Disco Beat: Combined Review
Combined Review of Disco Beat
Date Submitted: November 10
Date Completed: December 6
Design
The first thing I’ve noticed is that your website doesn’t look right in Internet Explorer. There’s a break between the header image and the content. It’s a minor visual error and I don’t know if it concerns you, but there it is.
Secondly, oh my God, this may just be my opinion but your color selection is a little nauseating. It’s not that it’s badly designed, no, it’s actually nicely put together, but the pinks with that faded yellow next to the green and the blue? None of it is realy doing anything for me.
Thirdly, take down that line of code that states your website is valid XHTML, because it’s not. You have one error, which is impressive, but there’s no reason to advertise a validity that isn’t there.
Okay, I really wanted to cover those points first. Now, on to the links: Your links need to be darker. I’m not blind (far from it) and even I have to strain my eyes. The fact that they turn light green with a hover just makes them worse. They match your layout image fine, and I am always one to encourage taking link and header colors from layout images, but what may have stopped you from making them the darker pink color? Another thing to consider is how silly your navigation links look with hovers: There’s no reason for the text to get larger. It doesn’t add anything to the layout to have things move around like that.
There isn’t a lot to comment about here because your site is very simple and in good coding shape. Despite the color choice, as I’ve mentioned, I really do like the simplicity of it. It’s very straight forward and organized with proper headers, decently sized text (if not a little on the small side), and medium readability. I say “medium” because of the link colors and the text size, but otherwise it’s easy on the eyes.
Content
I see by your most recent post that you’ve decided to start from scratch, so I’m glad I got this review in when I did. On the sidebar, there is no reason to have two links to the author page, and in fact, the welcome blurb seems pointless with the small about you blurb as well. Why not say something to the effect of:
Hey! You have happened to pass by Disco Beat. This website serves as a blog and a portfolio for Enzo, a 13 year old from the Philippines. Feel free to browse around and have fun!
You’ll eliminate the need for the longer sidebar just by combining the two blurbs, and you’ll also get rid of that pesky extra unnecessary link to the author page.
I also just want to point out that “affies” is not a word.
Author
There isn’t a lot to work with here, so I’ll be as helpful as possible. Firstly, there’s no reason to link your school. I promise that your visitors don’t care to visit your school’s website, and those who do might be doing it for less-than-savory reasons. You won’t lose face by spelling out the school’s name and leaving it at that. If it’s that important to mention (and I understand school pride, so I know how important it is to mention!), then it’s that important to spell out. No reason to leave it to the visitor’s imagination.
You could probably go into a lot more depth. For example, while you’re being a freshman, you mentioned that you sometimes blast the stereo “with the best music there is.” What is the best music? Our opinions might differ. Perhaps consider mentioning the types of things you like to hear. Personally I think Christmas music is the best music there is. Do you blast Christmas music all year?
How do you tease your sister? What television shows am I hearing in the wee hours of the morning? Why do you consider music, Internet, and Hazel your “escapes?”
At the end you call it an “autobiography,” but I wouldn’t say that. According to the Wikipedia page about the word Biography: “As opposed to a profile or curriculum vitae, a biography develops a complex analysis of personality, highlighting different aspects of it and including intimate details of experiences. A biography is more than a list of impersonal facts like birth, education, work, relationships and death. It also delves into the emotions of experiencing such events.” What I see on your page is a short profile with some facts and features of your life, but not a biography (or autobiography, as it were).
On that note, writing the possibility that your reader could have learned “everything” about you based on these few short paragraphs is sort of silly to me. It makes me wonder how highly you think of yourself. Is it necessary?
Minor grammatical errors:
“I love my family especially my sister.
There should be a comma in there somewhere. I’ll leave it up to you to find out where.
“I’m as spoiled as the president’s children.”
“President” should be capitalized. It’s a proper noun when used in this context.
“this comapres to Harvard”
I assume you meant that it compares to Harvard. But we all make silly typos.
“I’m not yet sure as of now if I’d be cool or a nerd if I grow up.”
You’re not yet sure as of now? Wow, that’s a lot of ways to say that you’re not sure yet.
The author page is a prime example as to why your sidebar length needs to be shortened. There’s a lot of white space down there and it’s not very attractive.
Domain
Here is another example of what a shorter sidebar will improve. So much white space!
You have a nice, comprehensive credits page. If I gave out points, you’d totally win just for that.
I want to point out that even though you suggested someone could know “everything” about you on your author page, your disclaimer page claims that no one knows you. Please make up your mind.
Minor grammatical errors:
But as time came, I grew tired of the name, considering that it wasn’t up yet, I was just making the layout.
This sentence makes very little sense. Consider adding more subjects and taking away the “run-on sentence” aspect of it.
As a result, I thought one more of a name.
“Once” more?
Disclaimer grammatical errors:
What I put on my blog are simply some stuff that I think are safe enough to put online.
The tense is a little weird here. Either the stuff you put on your blog is safe enough, or the stuffs you put on your blog are safe enough. Pick one.
All images found here are copyrighted to me except I say so in my credits page, where you can see all of the resources I used to create some images.
I think you meant “except if I say so.”
My articles are simply my opinions or sometimes, they express norms or general observations by the masses.
That comma is unnecessary. It creates a break while reading which does not adhere to the natural flow of the statement.
Visitor
Your icons are NOT copyrighted to you. Unless you have permission from the photographers and models in those photographs, you cannot claim copyright on those images, even though you have altered them yourself. That is akin to someone else taking your icons, changing one thing (adding text, shrinking them, etc), and then claiming they hold the copyright because they’ve altered them. Does that make sense to you? Would you get upset if you saw that on someone’s page? Same goes for the bases - saying that the images used are not copyrighted, but that the images themselves are makes absolutely no sense.
