Hi
i have started to redesign my website, due to discovering my shiny new design software is bloody useless I am having to manually code it from scratch which will be interesting as i am not a coder of any sort
but as i am re designing i though it would be a good opportunity to add stuff like responsive layouts and stuff.
my problem is i donāt really know what you guys are looking for in a tutorial website.
currently i have the different categories displayed on the home page, which is fairly normal then each tutorial has a video lesson and then a big wall of text explaining in detail the lesson. with images usually.
Now, what i want to know is do you guys want the huge text wall online or would you prefer a summary with a downloadable pdf of the full written version of the lesson?
also if there are other issues that you have with the current layout i would be pleased to hear them so i can address them and not carry my mistakes over into the new version
you can check the current layout from the link in my sig below. thanks
I like the layout, itās clean and only shows what needs to be there. Navigation is also very easy, the menu coming up over the series thumbnail is a smart idea.
After digging around a little I noticed that some of your site was quite inefficient, such as loading an all-blue PNG for the border of the tutorial thumbnails. This could easily be done with one line of CSS - img { border: 10px solid blue; }.
There are plenty of other unneeded images used for similar effects, removing these and instead using coded counterparts might help your site load quicker and reduce bandwidth. (:
If you need help with the code, Iād be happy to help there. I could probably give a few tips about the general design too.
thanks thats helpful already. getting those stupid border images to line up properly was a bit of an issue! one of the big issues i have with my design software is that you canāt directly edit the css or html documents. you can add snippets of html but working with the css is a big fat no! ( i did mention that it was useless :D)
anyway i have a copy of Expression web now so i am good to go for building the site, as iām not really a designer any tips you can share will be useful
Hey there, I just scanned over your website and saw a very common error among low budget sites. To get it over with quick, there were numerous grammatical, mechanical, and typographical errors.
I work with this stuff all the time and happen to be so immersed in proofreading that I oftentimes proof road signs as I go by themā¦
I predict the job of my proofing the current site would mean somewhere between fifty and sixty fixes. I proof professional work whenever I have the chance and therefore can bring your site to that level.
Usually these things can be done by the designer (to an extent), but it will always work out in your favor in the long run if you allow someone else who āspecializesā in the art to do the job.
Iām glad if I can be of help. (:
If you have access to HTML then thatās all you really need as such; you use it to link to your stylesheet with something like <link rel=āstylesheetā type=ātext/cssā href=āyourstylesheetnamehere.cssā>.
Be careful when using web design software, as some tend to be quite inefficient. Itās okay as a base, but what you might want to just go over the code it gives you and check it - just in case. Although I havenāt personally used Expression Web, so it may not even be a problem!
Perhaps your first goal could be to find a colour scheme. Right now, thereās some light blue hyperlinks on a white background which are proving difficult to read, so definitely look into ways of making your website more readable, while being pleasing to the eye. Adobe Kuler can produce very nice schemes if used correctly, so possibly have a play around with that and find something to your liking.
Lastly, amprod is very right, there are a few typographical errors here and there, so Iād take up that offer. (:
thanks for the offer amprod but as i donāt actually make any money from the site iām not in a position to hire any one! all i can really do is thank you for pointing out my lazy writing! i should take you up but maybe sometime in the future.
Iāll be writing the code directly for the most part so it should be good clean code. not like the abysmal mess web plus Churns out!
iām considering doing something a little different. rather than the regular layout of headers navbars and boxes of content like every website ever
i though something a bit more dynamic would be good for a cg related site, so for the main page i though a simple scaleable image background with the logo floating in the center, when you mouse over the logo( or touch the screen) it flips round to give you the site links. the article pages would be fairly regular as there isnt much you can do to change an article layout without putting visitors off
just having a really cool entrance page would be enough. and tie it all together with a nice colour scheme. of which i will take a look at this Adobe kuler you speak of
