Mallory Maloney
Start
Oh look! A splash page, and it comes comes complete with Google ads and requirements. Oh well, at least the requirements aren’t “Respect, Admiration and Devotion”, that’s a plus, eh? Not much of a plus, but I suppose a plus nonetheless. Thanks for telling me that I can view your site in any browser, any resolution and to click the image to enter. Without that I probably would’ve just sat there staring at the screen and drooling trying to figure out just what to do.
The statement that your site will display in all browsers is arrogant, how do you know whether or not it will display in Konqueror, Safari or any other browser outside of your sheltered little e-world? Until you’ve tested your site in every browser leave the little bit telling people that it will work in any browser off. It makes you look stupid, and that’s not a good first impression, is it? Readers: Before the “All Browsers” comment she had “All Popular Browsers” instead. This seems like a step down to me.
As for the resolution comment, well I guess you don’t own a cellphone (or at least a cellphone that has a browser) and you forgot all about 640×480, right? I wouldn’t bring that up, but you said, and I quote: “Any Resolution”. Making more claims you can’t back up?
The real first impression
I remember these layouts! They were really popular a few years ago when Avril Lavigne burst onto the scene with her faux Punk getup and made most of us cringe. Not me though, I loved it and even tried to incorporate it onto my site like you’ve done. But aren’t you a few years too late? I mean the whole “Punk”, skulls and crossbones, pink and black thing is so 2002 (even though some people have tried to bring it back); this just makes your site look really dated and old-fashioned. Not a good thing I think on this, the ever-changing face of the web.
You should try to keep up with what is current, which means no inline frames unless absolutely necessary because they can hurt your page ranking on search engines (and robots don’t care for them). If you’re worried about updating your layout/sidebar/header/footers easily then go for good old PHP Includes, however, if you prefer the look of inline frames you can fashion DIV’s to look like inline frames like this:
bc.. #content {
height:400px;
overflow:auto;
}
The white on black text is a bit harsh1, you’d be better off visually if you went for a light grey text on top of a dark grey background, the contrast between the black and white is just too much and it will usually hurt your viewers eyes.
Profile
I honestly don’t care about half of the stuff you have listed. I don’t care what time of day you were born, what colour you are, what your build is, what your IQ is or how you pronounce “lol”. Basically 95% of this page is useless crap that I, and the average visitor, don’t really care about. Why not try to write something interesting about yourself instead of presenting a list of facts? And why are you presenting mainly boring facts? We don’t really care whether you have a scar or not, that’s not going to allow us to get to know you better (which, I believe, is ultimately the goal of an about page).
Name
Why is this here? Would this not be better suited to appear on your profile page? You’re not /gasp/ trying to pad out your content, are you?
Dictionary
I love people who make up words… Oh wait, scratch that, no I don’t. This just seems weird to me, do you think that saying lol, or writing out < and 3 to make a heart is lame? Or are you just trying to set yourself apart? Either way you look lame for trying to set yourself apart in this way. Set yourself apart by doing something unique, not by making up words and straying away from the netspeaky things (but still using them anyway, albeit in a different form).
Typing Rules Followed
Oh joy, why do I think this’ll be worse than the dictionary. Yep, it is. You use double brackets, trying to set yourself apart again because you can’t otherwise do it? This is what most of the typing rules you follow seem to be to me.
Out of curiosity, I thought that the rule for brackets was a single bracket, not double. Of course, that’s just how I, and most of the people I know, were taught and we could be wrong. I’ve just never seen anyone else use a double bracket before so I’m wondering if there is some hidden rule that says you’re supposed to use it. I only ask because you say that you “want it to be perfect” and breaking a standard rule of typography would hardly make your writing “perfect”, right?
Most of these seem to be common sense rules and not something you should have to explain. Padding your content out again? Tsk, tsk try spending a bit of time on it and offering your visitors an entertaining read instead of explaining that you use double brackets and Japanese emoticons!
Handwriting
/yawn/ My handwriting page was always “coming soon” because I couldn’t be bothered to actually upload a picture sample of my handwriting. Honestly, I don’t care about your handwriting, I don’t want to see it and I don’t see why this deserves it’s very own page.
Photographs of Myself
I’ve always wanted one of those nifty “mounted on the ceiling cameras”! Where did you buy yours? Please share. Ooh and I see you got the optional “carry it anywhere on a stick” attachment so you could take it outside with you. Nifty.
Cosplay
Mildly interesting, could be better, but it’s got some promise if you tweaked it, updated it more and used costumes that were different and fresh.
Family’s Quotes
Unless it’s something really, really freakin’ funny I don’t care about what your family says at any given time. In fact, they mainly seem kind of lame. But that’s just my opinion; maybe you just had to be there. Honestly though, this doesn’t seem like it’d be of any interest to the viewer, why is it here?
Family’s Sites
Not even gonna touch it.
Okay, you have about 80 pages in total, I’m not going to wade through it all when they can all pretty much be summed up like this: Boring, useless and boring.
CSS
What are HTML comments in CSS? Why? It’s CSS, not HTML (unless I’ve screwed up somewhere), so what’s with the comments intended for HTML in your stylesheet? This goes double fold for the style tags you have in your external stylesheet. Aside from your gratuitous use of HTML in a place where HTML doesn’t belong, I don’t see anything wrong with your stylesheet (it’s not organized in a “loverly” way, but that’s my own personal preference and not something I try to force on other people).
HTML
No Doctype, no opening body tag, no closing body tag or HTML tag. Niiice.
Why you should use a Doctype: If you don’t use a Doctype your site will likely fall victim to “Quirks Mode” in older browsers. This will make your site look funky, think viewing it through IE4 funky2.
Why should you use semantic, valid HTML3? Because your site stands a better chance of being displayed properly in browsers you probably have never heard of (which, astonishingly enough, are actually being used by people), among other reasons.
Fin
Overall your site is boring, unappealing and just plain not interesting. I couldn’t force myself to look through the vast majority of your content (I stayed away from the glitters), and I imagine quite a few people do the same thing. I believe, you can feel free to contradict me if you want, that you said to Kat:
Except maybe the fact that my site’s much more interesting than yours — Visually, linguistically, etcetra.
I’m Not One For E-Drama
Linquistically? I think not, you make up words and use a few odd typing rules to set yourself apart, I see absolutely nothing amazing about the way you write, in fact there are a few areas of your site in which I developed a twitch in my eye.
Visually? Your site looks like a 12 year old from 2002 time traveled to 2007 and barfed up a “punk” layout.
You have a lot of work to do, you need to scrap 95% of your content and rewrite the remaining 5% to appeal to the masses. While it is your website, and I fully agree that doing things you don’t want to on your webspace is wrong, there are times when the exceptions to the rule make themselves known and I believe this is one of those times.
Fix your markup and your CSS! Try using something other than inline frames! Get rid of the splash page and live a little why don’t you? Oh yeah, and start trying to set yourself apart by being yourself and not just using made-up words and odd typing rules.
1 Do’s and Don’t‘s of Text Size and Colour and Juicy Studio’s Colour Contrast Analyzer
Hi I'm Becky, often referred to as The Knitting Hillbilly and Pussybear, owner of this site and general nuisance. I'm a knitter, serial complainer, known whistle blower and I run the ever popular