, some of your visitors aren’t getting the full experience.

My “ohh goodness” has many layers. Hilary Duff is one of them. So are your font size, spacing, and color choice. On first glance, this design isn’t overall bad - it centers, it’s clean with straight edges, and it holds all your content pretty well. That’s just the first glance, though, and on second glance I see everything annoying about it. I’m not going to say that things are “wrong” - I’ll give you that much. Obviously everyone has their own opinion of “right” and “wrong” and I won’t overstep my bounds as your reviewer to tell you your ideas are “wrong.” From my first glance I can see that you could probably make something pretty awesome if you put your heart and head in it, but that perhaps you’re just not going that extra step. Read the rest of this entry »

Content Only Review of Dancing in the Rain
Date Submitted: January 20
Date Completed: July 15

Content

Aesthetically your site is just a tad bit blinding to me; you asked for a content-only review so I’m not going to comment too much on the design, but as I have to read the words somehow, you should know a few things. The yellow on the brown would be fine for your links in the sidebar if the white wasn’t so bright under your content. I feel like I am straining to read some things, and that’s never good if you want people to continually visit your website! Issues arise with the yellow links (on the brown, but also below the content in your footer navigation), pink on pink, and that splash of pink in your “about” blurb that looks sickening with the yellow (again, the yellow), but also makes the black hard to discern. Otherwise, the font size is big enough and the fonts are readable. (Except when you mouseover the links in the sidebar; there you seem to have decided to throw readability out the door. What’s with the dark brown on dark gray? Bad choice.)

I’m going to start with your sidebar because, despite the fact that your content is on the brightest color shown in your page, your sidebar still manages to draw my eyes immediately. Let’s analyze why: First of all, it’s busy. Too busy. Is it necessary to have all that? And can’t you style the Google search bar to match the sidebar colors, rather than having a random white box among all the pink, yellow, and brown? Secondly, your tags stand out more than your subject lines in the blog, so when I landed on your page I was immediately drawn to those. Is that what you want? My suggestion is either to move them further down the page or make them smaller. Read the rest of this entry »

Content Only Review of Zwinkyness
Date Submitted: January 3
Date Completed: April 11

Content

Looks like there’s a lot to get into here! Your blog posts are long and at first glance they don’t seem to be about random uninteresting tid bits. I’m not going to read all your currently displayed blogs, but I’ve sort of skimmed them and I can see that if I wanted to take the deeper time to read them I’d probably learn a lot about you in a short amount of time. You write very well with acceptable spelling and grammar (always a plus) and your posts are detailed with your thoughts and ideas.

There is a lot of information in your sidebar and footer. I like the ability to change the font size. I am okay with asides (or Twitters, or whatever you want to call them) and you’re not showing too many, but I would put the blurb about you before the asides. You should put sidebar content in order of importance - if possible, I’d even put the about snippet first or right after the font size changer.

It’s always interesting to me the about details people choose to put in their sidebars. Some people just list of some interests, some people define themselves with descriptive words. You’ve done a bit of both, though I’m still not 100% sure how I feel about the “random words” thing being chosen over an actual paragraph that sums up some basic facts. Some errors - You aren’t “17th” years of age - you’re either “in your 17th year” or “17 years of age.” Your “author” link leads to your blog, the page I’m on, and I’m not sure why. Read the rest of this entry »

Combined Review of Backstaged
Date Submitted: December 7
Date Completed: March 16

Design

Not entirely sure how I feel about this layout. Something is off - might be the dissymmetry of the header image, the color use, or perhaps it’s that the “About Me” link sticks out all the way to the left while the “Domain” link ends very close to the right side of the layout. Maybe it’s all of it.

The layout isn’t bad - it’s not very complicated, more or less easy on the eyes, and it looks perfect in both IE and Firefox. I don’t like what you’ve done with the header/footer images. I’m not sure I get the point of the “eaten out” look - that’s what it looks like to me. It looks like tiny mouths have taken chunks out of your layout. If it fit the theme (postage?) I’d understand a little better. Postage stamps have the riveted edges, but those bumpy lines are around the entire stamp, not just the upper left and lower right corners. It just seems like you threw them in there to avoid having a boxy layout. Read the rest of this entry »