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Website Critique Needed

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Auryg

Platinum Member
Hey everyone, some of you might have seen the website in my signature for a while now. I think I finally have it to the point where it's ready for a critique. There is still a *lot* to do with the site - I'm learning that web development is never, ever "done."

The address is thesidehatch.com.

Things on our plate to do:

Change the top banner to a series of images, instead of a flash file. Each category will have a different image. For instance, Action might have the ninja fighting someone. I just need to figure out exactly how I'm going to do that - maybe with php session variables? Not sure if those can be set through a link that also goes somewhere. Also, we're going to make the top banner less tall. It looks great on a high resolution monitor, but it takes up way too much screen real estate on a laptop.

An "X" that closes the bottom login bar for those that just want to play games. I'm thinking it should stay closed for the whole session.

Pretty up the prize page.

Right now everything is in tables. Ugh. I based the website off of a script, and while it was a good way to learn, the tables need to go. That'll be fun... I should have done it while I changed basically everything from the original script.

So, I'm throwing this out there for critique. Let me have it. I'm really serious about this and spend a good portion of my week developing it/adding games/sending out prizes and the such, but some fresh ideas never hurt.
 
Originally posted by: Auryg
Hey everyone, some of you might have seen the website in my signature for a while now. I think I finally have it to the point where it's ready for a critique. There is still a *lot* to do with the site - I'm learning that web development is never, ever "done."

The address is thesidehatch.com.

Things on our plate to do:

Change the top banner to a series of images, instead of a flash file. Each category will have a different image. For instance, Action might have the ninja fighting someone. I just need to figure out exactly how I'm going to do that - maybe with php session variables? Not sure if those can be set through a link that also goes somewhere. Also, we're going to make the top banner less tall. It looks great on a high resolution monitor, but it takes up way too much screen real estate on a laptop.

An "X" that closes the bottom login bar for those that just want to play games. I'm thinking it should stay closed for the whole session.

Pretty up the prize page.

Right now everything is in tables. Ugh. I based the website off of a script, and while it was a good way to learn, the tables need to go. That'll be fun... I should have done it while I changed basically everything from the original script.

So, I'm throwing this out there for critique. Let me have it. I'm really serious about this and spend a good portion of my week developing it/adding games/sending out prizes and the such, but some fresh ideas never hurt.

I think once you make the changes you noted above (not having the top banner flash, having the login part either 'timeout' or have a close button) it will be good. I think it looks pretty nice. Only other thing I'd add is to make the top banner smaller, I have to scroll just do fully see the first set of games, can be annoying.
 
Thanks. It's annoying to develop on a high resolution screen and then realize what you thought looked awesome will be annoying to others. I should get a second screen and have it run at 1024x768 at all times 😛
 
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