Review my sit please

[vppremier]

tell me what you think of the design www.stepinthezone.com/forum

[Calash]

The logo is ok, I think the left part where it says "Zone" and the tag line are great, but the background really does not look like it belongs. Based on the colors of the rest of the site you could easily get away with no background, or a gradient.

The rest of the layout is well done, though a bit unfamiliar to a new visitor. Being use to the standard vB layout I found myself fumbling a bit before I located everything I need. The layout does have a good feel once you get the hang of is, so I would not classify that as a problem.

You do have search in 3 separate spots, you could easily reduce this to just 1 with a link to the advanced search under it. You also have some navigation repeated on both the top tabs and the side navigation bar. This is also not that bad of a thing, though you could probably utilise the space for other content.

The calender tab at the top does not work at all for me. I am running IE6.0.

Your forum icons could be tied into your logo very easily, giving the site a better flow.

Visiting your site for the first time I have no idea what it is about. I am guessing a music forum based on the first category, but a blurb at the top would be very helpful to visitors, and something extra for search engines to chew on.

You have a lot of forums, but they seem to all be well used. Just keep an eye on the activity and expand when the community needs more room.

Looks really nice so far. A bit simple in the color scheme, but that seems to be the popular thing lately

[PennylessZ28]

Is it me or in firefox does your top logo not go all the way across the screen? Liquid layouts are always tricky.

[Calash]

It's that way in both IE6 and Firefox. I assumed it was by design.

[vppremier]

Thanks for the extensive review. Yes, it's a music forum, remixing based. I think your right, I'll add something to the banner to let them know what the forum is about.

It wasn't really, I just couldn't figure out how to extend it. This is because in this template there is a file that's supposed to be in the top left, where the whitespace currently is. If I remove the reference to the file the layout of the forums change for some reason. So I can't extend it all the way.

Your forum icons could be tied into your logo very easily, giving the site a better flow.

What do you mean by this?

[Calash]

In your logo you use the "Z" as your emphasis point. This becomes what people associate with your site, and as such you could use it in other areas to increase "Brand Recognition"

My personal preference is to try and include that point in graphics like your forum markers (forum_new.gif, ect). This way you get a continuation of the logo through out the forum..helping to stick it in peoples minds.