G.W.A.T. web site review

[Westcoast-Games]

Hello all,

I’d appreciate some opinions on a site I’ve developed, whose purpose is to support / promote a game called G.W.A.T.

Remember constructive feedback is always welcome!

The site: www.gwatthegame.com

Thanks
Chris

 

[wjh2303]

might wanna consider having a maximum width for the page rather than letting it span across the whole browser window, it looks a little sparse once its spread itself across 1680px

 

[Westcoast-Games]

Thank you wjh2303 for the feedback, you raised a good point as the site does look sparse at higher resolutions @ 1900px full screen it looks very sparse indeed.

It has come to my attention that more textual content is needed, so after that I’ll investigate further into solutions for this, whether that’ll be limiting the maximum width or using some html manipulation of images I’m not sure yet.

Thanks for the input!

 

[RRJJMM]

Nice use of a clean, simple two column layout. I normally don't like that much plain white, but it seems to work well. People with bigger, brighter monitors than mine might disagree.

To help with navigation, you might consider highlighting the menu "button" for the current page.

Good luck with the site,

 

[freecrm]

Lets try some constructive feedback...

1) The majority of users are now using 1024x768 resolution. Although some are still using 800x600, these only represent <5% of browsers and many of them are from less-priviledged areas.

2) Your top right and bottom left background images are in very low resolution - to the point where pixelation is very obvious. If you've used an existing image from the net, try putting a blur on it before saving in 72dpi at the right size.

3) Your header logo (.gif) has really bad pixelation - can you "dither" the edges or even save as .png file? In addition, I think that the gradient with the colors you've chosen just look like they've been put together too quickly.

I've attached two examples to show you what I mean.

4) On a personal level, I'm not keen on the font-type for your menu. I know you've taken a while to create these, but it just looks too big and too tacky. Try something like bank gothic for a modern but clean look.

5) I've noticed from your coding that the page is a mixure of <div's> and tables - have you copied a template? If not, try to keep your layout in <div> format as this is far more flexible and looks more pro when tweaked.

6) In contrast to your point above, I think that the proportion of text on the page in comparison with graphics is far too high. Most browsers will only view the page for a few seconds and it just doesn't convey enough information quickly enough. Try adding some simple graphics - maybe screendumps reduced in size? I know you've done this on the screendump page, but the index isn't "wow".

7) I think the vast expanse of white is too much. A simple way to break it up would be to organise borders around each section - you can keep the white, but it just looks better.

Keep up the good work!

 

[farscapeone]

Your navigation menu looked like a subtitle of G.W.A.T. in the header when I firs saw it. You have to visually separate it (menu) from the rest of the page.

 

[Westcoast-Games]

@RRJJMM I'm thinking highlighting the current location (nav button) may be a good idea, as you're not alone in suggesting something along those lines.

@freecrm
Meticulous and constructive feedback!

1) Minimum screen resolution – I agree, there are plenty of stats supporting the fact the majority of users are at 1024x768 or above, however the game supports 800x600, which is why the site design does.

2) These images are my own, playing around with the exporting the pixilation is being cause by my reduction of the image quality to get a smaller file size. I’ll revise the image and maybe move towards quality on the ‘size – quality’ scale and solve this.

3) Yes, the logo has really bad pixilation. GIF with transparency is the cause, as a png / gif the image looks as smooth as the buttons below. Why GIF transparency? IE6 png transparency is not support (appears as light blue background) and the awstats shows the majority of users accessing the site are using some flavour of IE (unfortunately, though not which version).
Solution is likely to be no transparency for the logo and have it as a png.

4) Humm… big & tacky, I can appreciate that point of view. The attached jpg looks good, I’ll definitely keep the Bank Gothic font in mind for a future revisions.

5) Ha, ha, ha, yes this again is all my own work. Once again, you’re not wrong, css (div tags) are much more powerful & tidy way for presentation, and I really did start off with the intention of using <div’s> for everything except the table on the downloads page, however problems with consistent cross browser appearance (mainly IE6) drove me to despair and so I reverted to the quick and nasty approach, I intend to remedy, however its towards the bottom of the ever growing todo list.

6) I actually found myself looking at the index page on Sunday and I was getting that feeling …’something is definitely missing’.
Its summed up nicely as the ‘wow’ factor – I think we have a new #1 on the website todo list!

7) The vast expanse of white …nice. Admittedly this is something I’m still working on, the issue does becomes more problematic as browser size increases. In the future you may see some borders or separators.

@leviathon A good suggestion, I can see that working and I'm thinking I can work that into removing the transparency from the title.


@Everyone

Thanks for taking the time to review the site and for the detailed feedback.

Thanks
Chris

(If anyone else has any other suggestion, I'd be happy to hear your suggestion)