Our School Website - Opinions/constructive criticism

[bazgee]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone would like to give their opinion or constructive criticism on our school website that I have created. I am the ICT Technician in a primary school and decided to design and maintain the website myself from a previous company that were taking too long to do the changes for us. I have just recently finished the website and would love some feedback on what I could improve etc.

The URL is St. Cuthbert's RC Primary School

Thanks a lot.

[NikChillin]

Nice distinctive colours and it is nice to see the same page layout throughout. Some minor observations;
The tabs do not reflect which page you are currently on, only the home page.
On the Callendar page, is there supposed to be an image next to the Educational websites link?
Lastly, the details about the website designer on the home page is obstructed by the content. Might also be worth putting some copyright stuff on there.

Good work though!

[zag]

Not to bad at all but a couple of points:

- Make the Main "ST. Cuthbert's RC Primary School" font and colours better, looks really bad compared to the excellent overall header and menu items. The "you are unique..." bit also needs better shading to make it look smoother.
- Remove the awful red "Website designed by.." footer. Really no one cares who designed a website A tiny understated icon is acceptable these days but only if you are promoting it as a design company or something.
- Not sure about the bold front page main text. Cant it be gray and unbolded? The bbc website has an excellent readable font to compare to.
- The red boarders on the left and right dont join up at the bottom. Maybe fade them out to make a more clean look?
- Maybe a few too many menu items at the top. I prefer simple websites with basic info, that's what parents really want to see.
- Parish bulletin and Newsletter should really be embedded.

Hope that helps

Otherwise its a very good website overall.

[NDW]

Been a nit-picker but how about having links open in a new window rather than directing away from the school website?

"Website Designed and Maintained by Barry Graham" on the front page looks out of keeping with the site.
"Please allow a few minutes for the forum to load" IMO is in the wrong place could be moved down into the white space and change the colour of the text to match in with the rest of the site - whilst still attracting attention


Apart from that it’s a really nice looking site, I love the grey / maroon colour

[witch]

Being the spelling and grammar nazi that I am, I could comment a bit on the content - but I am not sure you want that, do you?

[jamiess]

I agree with everything above.

A couple of things I have noticed.

• On the Parents->Pupil Premium page the content extends over the footer and outside of the container. See Here
• The contact details are all made up of JPEG's, this means that if you use a screen reader you cannot get contact details for the school.
• Most of the images don't contain any alt description or titles, again if your using a screen reader.
  

  <img src="awesomeimage.jpeg" alt="My Awesome Image" title="My Awesome Image" />

Jamie

[jamesfed]

Bottom of page does not render correctly (IE9)
Capture.JPG

I'd have your newsletters link go to a page with previous newsletters as well

How comes your forum takes ages to load?

On the contact us page contact details should be text not images - this allows people to copy/paste into Outlook/ect.

Also it look like your whole site is based upon static HTML - have you considered using a content management system like WordPress?
The layout you have there could be knocked together in a few minutes using Artister - Artisteer - web design software and joomla template maker

[Oaktech]

I've got a broken image on the top of the kids page above the activities... Might just be me.

Once the points everyone else has made are taken on, I'd be really happy with it.

[Ric_]

Your page borders don't extend to follow the page on longer pages. Also... Comic Sans? @Domino has gone to wash his eyes.

[bazgee]

Thank you for the advice guys. I will get these little points ironed out asap. Always appreciate constructive criticism

[pete]

Leaves - the line for the burgundy St Cuthberts header block goes through them. Certain leaves are also obscuring text in a couple of places.

Gradient text: I'd lose the gradient on the St Cuthbert's header text. It says "land of early 90s spinning gifs" to me, clashing with the clean look of everything else.

Code: You have a typo on line 14 of index.html, you're missing a "t" in shortcut:

<link rel="shorcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" />

Pinstripes: Should the purple pinstripes down the sides just stop dead? Firefox 15.01.

Parents page: - Comic Sans of different sizes on overlarge buttons, many of which lead to a bare page with a link to a single document. Why not consolidate it to a single page?

Forum: Improve the load times. Or use a php accelerator so visitors don't notice it.