New Skin .. need Feedback..

[Xtrato]

ok let me post again.. maybe this time i dont "violate" the rules..

I need some feedback on my forum guys, its a new skin , let me know what you guys think.

Thanks!! looking forward getting some C&C.

http://www.xtrato.com

[Shelley_c]

I didn't know whether I liked this yesterday when I first clicked your link so I refrained from posting. I am now looking at it again and still looking at it debating (with myself) whether I like or not. The answer to that is, I don't know. There are areas I like and there's areas that look terrible because some images have alignment issues. The quote looks a little off and needs to be intergrated/aligned a little better than what it is.

The avatar and info area looks really nice. I also like the intergration of flash (i'm a big flash fanatic) though i'm on a 10 meg connection and it kills it on every page load. Logo looks really nice, though I think a little functionality would give this a nice touch like rollover effects on the circular images.

Overall, I quite like the way you've designed the whole style and graphics though there's still areas which could be intergrated better.

[TTG]

Bet you don't have too many dial up members :) .. seemed to take an age to load and I have 10mb cable !?

[smacklan]

very nice design for the most part, but as others have noted, it will be hard on potential customers running at slow connection speeds...maybe not the best design for a business site, but best of luck to you ;)

[peterska2]

Way to slow, I'm on a 1meg cable connection and it too ages, you need to do something about that.

Also very dark, and not very practical for people with color blindness.

You have way to many forums, start small and expand, always the best way to go.

Finally, I'm sure I've seen that postbit template before. Did you custom code it, or did you get it from someone else?

[vbviet]

Perfect ! I like it :) Graphic is very nice ..

[Xtrato]

yes about the speed, mostly it has to do with my host, running on shared hosting .. greatly reduces the performance of the site.

We are looking to ge ta dedicated server very soon, hopefully that will really help us greatly with the speed of the site.

thanks for the comments, i will improve some spots on the site based on your comments.

Thanks again.

[Rich]

Overall, it looks really nice. I just viewed the site on a dialup connection and you are certainly losing potential members with load times.

I would wrap the posts themselves so they don't seem "3D" with that footer below them. (Where you r quote link is.) The transition between the post and that footer looks "off". Its not smooth.

[sudn3sc3d]

its good mate i wana use something like this on my new board...

[SaintDog]

On a 3mbps cable connection, some pages were taking upwards 7-10 seconds to display (mostly the viewing of posts), however other pages took just as long. Overall, speed if the issue.

As for the design, it is a bit too "tech-like" for me, however it's not specifically a bad design. I'd work to offer a crunched, non-flash version. You can still have functionality and the 'wow-effect' without flash.

[webghey]

5 meg line - and I left because it was just taking way too long to load. Either it's way too graphic intensive, or you need to switch hosts or people will probably not stay on the site.

[Ohiosweetheart]

It loaded pretty quick for me, not sure what made the difference.
I'm notorious for not being a fan on dark styles, they just hurt my eyes. so I didn't look around much, sorry