You don’t seem to like using thumbnails, and I secretly hate you for it. You crashed Firefox AND Internet Explorer with your father’s photographs. I’m sure they’re beautiful, but now Firefox secretly hates me for visiting a page with enormous resized images instead of simple thumbnails. It will take a few extra minutes of your time, sure, but if your goal is to attract visitors, perhaps you should not crash their browsers.
Your articles seem like they could be helpful, except the “why I blog” one which is relatively short and seems more like a defensive statement than anything. Perhaps consider expanding upon this article with reasons why other people could want to blog, as well as tips for keeping it up or some such. If I were a regular visitor, I would look forward to seeing more articles, so take that into account when considering whether or not you should take the time to write more.
Besides the shortness of it, I only have one other complaint about your blogging article. You state that you don’t care what people think, but that you also have a goal to meet the demands of the people who read your blog. Either you don’t care, or you do. Make up your mind.
As a side note, in your PC article, you mention that “a lot of people recommend it too” in reference to the antivirus software. This isn’t a very strong point unless you mention who has recommended it; perhaps consider linking that statement to an article written by a well-known security resource which praises the use of this particular software. On that note, “millions” of people apparently use the non-IE browsers and find them to be safe. Do you have evidence to back this up? Because I totally know a few people who have had issues with Firefox to the extent that they’ve stopped using it. I promise this is the last thing I’ll say about this article: You instruct that your reader should have protection from “bad things” but you don’t necessarily state what these “bad things” are until they read what software they should download. It’s bad paragraph structure more than anything, though you do get your point across.
Your perfection article is just lovely! I have absolutely no interest in the fashion world, but the way that you wrote it (including me, sort of how a Choose Your Own Adventure novel does) is very creative.
Minor grammatical error:
Here are some visitor content for you.
Tense again. Here is or here are contents. Again, it’s up to you, but I personally think the former sounds better.
Articles grammatical errors:
PC -
“if you’re one of those persons”
If you’re one of those people.
“First, I need you to tell me if you have any P2P such as Kazaa, LimeWire and eMule?”
This is not phrased like a question even though it has a question mark at the end. Either: “I need you to tell me, etc,” with a period at the end, or, “I need you to tell me: Do you have any P2P, etc” with a question mark at the end.
Perfection -
“Whenever we watch ultimately gorgeous models sashay down the runway or expressing extreme emotion in an editorial…”
“Expressing” should just be “express.” The subject is “gorgeous models.” They “sashay” and they “express.” They don’t “expressing.”
“Your running around Paris”
You’re. You are.
“the one who you can’t really stand — the one who you’d rather slap in public”
Both of those “who”s should be “whom”s, because neither “who” is the subject of the sentence. You are. Or I am. Or whatever.
“you wanna strangle her with that belt on display”
You’ve done so well with the word usage, but “affie” and “wanna” both have to go. I promise it’ll make you look better.
“I love your walk but you’re not exactly what we’re looking for”.”
Periods go on the INSIDE of quotes. This happens several more times, as well as once where you put an exclamation mark and a period: “annoying!”. is not an acceptable way to end a quote. It’s either “annoying!” or “annoying.”
“People goes “Oohh..” and “Ahh..”"
People go.
“Your mouth is open in every single photograph their is!”
There is.
“you conclude that the articles you read was wrong.”
Either the article was wrong or the articles were wrong.
“But come go see day,”
Those of us outside the fashion industry not only have no idea what this means, but read this sentence as if it doesn’t make sense. Either you mean “come Go See day,” or you have just made a lot of nonsense.
“Proud as you may be, people are already getting tired of you. So do designers and photographers.”
So are designers and photographers. Unless you meant to say that they are doing getting tired of you.
Blog -
“I don’t care if people doesn’t find my blog comment-worthy.”
People don’t.
Comprehensive Reflection
Aside from your “apply for affiliates” links and the small “email me” link on the author page, there’s no discernable way to contact you. Consider adding a “contact me” link to the bottom of the page or along the side navigation, because someone just might want to get in touch with you not concerning your profile page or to become affiliates.
There are no pages on your website, aside from “ask me,” the perfection article, and your blog, which fill up the white space that is created by having such a long sidebar. I’ve made suggestions as to how you can shrink it while still retaining the dignity of your website. Here’s another one: Consider having a page just for your links, and include your “loved” and “reviews” links on that single page.
You have a lot of grammatical errors to sort through, but I understand if English isn’t your first language (you mentioned the Philippines but you didn’t mention anything about your language speaking preferences), and typos are common among even perfectionists’ libraries. I merely pointed out the ones which stuck out the most in an effort to help you clean up a bit. I hope you don’t mind.
Your site is, overall, aesthetically pleasing. The colors don’t do much for me, but that is just one girl’s opinion. Your text might be a little small, but because your content is never very long and doesn’t take more than a minute or two to read, maybe that doesn’t matter. However, that does say a lot about your content - consider expanding. You could say a lot more than what you’ve said if you wanted to, but do you really want to keep your readers better entertained? As it stands now, your website seems kind of empty. There aren’t very many blog updates, I know close to nothing about you, and your articles aren’t very appealing. What do you feel you are offering to returning visitors? Will it be different when I return - more updates to read through, more articles to browse, more icons to use? Or is it just going to look the same? Perhaps, while you are starting fresh with your layout and CMS, you should think about these things.
6 December 2007
December 7th, 2007 at 6:09 am
Thanks a lot for the review! I’ll try to carry all of those tips to improve my site. I appreciate the time you spent on writing my review!
December 14th, 2007 at 8:41 am
By the way, this sentence is correct: “What I put on my blog are simply some stuff that I think are safe enough to put online.” because of the presence of the word SOME which makes it plural.