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This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional!
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.inf-inet.com%2F
The use of expandable DHTML navigation menus is no longer a novelty and in your case – they are irritating. I personally use a simple fixed horizontal menu built from clickable image links.
Fixed width body content is also my preference – and looks good on all browsers when the code is valid. HTML 4.01 Specification as is recommended by W3C is easy to learn and has proven to be easy for spiders and real people to accept. The W3C defines HTML 4.01 Transitional ( http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/ ) and provides complete examples and explanations for every aspect of the code.
You’re a web designer by trade – your website should reflect this fact. Try allowing your designers to be true artists – not design engineers.
Your site design uses a color scheme that appears to be an attempt at technical correctness. It may help to have an artist choose your colors and evaluate their “look and feel”; the technical side of your design should probably concentrate on correctness of code and simplicity of technique. Just as technicians and engineers often don’t get along, artists and technical designers can disagree on many things. My advice is for you to use both of these powers on your staff. Then allow your kids (or someone elses) to give you their unprofessional gut feeling.
Richard Mimna
Herbal Index Online
http://www.herbalindex.com/
Dear Garrett,
I visited the mentioned above site and the first thing I usually look into is the ‘contact us’. I usually like to see an address and not just only a form and a toll free number. I was searching that day for a web hosting company for my sites and I found this very easy to browse and everything is well documented. I liked that! In other services, the word Maintenance is the ‘Maintenance section’ is misspelled. But that is ok. In generality, the site got the information needed to learn about inf-inet and what they do. I also enjoyed having a look at their control panel for a general idea. The ‘Quick Navigation’ drop menu is very easy and accessible when you get lost. I will definitely come back for more info and reading for the wealth of the information in the ‘business solutions’ bottom. Good job guys!
Yours sincerely,
Joseph Ghabi
The Free Spirit Centre
Where like-minded free spirits connect from around the world.
http://www.freespiritcentre.info
joseph@freespiritcentre.info
Okay – so here are some thoughts. Please take this as constructive criticism.
Initial reactions:
The ‘home page’ is very slow to load (actually, all pages were slow to load) – I’m on a high speed connection so this should not be the case
The need to scroll to read the bulk of your ‘intro’ text is not great. People can get bored if they need to scroll. In addition, the images on the homepage are rather big.
Site in general is very text heavy and/or a little ‘busy’. Top level pages should be clean and more summary/high-level – then let the interested users drill deeper.
Navigation:
The nav at the very top of the page appears to be a ‘pull-down’ of sorts (my assumption from the right arrow visual cue) but that’s not really the case.
The ‘services’ navigation pull downs are also slow to load and the fade in nav/images is a bit much.
Why aren’t the words/text in the center image clickable?
What is the purpose of the images at the bottom? To me they imply if I click on them, I will see your site content in another language. So – it’s not clear what they represent – and they are not clickable (icons at the bottom of a page usually imply navigation).
That’s just a bit of feedback for now…
Libby
Dear Garrett,
I quickly reviewed this site as a user (not prof. designer etc.) Not long ago we were looking for someone to redesign our site and I remember what I was looking for.
I like the quick navigation system they use. At first I didn’t understand what it was but it’s much better than just “site map”.
They provide alot of information, which I like, but… I find the first page a bit too busy. Alot of bottons and possibilities. I think the opening page should be simplified or streamlined in some way.
When I was looking for a web designer, I was most interested in their portfolio. It took me a while to find the portfolio link.
Also, when looking for a web designer, I looked for innovation. Although the quick navigation button is innovative, the rest of the site is rather standard. Maybe they should use more flash or animation themselves to demonstrate thier abilities.
Thanks for the opportunity,
All the best
Jennifer Ryan
Export Manager
http://www.enofood.com
Enofood S.r.l.
Via Case Secchia 9
San Donnino di Casalgrande (RE)
42010
Italy
You have a huge amount of great information. But you need an editor. Someone (like me;-) who can check grammar, and slim down and fine-tune your content. Read some of Jakob Nielsen’s articles about writing for the Web. You could easily cut the number of words on your pages by half.
