Website Design

[YellowDragon]

Im now in my 3rd year of my Computer Science degree and the end is in sight for my time at college and I have to start looking towards my future career or working to get a masters degree, so Ive been working on ways to "sell myself" so I decided on doing a website as a way to help showcase my abilitys, just a simple place to put all my projects and just show a little more information about myself.

 

The problem is im no web designer, most of my projects have been around making specialized programs or miniature games on various game engines, not really highly entertaining stuff and it cant be appreciated unless someone has a background in programming and in software design. So this is my first foray into webhosting and website layouts and as such I have no idea what constitutes a good design. I decided that i didnt want any prefab bullcrap, i just wanted to do an entire site myself, that way it does not have any ads or any crazy long URLs for people to remember.

 

 

Im looking for feedback on the layout in particular as I am writing the content for the site right now and wont post it until it is done, I would like to know what improvements could be made to the button layouts post layouts, etc. Junk posts are put in to give an idea of how things would look. Primarily this site is going to be used as a blog about the video game industry ( where I hope to get a job) and a software portfolio/resume listing.

 

Here is a link to the site:

www.yellowdragon.net

[prolemur]

That's not a link to the site

 

this is : www.yellowdragon.net

[jetbuster]

one thing I saw off the bat is that the black arrows around the items on the nav bar are all different sizes, IMO you should try to keep those constant

[YellowDragon]

That's not a link to the site

 

this is : www.yellowdragon.net

dont need to be smart about it  

[kirashi]

Im now in my 3rd year of my Computer Science degree and the end is in sight for my time at college and I have to start looking towards my future career or working to get a masters degree, so Ive been working on ways to "sell myself" so I decided on doing a website as a way to help showcase my abilitys, just a simple place to put all my projects and just show a little more information about myself.

 

The problem is im no web designer, most of my projects have been around making specialized programs or miniature games on various game engines, not really highly entertaining stuff and it cant be appreciated unless someone has a background in programming and in software design. So this is my first foray into webhosting and website layouts and as such I have no idea what constitutes a good design. I decided that i didnt want any prefab bullcrap, i just wanted to do an entire site myself, that way it does not have any ads or any crazy long URLs for people to remember.

 

 

Im looking for feedback on the layout in particular as I am writing the content for the site right now and wont post it until it is done, I would like to know what improvements could be made to the button layouts post layouts, etc. Junk posts are put in to give an idea of how things would look. Primarily this site is going to be used as a blog about the video game industry ( where I hope to get a job) and a software portfolio/resume listing.

 

Here is a link to the site:

www.yellowdragon.net

First, as a fellow web designer/programmer, your first site is at least clean looking. And that's a HUGE start that most people get stuck on when starting up their own site. There are a few inconsistencies like the Nav-Menu arrows jumping between different sizes simply because each menu item has a different number of characters in it. And I do see a lot more of the "date/posted by" lines being 2 lines to break things up a bit, but that's your call. Otherwise, like I said, I do like the plain and simple design that template has given you, and nothing is confusing or overpowering when you hit up the home page.

 

If you're considering a blog-like structure with custom pages to showcase your work, and want an easy way to manage things once it's up and going, I would highly recommend at least starting off with a CSS framework, such as BootStrap or the 960 Grid System, because it will make laying out your own code much simpler, and doesn't  really require any fancy scripting or URL's. Really, they're actually sort of just blank prefab CSS stylesheet rules that you can use when coding a layout. I can't go into detail here, but check out the sites. To go one step further, using something like Wordpress is great if you're willing to delve into the backend code of a blank theme, and understand how the basics of the WP_Blog engine works. By no means do you have to be a database expert or PHP junkie, but if you're willing to invest that time, you'll be that much better off at understanding the way most websites function with dynamic page loading. (obviously I'm not saying most sites use Wordpress; but it gets your foot in the door.)

 

A book I recently bought, although VERY basic for someone who knows HTML, was a great resource for starting on these Grid Systems, as I had only hand coded things before. The book, titled "HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites" by Jon Duckett, opened the door to HTML5 for me, which is what allows these snazzy new sites, like LTT Forum, to auto-resize to fit your viewing device, be it a tablet, phone, or computer. (also known as "Responsive Design") I think books or materials like these are the next best thing to a classroom environment when it comes to coding from scratch. Websites like CodeCademy are a good online resource as well.

 

Let me know if any of this helped, or maybe if enough people want to start up a sub-forum under software dedicated to "Web Development" @Windspeed36 or @LinusTech might be kind enough to create such a sub forum.

[Nabstylez]

Few pointers;

 

1. Start by actually designing your own pages ( Noted "design by: FreeCSSTemplates.org." in footer ).
2. Study in semantics, I see you ( or template creator ) use alot of empty elements to add "spacing".
3. All of the above ( kirashi's post ).