Et cetera Online Magazine

Does anyone want to critic it?

Any suggestions, comments and/or questions would be a great help!

Thanks

I think you are somewhere between a ‘minimalist’ and a ‘toss it at em’ in a hurry’ type situation… Neither is bad, depending, but in the middle like you are is new ground… I don’t think you will get any trust from readers by breaking out of the norm…

as far as design: It looks like I am reading it on a PDA. The page seems too simple for something that actually has content. I am not bashing it, just maybe instead of badge images for your content, make the image a little smaller and display some content of the article adjacent to the image….

You have some skill though!

so you think that there should be less image, and more content?

how do you think we can make it less “pda-like” other than displaying some content.

And also, what do you mean by “you will [not] get any trust from readers by breaking out of the norm”?

less pda like: more white space, margins on sides, menu features like hover effects, maybe a nice logo…ect

what I mean by trust is this: people expect certain things from a webpage… one being straight forward navigation, the other being something which has instant familiarity, or enough design appeal to draw a double take…

surfers are familiar with the most successful designs the first time they look at them….

matter of fact I would go as far as to say this:

if a design doesn’t conform to a familiar format, doesn’t have the instant charm to strike curiosity, or doesn’t have a good balance of both, it needs overhaul… or something to draw those surfers ‘in’ for a closer look….

I like your page- I like the way your posts appear, and I like the way your categories are set-up, but being straight up honest with you my interests derive from the fact I too am a wordpress designer, and I see in your work inspiration for my own… If I stumbled upon your page as a result of a search for content- I wouldn’t find much use for it because it lacks a feel of authenticity.. for the reasons I explained….

no offense intended, just straight forward constructive criticism.

I like the idea behind your design, but you are wasting a huge amount of space.

I don’t like how I have to scroll down to view most of the content on my laptop screen, viewers want to get most info compacted into their viewing area.

hey CognitiveCombine and drewactual, thanks for the comments and suggestions.

how’s this now? is it too flashy?

anyone else want to tell me what they think about it?

here’s the link again: nshsetcetera.com

100KB for a small image like this:
https://nshsetcetera.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/sophomore-speeches.png
is way too much! And you have several of them on that main page. That’s a big NO-NO!
Images of that size shouldn’t be more than 10-15KB max!

right on dude! looking good!

I like how you have included at the footer post content….. that will give you credit as a real source now instead of making folks wonder what your page is all about.

I am going to study your design a little more, as I said, it lends me some ideas of my own!

Looks good but a little crowdy. You can re arrange things a bit.