Little Twinkle Stars
STATS
Website Name: Little Twinkle Stars
Website URL: http://www.little-twinkle-stars.piczo.com
Type: Personal, Freeserver
Skill Level:: Beginner
Owner: Lauren
Reviewer: Melanie
Reviewed On: 6/25/06
SPLASH PAGE (7/10 pts)
I really liked your splash page image! Its cute and the way it is spliced into four rectangles looks great. I'm not a big fan of splash pages though- although I did used to have them on my site at one point ;) Perhaps you could add more information on your splash page about your website? (e.g the browser it uses, the screen resolution, directories it may be listed at, etc...)- something that will give the vistor more of a reason to enter your site =) Also, I noticed that the page scrolls all the way to the right and all the way down. Is there a reason for this? There seems to be nothing down there (except the "free hosted scripts" link). If you have to have that link I would suggest moving it up closer to the splash image. In addition, it might look better if you made the "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" just the name of your site, or "enter". Or perhaps you could link the splash image to the main page. I was a little confused as to what I was supposed to click on to enter your page at first =P Centering the image/text might also be a good idea to making this page look a bit better.
LAYOUT AND DESIGN (20/55 pts)
The first thing I noticed was that your layout doesn't seem to match the splash page. Is it supposed to be that way? I'd suggest making them both match to continue the theme of your site =) I love the layout you have! The header image is very well done. Great use of brushes and photos. One thing I have to point out though is that there is wayyy too much purple. While this is obviously your color of choice for the layout, I'd suggest using colors that are different but compliment eachother as well. Too much of the same color can make your layout look less presentable and bland. (The website
Colour Lovers.com is a great place to find color palettes!). Also, saving your images as .png helps to elliminate the fuzziness of it.
And now about the background music: While a great way to personalize your site and make it more fun, background music can be verry bothersome to someone who isn't expecting it! Is there a way that you could get it to not automatically play? That way the visitor isn't startled and gets to choose if they want the music to play as well as which song they want. =)
Popups: Too many! I know you have no control over this because you are on a freeserver, but I know that geocities (the site I used before I got hosted) didn't have as many pop-up windows. Also, maybe you could apply for hosting somewhere when you fix up your site a little bit =)
Once again your page seems to scroll way further down than it has to. It would be a good idea to move those two links at the bottom up to the rest of your layout. Also, I'm not sure what "page: test" means. haha.
You have a nice setup with the tables. It would be a good idea though to maybe have all the smaller tables on one side and expand your main table on the other. I also noticed that you have your link buttons scrolling in a marquee type thing on the right. But I tried to click them and nothing happened! eek. (not even my link. lol) You might want to check up on that and make sure they are linked correctly...although it might juts be piczo (again...moving to geocities or getting hosted might be a good idea). As for the marquee...it would look a lot better if all the images in it were the same size or at least around the same size. (suggestion: smaller buttons are always a plus). Also, if you want to get that default border around your linked images away, just add
border="0" to your image tag. =)
A couple other suggestions: I would take a look at the coding around the "Info" section. The "users online" number seems to overlap the text above it...as does the little music notes on the ipods. Maybe adding more space between them would do the trick. ;) Also, while the hug thing is cute (I gave you a hug by the way), maybe there is a better spot for it than where it is...perhaps centered under your updates table? Also, the no right click script is way annoying. haha. I know that you are concerned people will steal your work, but this often makes the site look tacky and also doesn't allow me to view your html source code. (If people really wanted to steal your layouts or images, all they have to do is make a screenshot of them and crop around it in paintshop or elsewhere...eek.)
CONTENT AND ORGANIZATION (10/30 pts)
From the main page your site seems to be very organized. I just noticed your age is 13. This could explain the possible lack of experience you might have in webdesigning (everyones gotta start somewhere though, right? hehe) I must say though, this site is really impressive for a 13 year old! =) At 13, I didn't even have
any html knowledge or anything at all...so kudos to you! Maybe you could add more information in the factfile table? A few words that describe you, a small picture, etc.
Upon clicking the "me, myself and I" link I was surprized to find out that it was a whole other page with yet another different layout. :/ I highly encourage you to put all of your content in the same layout area. (e.g...instead of "Updates" where your updates table is...it would become the "Me, Myself, and I" section etc) After entering this section I was greeted by another navigation! Similarly (as I expected), each of these subpages leads to a new page/layout as well. Theres way too much clicking and back clicking going on here...once again, condensing everything to the same layout so I don't have to click the back button to go back to the main navigation would be a great idea). Maybe you could look into using Iframes or divs (the website
Lissa Explains It All is a great way to start!). Also, you don't appear to have a link color set for the links on your subpages...you might want to set it so it matches your layout color =)
In the "for you" section, I'd suggest maybe making your blends a separate subpage called "artwork". I really liked your blends by the way...great job. I noticed that you have another page of blends though by other people. These aren't credited at all with links by their owners. If you haven't recieved permission for these to be on your site, you might want to at least link them back to the original owners...or they might get a little angry. lol. I don't quite understand the "help" page. It links to a different page...which links to yet a another different page...which then links to a page that I can't access because I'm not on piczo. LOL. Once again, way too much clicking! Try to get rid of content that you don't really need or that doesn't seem to serve a purpose.
The page I enjoyed most was the music page. I like how you have all the different album covers etc for different artists. At first it seemed too cluttered looking, but I think it grew on me. haha.
The "bored?" page seems very similar to the "for you" page. I would suggest combining the two into one...maybe with subsections of "for fun" and "for your site". I liked the content in this section though.
Overall, it appears you have a good amount of content, but you need to work on the way it is presented. Try and make it all on the same layout. Also, wayyy to much background music. There is no need to have background music on
every single page! Most of the time the vistor will not even be at the page long enough to get past the first few seconds of it. lol. Also, you might want to set up a "site" page where you have credits and link back buttons and other stuff like that. And just another minor thing...you should probably move the "links" link in the navigation to the bottom or above the "guestbook" link...links to other people's sites shouldn't be second in the navigation of your own site! lol.
CODING, BROKEN LINKS, ETC (2/5 pts)
I was kind of scared to check the coding for your page. LOL. Sure enough, I found there were 168 errors on the
W3.org html validator. However, I don't encourage you to pursue trying to code your site correctly right now. Judging by where your site is at present, it is a better idea to just worry about how it looks. =) I noticed a few broken links, mostly with images...so try to clean those up. Also, some of your content (such as the scrolling buttons) can't be viewed in Firefox.
TOTAL (39/100)
As a whole, I thought your site was pretty impressive for a beginner. You have plenty of time to fix up your site and make it even better, so don't be discouraged by the score! =) The main problems I found was the content on different pages/layouts and the amount of clicking I had to do to find my way around. And of course, the issue with the background music. lol. Also, try to make your site more cleaner looking...theres a bit too many scripts and other "stuff" that is slowing up the loading time. It might be a good idea to check out other more advanced pages to get an idea of what needs to happen with your site (this isn't encouraging you to steal their work, designs, etc...but just to get a feel of what direction your site should take). My personal site is
Adorability.org if you'd like to start there. =) haha. You have great potential though...especially in the area of graphics as I saw in your blends...and many many layouts. LOL. So keep that up =) After you've cleaned up your site a bit, I encourage you to apply for a re-review! Good luck in all your website-making endevours! =)
