New design - your opinion please

[Neil Wilson]

I have re-designed one of my web sites and would like your opinion whether the new one would work before I complete it.
The new front page is at https://www.rootsweb.com/~engcclay/indexnew.htm
With the drop down menus, only the top three have been programmed with existing pages, the bottom 3 drop downs are just copies of one of them.

the old site is at https://www.rootsweb.com/~engcclay/
Cheers
Neil

[MarkJ]

Comparing both sites side by side is interesting.
The old one - in Firefox, running at 1024x768 - displays a little awkwardly. The left hand column, with the links, seems to be too far to the right - which means I can see very little of the wording without using the scroll bar which appears.
For my money, the new design is much cleaner. The drop down boxes are quite intuitive.
Not that I am a designer by any means But I prefer the clean lines of the newer design myself.

Mark

[HelenVSmith]

Hi


I found the new design was less cluttered and appeared crisp and clean . Not so sure about colour choice.

Another button I would suggest would be an index of surnames.

Regards
Helen

[Neil Wilson]

Thank you both for your replies. I have just added a few more hyperlinks so that the drop down boxes work and does show page not found. It was cause by my tpying fingers hitting the wrong keys..
This is the first time I have done a page purely in code, normally I use FrontPage.

Regarding the colours - any suggestions welcome, please send the # code

Helen - thank you for volunteering to do the indexing on my site
cheers
Neil

[Mary Young]

Hi, Neil
Just my tuppenceworth.
Ease of access
Old design is easier for the casual visitor to "skim". I can see the full list of contents at a glance. New design - it's harder to find the content within the drop-downs.
Mouse
Old design - click on an item and see page. Another click, another page.
New design is mouse-intensive. Each new page needs 4 mouse-clicks.
Page heading font
New page heading is larger than the old, and an unnecessary line space between 1st and 2nd line. - at 800x600 resolution, I can only see the header and 2 lines of text.
Colours
Why bother? stick to silver or white, eminently legible.
Keep up the good work
Great site, great content - whether old or new design.

[Guy Etchells]

Sorry but I much prefer the old site, to my way of thinking it works better and is easier to navigate. The new site has no way to return to the menus without closing the new page.
Cheers
Guy

[Pam Downes]

Hi Neil,
Not being a 'techie' (i.e. barely knows a URL from an ISP) I don't normally look in the software forum but just occasionally a title strikes my eye and I investigate.
I haven't gone into all the 'mouse' and 'clicks' business, but I prefer the opening page of the old site. And if you do keep the new style for goodness' sake get rid of those lurid colours for the drop-down boxes. Sorry, but they are and most of them are far too bold for the writing.
Pam
(hastily slinking back the general chatter forum )

[Burrow Digger]

Normally I dont like frames, but your old page is actually very nice and clean and easy to navigate.

Can I suggest that ALL pages have the SAME background? Makes the whole website look more cohesive and professional.

I actually prefer the old layout.

Burrow Digger

[Mary Young]

The left hand column, with the links, seems to be too far to the right - which means I can see very little of the wording without using the scroll bar

Neil could left-justify this column, then most items would be 100% visible.

[Neil Wilson]

Thanks for all your views, I will look at the old site for the text justification on the left frame. Will leave it for a while before I make the final decision.

Cheers
Neil