Looking for input and site review

[sparkles77]

I have just completed my first full commercial site and was hoping for some feedback, site is cslhospitality.ie.

I have two other projects in the works so hoping to avoid repeating any mistakes I may have made on this one.

I know I have a bit more to do on optimising load time but hosting say they are under ddos attack so hoping speed can normalise so I can see results of changes.

Any input appreciated

Thanks

[primexx]

holy crap. i assume you're more of a coding guy? you either need to put in a lot of work into learning how to design, or just hire a designer. As it is, it looks like something straight out of the 90s. the worst thing though, is that godawful comic sans.

[threetonesun]

Well, it's not responsive, so that's... a gigantic hit right there. I'd kill that background gradient ASAP, and turn those header bars into something less garish (a solid background with a contrasting font would be fine) and it would be a huge improvement.

And yeah, I don't know if you were stuck with those fonts and colors, but certainly better choices could be made...

[Kalint]

On the event rotator, I don't feel you need a shadow on the text since they're solid bright colors + the shadows look like **** on certain images. You should be able to maximize the potential of those pngs.

Chrome doesn't do the down state when clicking "Go".

hate the background gradient.

Is the dropdown background supposed to be translucent? plus buggy.

On chrome the main nav has rounded corners but on IE its straight.

On chrome the "Event Search" grey line is screwed up.

"Event Search" should probably clear when entering that textbox.

I hate those "Full Details" buttons, it overlaps the text under "Galway Races" event in IE.

"Event Calendar" on the menu opens up right to a PDF. NO! BAD!

The sections need more content, so much real estate unused.

I'm troubled by the events itself. The focus of this website are events and it seems that there are 3 ways to find out about an event.

1. Clicking on a section > event.

2. Clicking the "Events Calendar" on the menu (see previous)

3. Clicking a date on the "Event(s) Calendar > event"

I think you should take advantage of "Events Calendar" and centralize all those events accordingly. I'm not sure if you have programming skills, but this should be the go to page for people looking up events.

[Seahorsepip Veteran]

.ie? Is that a domain extension meant for internet explorer only sites :p

Anyway The site doesn't look that good for today's standards :/

If you want I can help you with the design by making some mockups of ideas/changes I would make.

And for the ddos, get cloudflare, it's even free(paid options are available too). This solved my server overload and ddos issues ^^ Also it prevents spam and speeds up your website by using local hosting servers in countries acros the globe ;)

Oh and most importantly: Welcome to Neowin!

[sparkles77]

Well, it's not responsive, so that's... a gigantic hit right there. I'd kill that background gradient ASAP, and turn those header bars into something less garish (a solid background with a contrasting font would be fine) and it would be a huge improvement.

And yeah, I don't know if you were stuck with those fonts and colors, but certainly better choices could be made...

Unfortunately stuck with colour scheme, agree with all comments re gradient I hate it, originally I had a pattern with solid navy as bg but they requested the pink, fonts were my doing though and open to suggestions to change, I thought it made it more readable

On the event rotator, I don't feel you need a shadow on the text since they're solid bright colors + the shadows look like **** on certain images. You should be able to maximize the potential of those pngs.

Chrome doesn't do the down state when clicking "Go".

hate the background gradient.

Is the dropdown background supposed to be translucent? plus buggy.

On chrome the main nav has rounded corners but on IE its straight.

On chrome the "Event Search" grey line is screwed up.

"Event Search" should probably clear when entering that textbox.

I hate those "Full Details" buttons, it overlaps the text under "Galway Races" event in IE.

"Event Calendar" on the menu opens up right to a PDF. NO! BAD!

The sections need more content, so much real estate unused.

I'm troubled by the events itself. The focus of this website are events and it seems that there are 3 ways to find out about an event.

1. Clicking on a section > event.

2. Clicking the "Events Calendar" on the menu (see previous)

3. Clicking a date on the "Event(s) Calendar > event"

I think you should take advantage of "Events Calendar" and centralize all those events accordingly. I'm not sure if you have programming skills, but this should be the go to page for people looking up events.

Thank you, a lot to review there.

[sparkles77]

.ie? Is that a domain extension meant for internet explorer only sites :p

Anyway The site doesn't look that good for today's standards :/

If you want I can help you with the design by making some mockups of ideas/changes I would make.

And for the ddos, get cloudflare, it's even free(paid options are available too). This solved my server overload and ddos issues ^^ Also it prevents spam and speeds up your website by using local hosting servers in countries acros the globe ;)

.ie is an Irish domain

Any help with the design side would be great, I will have to take a look at cloudflare,.

I had been thinking of using amazon s3 for some of the static images

Really appreciate your input

[primexx]

this is a bit dated but still a decent compilation of the basics http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/designing-tutorials/9-essential-principles-for-good-web-design/

[astropheed Veteran]

this is a bit dated but still a decent compilation of the basics http://psd.tutsplus....ood-web-design/

I don't agree with number 2 so much (not anymore), but aside from that these are good things to at least keep in mind when developing and designing a website.

Edit: As for the feedback:

I wish I could just be generous and tell you it's awesome, but you likely want honest feedback. It's not good.

Problems (these are just my opinions at my level of capability in design, these may be wrong):

1) Gradient

2) Terrible Alignment issues

3) Inconsistent (ex. Pick square or pick rounded corners but don't pick both)

4) Terrible color scheme

5) You failed W3C validation http://validator.w3.org

6) When I clicked "Event Search" the text doesn't go away... not cool.

7) Menu drop down needs a background

Good things:

1) I checked a few of your user inputs and they were filtered :)

2) The website appears to function as planned.

EDIT 2: Picture: http://snag.gy/3d1s9.jpg

EDIT 3: Noticed other people already brought up my issues, sorry.

[Seahorsepip Veteran]

I'm getting tired of dated design and css/html articles, they only good articles and tutorials are paid only :/

I'm gonna make a tutorial site this summer I guess, it'll contain the very basic html and css basics and it continues to teh most advanced css things you can think of ^^

.ie is an Irish domain

Any help with the design side would be great, I will have to take a look at cloudflare,.

I had been thinking of using amazon s3 for some of the static images

Really appreciate your input

If you have skype: http://seapip.com/#social add me, it's easier to discuss and help with webdesign stuff that way ^^

[threetonesun]

Unfortunately stuck with colour scheme, agree with all comments re gradient I hate it, originally I had a pattern with solid navy as bg but they requested the pink, fonts were my doing though and open to suggestions to change, I thought it made it more readable

On hover the menu fonts are nearly illegible. Open Sans (or Noto Sans, or whatever) is fine, it's the fonts on "Full Details" and "Ireland's Leading Corporate Hospitality Provider" that are... horrible, for lack of a better word.

[Sandor]

Spent literally 1 minute changing some of the source code in the browser. Removed the background gradient and selected a simple gray colour, removed the box shadow, disabled the font "Ireland's Leading Corporate Hospitality Provider" at the top.

Already looks easier on the eye to me.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

the page is VERY busy and detracting on top of all the other comments,

[MikeChipshop Member]

Well, it's not responsive, so that's... a gigantic hit right there. I'd kill that background gradient ASAP, and turn those header bars into something less garish (a solid background with a contrasting font would be fine) and it would be a huge improvement.

And yeah, I don't know if you were stuck with those fonts and colors, but certainly better choices could be made...

Just seconding this post, absolute sense.