Looking For Constructive Critique

[Phreaddee]

I'll help you with both. just dont take CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM as OFFENSE.

1. any screen resolution less than 1280 and the menu at the top drops to another line.
2. if you are to include a drop down make it work on hover not on click
3. the leading within your header is all wrong particularly between the L + T
4. The header image is over compressed and has artifacts.
5. As is every image within the image fader below it.
6. for SEO purposes the image fader should be replaced with a content fader, and the text made live rather than as part of the image.
7. there is no consistency between the "set your laundry free, free membership and spotlight on health" banners on the left. again overcompressed with visible artifacts
8. Uppercase or Capitalised for your headers, be consistent.
9. the colour scheme, or lack thereof is very bland. the black bold links are a sight for sore eyes. the grey headers are not striking enough, and again, no real consistency. the red in the newsletter section is the only piece of colour within the text, although all the ads and banners litterally scattered with no order within the site have many multiple colours and font styles and are not again consistent, and thus from a "design" perspective there is no real flow.
10. GIFs everywhere. you are not adhering to any form of structured grid whatsoever.
11. you need to add line-height to your paragraphs
12. This is built in a TABLE, and it SHOULDNT. you should see it on a smaller screen, the right column bunches up underneath the centre column.
13. too much content on the home page.
14. the ads all over it are the only consistent feature, and they overpower your content
15. top level menu items "healthy beauty, healthy home, healthy nutrition, healthy weight and articles of interest" have no content
16. you need to use semantic markup.
that is use header styles for the headers, paragraph styles for the paragraphs (and that is at the most basic level)
I noticed that you've used a few but they are then all suffering from divitis
ie

<div id="unneeded-div"><h3><span class="undeeded-span">title</span></h3></div>

17. Remove this and put is as an external css

<style type="text/css">body{text-align:center;margin:0;padding:0;font-family:tahoma,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8em;color:#000000;background:#ffffff}a:link,a:visited,a:active{color:
...
blah blah blah about 500 lines of code
...
}h6{font-size:1.15em;margin:1.67em 0;font-weight:bold;}</style>

18. you might want to trim the fat on that too.
19. put these in external scripts as well, or at least at the BOTTOM of your document

<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[



/* JQUERY */
jQuery(document).ready(function(){ 
    
   
  
	jQuery('div#imagecontainer')
	.crossSlide({sleep: 5,fade: 1},[
		{ src: 'http://a-healthier-u.com/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/header/bus-slider.jpg' },
{ src: 'http://a-healthier-u.com/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/header/cinch-slider.jpg' },
{ src: 'http://a-healthier-u.com/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/header/clean-slider.jpg' },
{ src: 'http://a-healthier-u.com/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/header/vitalizer-slider.jpg' }
	]);
	/*	
	.crossSlide({fade: 1},[
		{ src: 'http://a-healthier-u.com/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/header/bus-slider.jpg', from: '40% 40%', to: '60% 60%', time: 3 },
{ src: 'http://a-healthier-u.com/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/header/cinch-slider.jpg', from: '40% 40%', to: '60% 60%', time: 3 },
{ src: 'http://a-healthier-u.com/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/header/clean-slider.jpg', from: '40% 40%', to: '60% 60%', time: 3 },
{ src: 'http://a-healthier-u.com/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/header/vitalizer-slider.jpg', 
		from: '40% 40%', to: '60% 60%', time: 3
		}
 ]);	*/

	/* jQuery('ul#rmenu').superfish(); */
	/* jQuery('ul#rmenu').superfish().find('ul').bgIframe({opacity:false}); */
 
	/* For IE6 */
	if (jQuery.browser.msie && /MSIE 6\.0/i.test(window.navigator.userAgent) && !/MSIE 7\.0/i.test(window.navigator.userAgent) && !/MSIE 8\.0/i.test(window.navigator.userAgent)) {

		/* Max-width for images in IE6 */		
		var centerwidth = jQuery("td#middle").width(); 
		
		/* Images without caption */
		jQuery(".post img").each(function() { 
			var maxwidth = centerwidth - 10 + 'px';
			var imgwidth = jQuery(this).width(); 
			var imgheight = jQuery(this).height(); 
			var newimgheight = (centerwidth / imgwidth * imgheight) + 'px';	
			if (imgwidth > centerwidth) { 
				jQuery(this).css({width: maxwidth}); 
				jQuery(this).css({height: newimgheight}); 
			}
		});
		
		/* Images with caption */
		jQuery("div.wp-caption").each(function() { 
			var captionwidth = jQuery(this).width(); 
			var maxcaptionwidth = centerwidth + 'px';
			var captionheight = jQuery(this).height();
			var captionimgwidth =  jQuery("div.wp-caption img").width();
			var captionimgheight =  jQuery("div.wp-caption img").height();
			if (captionwidth > centerwidth) { 
				jQuery(this).css({width: maxcaptionwidth}); 
				var newcaptionheight = (centerwidth / captionwidth * captionheight) + 'px';
				var newcaptionimgheight = (centerwidth / captionimgwidth * captionimgheight) + 'px';
				jQuery(this).css({height: newcaptionheight}); 
				jQuery("div.wp-caption img").css({height: newcaptionimgheight}); 
				}
		});
		
