Ohh, the first review!

[DizixCom]

If you can spare a few moments to critique http://staging.vilitas.com it would be greatly appreciated.

This is the new design that was supposed to launch in October, November, December, and now, well, January. :) We actually had plenty of time to develop this while bringing our new platform online, but there are still some areas that are incomplete so please don't be too harsh on those (when they're obvious).

And please, no applause, just throw money!

[Wire]

Looks really good. Nice colors and great logo. Much better than the old one. :) good job

[Chicken]

I like the logo (clean and bold, easy on the eyes), and the overall colors (very soothing). I also like the roll-over tables which are clickable, rather than having to click on a specific word inside the table.

The icons (example: left of Welcome Home!) are sweet, where did you get those or who made them? I was looking for something like that, but failed in my search.

The feature tables (example: http://staging.vilitas.com/hosting/shared/?view=compare) seem a bit wide in larger resolutions. I might make them smaller to look good at 600x800 and keep them at that width instead of letting them expand to the page size. Just seem a bit big at my 1024x768 setting.

Layout works and is easy to get to all the pages. Any criticisms are just splittin' hairs. Looks good!

[inogenius]

My only complaint is the table where it says "Shared Virtual Hosting", "Virtual Dedicated" and "Reseller Options" looks a bit plain. Maybe if you added something in the boxes on the right of them? I don't know. If you don't understand what I'm talking about I've attached the image of where I'm talking about.

Sorry can't convert to GIF, of JPG. I compressed it to 16 colors so that's why it's just like a gray color. On crappy computer just has pretty much Windows, AIM and Winamp installed.

Okay, I hope the description will work since I can't get the size under the file limit. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, I'll get on my other computer and I'll use Photoshop.

[DizixCom]

Great, thanks for the FAST feedback :banana:

The icons are generally variations of the Windows XP free icons done by Ashben (of www.ashben.net -- he also did the logo), with the exception of a couple which were ripped (with permission) from HSPComplete.

When you mention "Features" you mean from the specific pages like (http://staging.vilitas.com/hosting/shared/?view=personal) correct? The compare page only has the featuring and it's static in size and shouldn't be expanding at all. I'll have to see what I can come up with for the tables and see how I can get them to stay put and not look out of place. My laptop is set to 1600x1200 resolution, but I very very rarely go full screen so I'll have to pay more attention.

Quite honestly, I think I have to rethink how I do the "Resources" and "Features" table, it just doesn't blend together very well and I'm not real sure there is a clear separation of the two; it just complicates things.

[DizixCom]

inogenius:

Do you mean putting graphics in the boxes on the left? There are currently 24x24 spacers in there waiting for icons to fill the placeholders but I've been kind of stumped on that so far. I'll have to reopen that as an area for improvement though as it could give it a more finished look.

I should have done this review thing a long time ago, but I'm always affraid to show off my work too early.

[inogenius]

Yup, that's exactly what I meant.

[Dave]

The logo is really nice, and the site is very easy to navigate.

[beley]

Nice site! I think it's a large improvement over your current site... mainly b/c of the colors. The colors you've chosen work really well together.

Good job! :)

[DizixCom]

Thanks for all the feedback. I really do have to give credit where it is due. When I started this new design I was using the old color scheme, far beit from me to know how it looks to mortals! It was when Ashben produced the logo that I realized how much better things could look, so I redid the colors around that. If you look at any of the HTML you'll see fragments that still doesn't utilize CSS styles, most likely those fragments were exactly the same in the old scheme.

I suppose I should just launch it and gauge customer response.

[DigitalXWeb]

Nice work! Very clean and professional looking!

[JSpired]

Very well done! Kudos to the people responsible for making the logo. Very classy.

[Chicken]

Originally posted by DizixCom
When you mention "Features" you mean...
I mean the table on the right side of the page. Meaning...

http://staging.vilitas.com/hosting/shared/?view=personal

The table that has these headings in it:

Personal Plan $9.00/Month Order Now!

-and below that:

Resources Features

These whole tables expand to the width of the page it seems and I think it might be better to tighten them up and give them a nice looking width that would accomodate the info, yet leave a nice amunt of white space on either side for larger resolutions (instead of filling the page with wide table cells).

Make sense?

[DizixCom]

I definitely understand what you are talking about and the more I browse the site in full 1600x1200 resolution the more I see things that I should change. I will likely split the "Resources" and "Features" into two entirely different tables and then limit the text and table widths to fit comfortably at 800x600.

Ewww, lots of work for that!

[Chicken]

The blank cell in the features table (last one) is a bit bugged too (slightly darker border), though that won't matter if you separate the tables of course. Like I said though, splittin' hairs...

[interactive]

Not bad, easy to navigate it. The green tables though are kind of annoying.

[DayGlo]

It is classy but stylish, i really like it.

[DizixCom]

Alrighty,

I think I took most things into account and made a few updates. Specifically addressing Chickens comments about large screens (in the hosting areas) and I removed the "features" within the hosting areas as well, opting to keep it only on the left side instead of having the redundant-speak.

Also I implemented mod_rewrite to make it more spider friendly and to mask the navigation system.

So, now more specifically, how do the following pages seem to look:

- http://staging.vilitas.com/hosting/shared
- http://staging.vilitas.com/hosting/vds

... with the content area at a fixed width?

And any other suggestions are welcome as well!

:bowdown: :banana:

Thanks for your time, this has been so much better than asking people who are less confrontational!

[Chicken]

I definitely like the tables fixed. Easier to read them and some nice white space. In my head I was thinking that the table would be centered in the right side cell, however justifying it left isn't bad either. I'm not sure which I'd like better. I'm also not sure if I like the grey-ish background of that right side, or if I'd keep it completely white. Have to see the four combinations side by side to 100% give an opnion on which one.

[LegendHost]

Hey,

Nice design but here are few things that maybe you should think about.

1) The font size is too large on top navigation because the slogan "SELF-MANAGED AND WHOLESALE WEB HOSTING SPECIALISTS " is same size font as well..

for now this is about it i am not a webmaster or designer but hey i know inputs help a lot :banana:

(according to guidlines one banana per post only :( )

[DizixCom]

Thanks for your insight LegendHost. I'm not looking for the critique of master web designers but from the general public and the folks who I am attempting to approach, so your thoughts as a non-designer are far more valuable to me. Thank you!

Based on information all of you folks provided I was able to finally put the finish on and deploy!

Thanks to everyone who assisted, you were a big help in showing me the pieces that I was missing.