As far as the home page, again great content but too much. The right-side column is distracting. I would turn that column into white space and then incorporate only the essential banners into the main section of the home page.
Fine-tune the message your home page sends. What exactly are you selling and why should I buy it from you? Can you answer my questions in 25 words or less? If so, put THAT at the top of the page and cut down on the voluminous explanations of other web site design companies (like me;-).
Reesa Marchetti, Editor-Writer-Webmaster
Web Design: http://spideree.com
COol MOther: http://reesa.org
Music: http://relivethe80s.com
In general I like this site. There are a couple of points I would like to make.
There is a typo on the web design page: “webs ite”
There was one page that did not fit my 800/600 resolution— the hosting page perhaps you can reduce the size of the table to stop side scrolling — a personal thing with me.
On design look—– I find the right hand side quite bare after the 1st scroll and pulling my eye there all the time hummmmm maybe not what you want— a river of white ??? maybe a background image or pattern to breakup the white some and keep eyes on the mssage?.
The copy is excellent: not too techie and not talking down to your audience. I am not sure you want to illustrate every paragraph with an image—- some did not enhance the copy to me.
I really like your “Quick Navigation” label on your dropdown.
only a webSlave
Dear Garrett,
I just visited the site, inf-inet.com.
It looks good but I would love to see the side bar on the left instead of the right. Also the side bar seems to take a lot of space on the page that could be used for other things or at least for good spacing. In some pages, the side bar area is empty, and therefore a waste of precious space.
Thanks and regards,
Official
http://www.Africanevents.com
I liked the site ‘s layout and colour scheme. Very professional looking. I did like the roll down tabs at the top of the page. Consistent design throughout the site and easy to follow.
Michael Mezalick
Mezalick Design Studio, LLC
www.mezalick.com
For what it is worth, it took about 1 minute to download the home page text — in the process I got an error notice so I quit waiting for the additional graphic files to download. I have a 56 modem and Millenium. I don’t keep the most up to date software, so the error may have been from my browser.
I am responding to your request to review the Inf-inet.com site. I run a web design service as well www.marketcom123.com and find that everything is not all in the design of the site.
It very much appears that the quest for dazzling sites for web designers is a thing of the past. Prospects are no longer drawn into a site from its design alone to acquire services. Pitfalls of countless customers from being overcharged, getting more than their needs, sophisticated back-end programming and the like have damaged the credibility of the web design industry. These propects will however listen to their colleagues who have gotten a fair deal and are satisfied with their web presence.
The best thing a web design service can do is provide information to the prospect that gives thems something of value other than their miraculous talents to create a web site that will get thousands of hits moments after it goes live. Which is the way it should have been all along. We’ve all heard stories of design firms charging thousands, hundreds of thousands and the unique few who even has gotten millions of dollars for sites that did not perform nearly to expectation for the site owner or its visitors resulting in web site failures running rampant.
For example, the FLASH issue. I for one am not a great fan of Flash sites. Once I go to a link that forces me to view their “great” intro page, I can’t outta there fast enough! Designers need to take into account that the site they are creating is not just for their portfolio. The site needs to be functional and accessible to all. If the viewer does not have a fast access connection the Flash intro becomes nothingless than annoying.
As for Inf-inet.com… the main thing I see is… Why should I hire them? What are they offering to give me an edge? What is so great about them?
The site’s design is so so. The flags at the bottom I guess is to give me the impression that they are international. So do they provide translation services? The right side bar graphics are not in line with the main header. It looks like different graphic elements has been pulled in to state the message which may cause subliminal confusion. The contact us Toll-Free should be the first thing the visitor sees. Of course, those 800 numbers can get expensive very fast!
The next part about the site is its navigation. When I click on a nav button, there’s the drop down menu… then I automatically get sent to a page, I guess where they want me to go.
After that, there’s really not much more to say. I hope this information is helpful.
Glen W.
http://www.marketcom123.com
Liked it,found it quite nice actually,I am from http://www.shopsanfords.com
The site is tacky and amateurish with a few good features.
Barry J Stacey
Mediabus
http://www.mediabus.biz
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