		/* sfhover for LI:HOVER support in IE6: */
		jQuery("ul li").
			hover( function() {
					jQuery(this).addClass("sfhover")
				}, 
				function() {
					jQuery(this).removeClass("sfhover")
				} 
			); 

	/* End IE6 */
	}
	
	jQuery(".post table tr").
		mouseover(function() {
			jQuery(this).addClass("over");
		}).
		mouseout(function() {
			jQuery(this).removeClass("over");
		});

	
	jQuery(".post table tr:even").
		addClass("alt");

	
	jQuery("input.text, input.TextField, input.file, input.password, textarea").
		focus(function () {  
			jQuery(this).addClass("highlight"); 
		}).
		blur(function () { 
			jQuery(this).removeClass("highlight"); 
		})
	
	jQuery("input.inputblur").
		focus(function () {  
			jQuery(this).addClass("inputfocus"); 
		}).
		blur(function () { 
			jQuery(this).removeClass("inputfocus"); 
		})

		

	
	jQuery("input.button, input.Button, input#submit").
		mouseover(function() {
			jQuery(this).addClass("buttonhover");
		}).
		mouseout(function() {
			jQuery(this).removeClass("buttonhover");
		});

	/* toggle "you can use these xhtml tags" */
	jQuery("a.xhtmltags").
		click(function(){ 
			jQuery("div.xhtml-tags").slideToggle(300); 
		});

	/* For the Tabbed Widgets plugin: */
	jQuery("ul.tw-nav-list").
		addClass("clearfix");

		
	
});

//]]>
</script>

20. As mentioned before REMOVE the table.
21. inline styles such as

<span style="color: #CC0033; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold;">

are not beneficial to in anyway, try to avoid them at all costs
22. general divitis all over the site not just for text elements. I noticed this one A LOT

<div align="center">

tsk tsk!
23. give it a run through the validator. 51 Errors, 16 warning(s) might want to address a few of those.

In the end no one has given you a great review or design critique because it is badly designed and badly coded.
Sorry, I cant give you any better news...

[Phreaddee]

and any other forum would tell you the same...

[Vance]

Originally Posted by Phreaddee

I'll help you with both. just dont take CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM as OFFENSE.

Now that's what I'm talking about!!!

This is a blog that uses a theme that I downloaded. Maybe that was my first mistake. LOL

The first thing I have to decide on is whether to continue with this as a blog or start from scratch and build it as a static site. If I stay with a blog, then I am going to change the theme and go from there.

Thanks for the critique Phreaddee. It is exactly what I was looking for.

[chrishirst]

Blogging tool, "static" site, CMS why does that make a difference to the design???

[Vance]

Blogging tool, "static" site, CMS why does that make a difference to the design???

I'm not sure I understand your question Chris.

I am not real happy with the way this thing looked with the theme I was using. I have changed it back to a more simple theme, but I think I am going to change it from a blog to standard type web pages. The reason for this is that the blog, for some reason, looks very disorganized to me. It has been a while since I have done anything like this and that could be the problem. I just don't know anymore. What I do know is that my wife is reaching the point that she is going to have to retire and we plan to use this business venture to replace the income her employment has provided us.

Maybe my problem is just frustration. :-)

Regardless, I do appreciate the input.

[chrishirst]

I am always curious as to why people differentiate between a "blog" and a "website", especially when discussing designs and layout.

A "blog" is simply a website where the pages are arranged in chronological order, but it seems that many people are of the opinion that it pertains to a particular design style.

[jcross]

When I looked at the site, my first impression was that it looks like a scam. Cheers to Phreaddee for putting the explosion of negativity from my brain into meaningful criticism.

From a viewer perspective, the site lacks any consistency with respect a grid system, colors scheme, sales points, etc. What are you even selling or promoting? Go to apple.com and tell me if you can't figure out what they sell in about 0.00002 seconds.

From a developer perspective, the markup is just terrible. But it's on WordPress, so you're in a good ballpark at least.

Also, nutrition is spelled incorrectly in your top banner.

[Phreaddee]

If your serious about this as a business I suggest you really consider the "less is more" principle.
You need to be very much to the point of the websites PURPOSE, just as mentioned above.
And please dont make ads the focal point. Sorry to say but no one ever likes a whole bunch of ads. And if you are to have ads be selective. A few high quality ads is much more preferrable to 100s of rubbish ones...

And chris is right, a "blog" & a "website" are one and the same.
If it looks messy, thats your design not the fact its a "blog"