Site Critique Please

[abilstein]

Please critique this design:

http://www.alexbilstein.com/tmp/design03.gif

It's for a small company that makes business software. Emphasis is on a clean and fast loading page, CSS, SEO, and usability.

The four boxes will highlight their four main products.

The gray bar below the photo will be a breadcrumb trail.

So...

Do you like the color scheme? (their colors are blue, gray, orange, and red).

Does it need more color? (the logo will actually have a splash of color)

Is it too plain?

Any suggestions?

 

[blouis]

It's a clean design, i like the general layout of it all. Few things I would do to make it more unique.

I wouldnt have the thick of a border around the whole site...

The links need to stand out more on the left hand side, im assuming that you would use some type of CSS rollover for those to help the user be like ohh there are the links. Remember some people are just straight up dumb.

I really like how you have the news thing laidout, very professional looking.

For the search, are you going to make your own search button rather then using the default dreamweaver one or whichever editor you're using. I would, custom search buttons look ALOT better on web sites.

The "Send this link to a friend" - is that really needed??
The "Request More Information" - wouldnt that be answered in a main navigation link??

The bottom in the light blue section I would have the same links as you do for the main nav, but just that when the user is down there they wont have to scroll up to the top to navigate. Then have the copywrite and mumbo jumbo in the lower darker blue area.

But like I said very clean looking site, business looking, they will be happy with the final project just a few things that I would clean up. But your on a good track. Let me know more on how it all goes. Or if you need any help with graphics/code let me know I can help ya out.

Good Luck.

 

[abilstein]

Thanks for the comments...

Originally posted by blouis
It's a clean design, i like the general layout of it all. Few things I would do to make it more unique.

I wouldnt have the thick of a border around the whole site...

The links need to stand out more on the left hand side, im assuming that you would use some type of CSS rollover for those to help the user be like ohh there are the links. Remember some people are just straight up dumb.

Yes, they will be CSS rollovers. Although I will play around with making them different from the rest of the left column to make it more clear that they are the navigational links.

I really like how you have the news thing laidout, very professional looking.

For the search, are you going to make your own search button rather then using the default dreamweaver one or whichever editor you're using. I would, custom search buttons look ALOT better on web sites.

I was planning to use a simple button like the one I created in that mockup. I won't be using a standard input button.

The "Send this link to a friend" - is that really needed??

Probably not, but that's one of their requirements.

The "Request More Information" - wouldnt that be answered in a main navigation link??

Same as above. They basically want a link on every page that will link to a form that requests more information about that particular page or product.

The bottom in the light blue section I would have the same links as you do for the main nav, but just that when the user is down there they wont have to scroll up to the top to navigate. Then have the copywrite and mumbo jumbo in the lower darker blue area.

I'll try that out. I didn't want things to get too busy down there, but maybe it won't.

But like I said very clean looking site, business looking, they will be happy with the final project just a few things that I would clean up. But your on a good track. Let me know more on how it all goes. Or if you need any help with graphics/code let me know I can help ya out.

Good Luck.

Thanks for your time!