Thread: Please be CRITICAL

Please be CRITICAL

Please critic my site.

Security Jobs UK - Doorman Security. Jobs In Security Security Careers.

Hey Securityjobs,

Personally I prefer constructive feedback over plain criticism . So with that in mind, here's my thoughts:

• There's inconsistent use of fonts: I counted four different typefaces, not to mention font-weights: This, for me leads to a lot of confusion as I don't know what's important and what not.
• Inconsistent use of colour, and the use of conflicting colour ads to the noise;
• Inconsistent use of padding / margin on just about all elements leading to a breakdown in hierarchy;
• Spacing issues on the top navigation bar;
• Too long sidebar for the amount of jobs displayed on home page;
• Using red on blue in the design world, is a big no-no;
• List style visible on the sidebar for the resume page, but not on the main page
• Clicking on orange button ("Recruiter Post") in the main nav gives a 404 page;
• Subscription page has all the text on bold - what's important?
• Inconsistent use of the blue colour between header section and the job-type icons

If I have to be brutally honest - the site comes across as a bit spammy, with no clear structure / hierarchy. The wide use of high-contrast colours are more distracting than helpful, and the abuse of the bold text throughout makes things difficult to read.

This is going to come across as shameless self-marketing, but compare your site with our premium jobroller child theme that's about to be released (currently in testing). Take particular note of how elements are structured to help the user navigate the website, instead of bombarding them with features, settings and offers. A key thing of developing a website is establishing trust before putting the sales material in their face: With your website that means giving the user what he's after - jobs. Once they see you've got what they need in a clear and simple layout, you can then add the extra services. With our Child theme we focused on why the user came to the website: to find a job, nothing more, nothing less.

You need to put all the details properly and your fonts are not in good positions.

securityjobs - you still there? Hope I wasn't too harsh in my comments?!

Hi tinygiantstudios,

I like your honesty.

I have changed the colour in the header and a few other things.

I am not sure what you mean by this or how to correct it
"Inconsistent use of colour, and the use of conflicting colour ads to the noise;
Inconsistent use of padding / margin on just about all elements leading to a breakdown in hierarchy;"

Please could you help me sort this out and anything else you have noticed.

Thanks again

Hehe, no worries - I had to ask as sometimes I come across as being a bit too direct.

As for the first point: The colour palette you're using doesn't seem to complement one another (you're using conflicting colours). For example, on the home page alone we've got Black, white, grey, three different shades of blue, red, yellow and orange with mixed saturations as well.

Padding is seen as the space between an element and its container. As a practical example of inconsistent padding: look at the psace between your search bar on the top and left hand sides as compared to the bottom and right hand sides - it's not even. Now this is present for just about every element on your site: between sidebar/main content, top nav / call-to-action buttons, between sidebar reg. buttons, copryright / disclaimer section in the footer.

Another problem is that your registration and login buttons have a different radius applied to each one: making their rounded corners odd-shaped. The "Submit your CV for Free" text is also too large for the button background as it almost overflow it entirely (which is another padding problem).

Hope it helps. There's a few guides on WebDesign Tuts that I think would help in your design work; also check out Premium WordPress Themes and Web Templates - ThemeForest for some inspiration in the latest trends and to see how the pro's design...

Thanks for all your help tinygiantstudios, I think I have sorted out all the issues you have mentioned apart from the colours.....

What would you suggest for the colours I have changed some in the last few days....

my url is Security Jobs UK - Doorman Security. Jobs In Security Security Careers.

Thanks again you have been a great help