BlacktalonSolutions.com - Please Review & Critique

[Blacktalon]

Good afternoon everyone, wherever you may be:

You all seem like you know what you're talking about and looking for when it comes to website design. That is why I would like to take a few of your opinions in measuring my site's landing page.

The link is here (http://www.blacktalonsolutions.com).

I've recently discovered a little thing called "floating," and I love it.

Please keep in mind a few of the following when looking at the page:

1. Some of the pages need work still.
2. I eventually want to do something with the banner-logo image at the top
3. I've narrowed down the "scrolling" need a lot: to view the entire page all you need is one scroll and you're there. No endless pages of text upon text upon text and unused space.

I welcome your views and opinions.

Yours truly,

[thx4yrtym]

first impression - very nice.

images in gray panels could use 10-12 pixels of right and 7 pixels of top margin to push the text away.

Realize it's a work in process.

regards,

[Dan Furman]

I like. You have a nice logo, too.

I know it's a work in progress, so I won't comment oo much, but my very first impression (besides "oooh, nice") is I think the top right needs.... something.

If the evergreen thing is going to be a big focus of yours, that might fit nicely up there.

[Blacktalon]

Hello everyone,

Those are my thoughts too. The top feels too..."blank," to put it lightly. The thing with the "evergreen" part is merely a changeable panel that will highlight certain aspects of HR 3.0, HR in general, or some form of daft commentary that I ever decide to put up.

On another note, I'm cleaning up some of the text to make it more readable and easier to comprehend. That in itself is a project altogether, but if it helps promote the concept better, then I'm all for it.

Thanks for the comments. They be appreciated ;)

[vangogh]

Sean I've seen the site evolve over time and I like this version better than I've liked some of the previous versions. One of my comments was going to be the emptiness of the header, which you already agree with. Maybe just some contact info or a search box in the upper right?

A little more whitespace would be good around the text. For example the blue box in the upper right you have set at 2px padding. Try 5px minimum, 10px would be better. That extra space will make everything more readable and make the page feel less crowded. Whitespace is your friend.

The logo looks nice, but it's hard to read your company name. The words overlapping each other throw me off. I can read it, but it's distracting to me. Maybe a little less overlap between the words.

Clicking around the site your navigation moves around some. Keep it in the same place. Don't make me look for it on each page. Keep the page you're on in the navigation on that page. If you don't want it to be an active link that's fine, but do keep the word there. Highlight it in some way to help people know where they are.

[Blacktalon]

It got your attention though, didn't it? ;)

Cellpadding can be upped a smidgeon, I agree.

As for the navigation, which are you talking about? Some of the sections have yet to be updated accordingly, so that might be the reason for your pain. Otherwise I'm keeping the navigation in the same place as they are in the "updated" sections.

A search function is something I'm contemplating. Probably initiate that in the next day or so.

Otherwise, I'm glad you like this better. Makes me wipe my brow from not having to bash my head against the keyboard trying to fix it yet again and yelling obscenities at my cat.

You have saved me strife. I am indebted to you. For a limited time ;)

Sean

[vangogh]

As for the navigation, which are you talking about?

The main navigation at the top. On the home page I see four links (About, Services, HR 3.0, Contact) and the whole thing seems aligned to the left of the page. I click on About and the Services link is gone, replaced by a Home link. The whole thing shifts to the center. On every page that navigation is a little different. It moves left and right, the links change. That navigation should be consistent. The same links on every page and the location should be the same across the site.

By the way is HR 3.0 a common term in human resources or are you trying to brand the term. I think most people are overly tired of the whole version numbers on non software. I'm not sure if that would be the best approach to sell yourself. It makes sense to add versions to software, but with other things it comes across very marketing centric and I think it makes people question if the business behind the version number is more hype than substance.

If the term is common in the industry then it makes sense to use it. If it's not a common term I'd think about it more or test it in some way. Maybe it's just me, but I get the feeling most don't care for the version number thing and see it as marketing hype.

[nighthawk]

In your left 2 panels you have a series of logos followed by text, each image is a different size, it might benefit from standardising the size of these images so you can align the text up and stop it jumping about as much.