THANK YOU for this specific feedback! I find it hugely helpful.
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Originally Posted by Pernwebgoddess  I'm just going to give you my feedback as a web developer, since I'm trained in that, and I haven't found the magic bullet for content, other than it needs to be interesting, witty, and/or funny to attract large readership.
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I know, right? Since I don't have a wasting illness or 20 children or octuplets, I don't feel like I have much to attract a readership. But as a writer, I find that it's also a challenge... writing a story of an average, uninteresting life in a way that is still interesting and readable.
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Originally Posted by Pernwebgoddess Don't do moving gifs. They're distracting, and in general, not good web design. All they do is draw attention away from your content. If you're going to use a moving image, there should be a reason for it... a link, something vitally important. Not a static image that doesn't link to anything and just begs for comments. It also doesn't fit with your design at all, so it clashes.
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You don't like my uber-unprofessional moving .gif? I can't imagine!
It will go away eventually. Right now it is sort of a code between me and a friend.
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Originally Posted by Pernwebgoddess Secondly, that title bar is MASSIVE. There's no reason for the file size to be that big. It took several seconds to load on my browser, and I've got uber DSL. Everything else on the page loaded before that title banner did. You need to keep your readers in mind, and optimize your images for web. That banner is very nearly 190k (189.65k)... entirely too huge! For a banner of that size, it doesn't need to be more than 30-50k. Even your background image is only a hair over 100k (112.74k)
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Right you are!! Thank you for drawing attention to this as I had forgotten all about it. I'll go fix it ASAP. I originally saved it as a .png so that the edges could use transparency to create the "glow" effect. I hadn't chosen a template yet and I wanted it to be completely flexible and work with any background.
Now I can go tweak and save it as an optimized .jpg and it will load much faster.
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Originally Posted by Pernwebgoddess The layout feels too cramped and image-heavy, for the space you've got. If you're going to be displaying a lot of images, you need more space for them. I got the distinct impression of too much whitespace on either side. I've got a fairly decent monitor size, so it leaves me feeling cramped in a too-small space. Additionally, on a smaller resolution (800x600) your layout crams itself completely, and elements start stacking on top of each other.
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Hmmm... I agree with you on this one too. When you use a free template you get what you pay for. This one is too cramped and there is too much white space (in this case green ivy space) and I have threatened for months to go write a new template of my own that works better. Then I do another one for a client and I don't want to do all the work to do one for me. So I leave the free one and just think that it's too crowded with the pics in the sidebar! I suppose it's not very good advertising for my work, but I wanted to focus on writing for my blog and decided not to worry about the template for now.
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Originally Posted by bajamergrrl I just read that post and I have to say it was definitely a story worth sharing.
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Thanks! Reading Braille by touch as a sighted person is such an unusual thing to do (I have never, ever met anyone else who does) that I almost feel like I am coming out of the closet to write story!
