Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

[demuredawn]

Hello,

I am a member in a spades league called fun loving spaders, and that league is divided into 6 teams. I am captain of one of those teams... FLS_Riders. I have designed a site specifically designed to make it easier for my team members to pull up information regarding the team, contact other team members and myself, and so that we can all have a little extra fun and interact with each other. If you wouldn't mind, I'd appreciate it, if you could look around and tell me if you think this site meets those expectations and any other opinion you may have about the site. Thank you.

My url address is http://www.fls-riders.com

[D'son]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

Oh Dawnee, nice idea, good art work. Now for the negatives, your menu bars are all over the place and in different order on most every page. Keep things consistant, users do not want to have to hunt for what they want and to be honest I was getting irritated. On your Awards page the text is covering or being covered by the frames and the page with the charts, the charts take a long time to load. They are so small that I really could tell what I was looking at. Thats about all for now, I'll check back on your progress.

[Collectors-info]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

Hi, Ditto with Ed, also most images need to be brought down in size as well, especially the backgrounds. The graphs are also at nearly 4meg & very slow to load.

[demuredawn]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

Hello... ok, so... here's my problem w/ the buttons... I'm having a hard time trying to find a spot that works w/ all the backgrounds so that the backgrounds don't get too "interupted". I thought I had them all in the same order tho, I will check that. And as far as resizing the background images and whatnot... i really don't know how to do that... got any suggestions?

[demuredawn]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

Okay, I did find one instance... on my suggestions page... that the buttons were in a bit of a diff order... the chat and contact members buttons were reversed in order. I fixed that though. Other than that, that's the only place i see them out of order (other than me having to move the home and suggestions buttons--which are the first and last buttons of each page--around in order to coincide w/ the background image). Any suggestions on how to better arrange the buttons are welcome. Also, Im not quite sure what you mean about the frames on the awards page? It appeards correctly to me?

[Collectors-info]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

Hi, there are some hints on resizing in my signature & you can use the free Pixresizer to reduce them.

[demuredawn]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

Ok, so.. i already have and use IrfanView... are you saying to actually decrease the visual appearance of the background? Cuz if so.. I don't want to do that...

[D'son]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

How about breaking the page into two parts a small frame at the top just for the menus then a frame under that for the background image and your content. I realize you do not want to change the image but you have to find a balance between form and function sometimes.

[demuredawn]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

The thing is, most of my viewers are broadband users... and I'd like to keep the outward appearance of my site as is... but if i can decrease the memory usage w/o affecting the outward appearance greatly, i have no problem doing that... i just don't want to compromise what i've worked so hard trying to put together visually...

[D'son]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

Ok skipping over the load time for the moment, how about having the menu bar in the same area that you have each page banner there seems to be enough room without interupting your image too much. You have it that way on several pages. And what I was talking about the menu bars not being the same on each page was that each time a page loaded you took that menu off the the page making it hard to remember where you go next. Keep all the menus on every page just don't link the one for the page yu are on. Be consistant and users will find it easier to use. One thing to remember is this site more for you (and your tastes) or for the users.

[demuredawn]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

okay, i'm sorry... i don't mean to sound as if i'm being a baby or unwilling to work or change, that's not the case.. i was just really confused as to what you were suggesting i do. i can add another button on each page if that will help things... should i really add a home button on the index page? ... i just never thought of doing that, wasn't about me not wanting to... just never occured to me the user would be looking for a button for that same page they were already on...

[D'son]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

Not at all, if I sounded rude I'm sorry. Just trying to help, you asked for our ideas and I gave you mine. Don't feel that there is only one way that fits all, thats the great thing about the web you see many different ways and ideas. have your club, friends and family check it out get there input and along wih ours you can always make changes. Also as you work within it you'll find things to fix, add or subtract. Good luck

[Collectors-info]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

Ok, so.. i already have and use IrfanView... are you saying to actually decrease the visual appearance of the background? Cuz if so.. I don't want to do that...

Hi, pop this image http://www.fls-riders.com/fantasy-wallpaper03.jpg into this site http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/imageoptimizer/index.php & press optimize. When you see an image that is ok, right click & save it as the replacement. You can take it down to about a 1/4 of the kb's to help speed up the page.

[demuredawn]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

thanks chris *hugs* ... i know i have to sound obstinate on this forum... and i apologize for that

[demuredawn]

Re: Spades Team Oriented Site Completed

Thanks D'Son.. and no, you didn't sound rude. Just thought maybe I was sounding obstinate in my replies. I have moved my navigation buttons around and have added the buttons to make it easier to see where things are, like you suggested... does this look any better? (The only page I haven't completed on that is the graphs page, and thats cuz I actually have someone else do that page for me as I know diddly about graphs, lol.)