Ice Hockey website

[ryanhellyer]

Hi,
I've launched a complete makeover of the Dunedin Ice Hockey Association website and would appreciate some constructive criticism. The site was originally powered entirely by SMF (both the forum and static pages) but has now been converted to WordPress with SMF only powering the forum as this gave a lot better functionality for news postings.


http://dunedinicehockey.co.nz/

[Ducani]

Hey Ryan,
The site looks great good job on that one. The only thing I see so far is the forum login form has the text "Password" on the same line as the "Username" while the textfield for password is on the line below.

D.

[ryanhellyer]

Thanks Ducani.
I hadn't noticed that password problem. I'm usually logged in, so I don't see that most of the time.

[knupNET]

Very clean and professional look Ryan. I like it!

[ryanhellyer]

Thanks knupNet. I'll be doing some alterations to it over the next month, including making the latest news items on the home page look a little more appealing and cleaning up the styling in the forum box which is on the right hand side of most pages.

[BigAlReturns]

I like the design, it's clean and simple, but still visually appealing. A couple of points that struck me:
1) The 3 column layout on the home page looks a little unbalanced to me, I think because content in the middle and right columns doesn't extend all the way to the bottom of the page. The whitespace just throws it a little I think. Personally I'd be tempted to go with a 2 column, combining the middle and right together, but it's personal preference really. Of course, you may well have more stuff to put in those columns - if so then ignore me!
2) The big links on the far right ("General Chatter" etc.) seem a little large and out of place - they immediately struck me as being adverts, which makes me more likely to disregard them. Perhaps a smaller font, or having them as a bulleted list could help this.
3) The address resolves to the non-www version. I know this comes down a lot to personal preference, but I find that non-webby people generally think the www is ubiquitous and needs to be there. Not having it could be confusing to some people.

Overall though, good job.

[ryanhellyer]

Originally Posted by BigAlReturns

1) The 3 column layout on the home page looks a little unbalanced to me

Others have commented on this too.

Originally Posted by BigAlReturns

Of course, you may well have more stuff to put in those columns - if so then ignore me!

Normally there would be a coming events section at the bottom of the middle colum along with more latest news posts and the right hand column would have quite a few more highlighted forum posts, plus once you are logged in, more forum boards appear in the right hand column.

Originally Posted by BigAlReturns

2) The big links on the far right ("General Chatter" etc.) seem a little large and out of place - they immediately struck me as being adverts

Hmm, the idea behind them being larger was to draw attention to them. That's not good at all if it's having the opposite effect

Originally Posted by BigAlReturns

3) The address resolves to the non-www version. I know this comes down a lot to personal preference, but I find that non-webby people generally think the www is ubiquitous and needs to be there. Not having it could be confusing to some people.

WWW is pretty pointless and I'm doing my bit for internet society to abolish it :P


Thanks for the critique

[topolina]

Cool site I agree that it looks very professional. The only critique I have is that I noticed a few typos/grammar mistakes. I'm just a stickler for that kind of stuff, and it might be good to fix up since it is a nice site. I can give more specifics if you want me to proof it.

Hope that helps!

[ryanhellyer]

Originally Posted by topolina

I noticed a few typos/grammar mistakes. ... I can give more specifics if you want me to proof it

Thanks Topolina

And yep, I'd love to hear about the typos/grammar mistakes. Although most of the content (particularly on the home page) is updated regularly so it may not be there for too long unless it's on one of the static pages.

thanks,
Ryan

[topolina]

No problem! And sorry for being such a stickler- I worked part time as a proofreader in grad school so now it's become intuitive for me to do it

Here are a few I found on the home page-

"The Spring 2007 Dunedin Ice Hockey League (DIHL) final between the Sharks vs Bullfrogs and has been played." --> get rid of the "and"

"The Bullfrogs have had an excellent season after a shaky start, the improvement withing their team has been massive and they have had a very high turnout of players to their games." --> change "withing" to "within"

"Thanks to all of the helpers who have made this competition possible. Particularly Jane Soper who organised the entire event. The scorers for scoring, the equipment shed volunteers for keeping our new players geared up, Kyle Matthews for technical advice and head referee Phil Handcock for making sure the league was always provided with excellent referees." -->

I'm not positive of the grammar here (or of the use of colons vs. semicolons), but I think this might be right- "Thanks to all of the helpers who have made this competition possible: particularly Jane Soper, who organised the entire event; the scorers for scoring; the equipment shed volunteers for keeping our new players geared up; Kyle Matthews for technical advice; and head referee Phil Hancock for making sure the league was always provided with excellent referees."

I can look through the rest of the site a bit later if you like and see if I can add anymore- again, great site, I'm just trying to help

topo