I'm looking for someone with access to as wide a range of internet
browsers as possible, to report back to me how the main page of a site
I am developing is displaying, and to tell me the main points
regarding what doesn't appear to work / looks bad.

Site has been developed so far using IE6, for a minimum resolution of
800 x 600.

How does it look in IE4, IE5, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, on a Mac, etc.

I'm not looking for a highly technical SEO analysis, just a brief
overview of what I should be attending to in order to try and avoid
alienating viewers using different hardware / software. I just need
you to appraise the main page, index.shtml, not any of the secondary
pages.

Does the loading time seem acceptable; what is your initial impression
upon landing on the page from a user's perspective?

Thanks. I'll be near my computer for the next 2 hours at least, for
the purposes of clarification if needed.

Tell me the worst - I have a thick skin ;-)

http://www.ormskirkplumbing.co.uk/index.shtml

---

Clarification of Question by gan-ga on 11 Feb 2003 13:10 PST

Sorry, didn't state explicitly above - I'd like information relating
to display at a range of screen sizes including and above 800 x 600.

---

Request for Question Clarification by bcguide-ga on 11 Feb 2003 13:26 PST

Hi,

There's a better way. I'm not posting this as an answer, but if you
want me to I will.

There are tons of resources available for free to web designers
check http://www.anybrowser.com/ for screen size compatibility and
more - that's just one of many.

...and you won't have to wait for hours.

Have fun... 

search test browser compatibility

bcguide-ga

---

Clarification of Question by gan-ga on 11 Feb 2003 13:33 PST

Hi bcguide, thanks for that information :-)

What I'm looking for though, is really, the opinion of a live person -
someone who has a few different browsers installed, maybe they have a
Mac as well as a PC. Just someone to take a quick peek & say, yes,
that feature works, but no, that other feature doesn't look good in
Netscape - kind of thing.

Thanks for taking an interest :-)

---

Clarification of Question by gan-ga on 11 Feb 2003 13:40 PST

Just better say, there is a small counter on the page - looks like a
blue tennis ball. The service is normally excellent, but as luck would
have it, it's causing a slight delay right now. That's why the page
loads most of itself & then hangs for a while. I might go disable it
quickly.

Whoa,

Just looked at your site in Netscape 4.7 ... decided to post the
answer.

All of your pretty pipes and java aps are over on the left hand side.
Did you check to see if the Java scripts you are using work on
anything but Explorer... most are not cross browser compatible.

http://www.chiff.com/google-ga.jpg - here's a screenshot

It lookes great in Explorer at any resolution, but anyone using
Netscape is not going to be able to make sense of the site,

Sorry.

Do the search for tools to check compatibility. It's the only sane way
to do this... and be very careful with java. Even some Explorer users
have it disabled.

One more comment - well, two. You have a lot of scroll beneath the end
of the text and the end of the page. Unless you planned it that way -
take the dead space out. Ideally, your first page shouldn't need any
scrolling. You have a little, but it's ok. With the blank space it
makes you scroll and there's nothing there until the virus software(?)
link.

The text:
Installation:
• taps, sinks, toilets
• water heaters
• waste disposal units
• whole house repipe (water, gas, drain)
• kitchen & bath remodel

Service & Repair:
• all plumbing fixture makes & models
• water line replacements & repairs
• frost damage
• leak detection
could be a little larger.

Sorry for the bad news...
bcguide-ga

Thanks bcguide, bad news was essentially what I was looking for :) -
Given me some good pointers there. Thank you for pointing me in the
right direction.

My screen is set to 1024 pixels in width. With IE 6 and with Mozilla
1.2.1 (the engine inside the current Netscape versions), I get a
pronounced horizontal scrollbar even with the browser windows opened
up to full screen (and I do not ordinarily open my browser windows up
that wide). But there isn't actually any content out there ... just a
length of pipe at the top.

Something on that page is taking a very long time to load. I'm on the
US West Coast with a high speed DSL connection.

In Mozilla I do not see anything inside the loop of pipe, nor does
anything happen when I "push the lever". IE6 shows "Installation" and
"Service and repair" links there.

Even if that worked universally, would someone using a text browser,
including a person with impaired vision using a browser that converts
printed text to audio, be able to navigate those links? I don't think
so.

I think it may be wise to avoid the fancy Web page design stuff,
JavaScript and the like, just because you know how to do them. Unless
you have a need for advanced techniques, why risk having your business
Web site keep customers away or prevent them from learning everything
they want to learn? The Web is full of solutions looking desperately
for problems to solve, but most sites don't need them.

Below your paragraph there are huge blocks of vertical black space. I
think most people will never find your page's content way down there
at the bottom.

Your text contains many instances of the phrase "click here". See the
following resource at the Web site of the W3C on that subject:
 http://www.w3.org/2001/06tips/noClickHere

Thanks for your comments highroute - it looks like the majority of my
visitors are using some variant of Windows / IE, but yes regarding the
point you made about text & audio browsers, that's going to receive
some attention ;-)

Thanks for alerting me to the 'click here' issue - was completely
unaware of that.

bcguide - thanks for the Netscape 4.7 screenshot; I fell about laughing.

I *was* a little worried about what would happen outside IE6 with the CSS!

I'm using IE 5.50 and the site looks fine in my browser with the
exception of the issues noted above.  I do have a few design
suggestions for you though.  Just so you know, I've designed several
websites for companies (one national) and the overriding theme has
always been "keep it simple and clean."

First impression of your site:  The pipes are really clever.

Second impression of your site:  In addition to the above comments
(with which I agree), I would change the font for "Ormskirk Plumbing."
 It's very blocky and the letters look too fat.  I noticed you have a
different logo on your van.  Perhaps it would be a good idea to scan
that logo in and use it instead.  This will help keep your company
"branded," and I'm sure you paid something for the logo in the first
place, so it makes sense to use it here.  Also, anyone who may have
seen your vans around town will recognize the logo on your website.

Also, the picture of the van looks like it was taken at night.  I
guess it fits in well with the background color (which is a whole
other discussion - I'm not a real big fan of white lettering on a
black background for a commercial site), but I can't see your logo on
the van very well, or the van itself for that matter.

The lever is very clever.  Perhaps a bit too clever.  I mean, it's
always cool to have a neat gizmo like that on your website, and web
designers and programmers are always very proud of them.  But do you
need it?  Does it detract from the site?  My answer is "no" and "yes."
 First, I didn't even notice it on my first viewing, and I was looking
deeply at the site - a lot deeper than the casual surfer.  You run the
risk of having some very important content missed because a viewer
didn't notice the neat gizmo hiding there.  Second, in keeping with
the directive to keep it clean and simple, the lever just adds an
unnecessary layer, which is detracting from the content.

An editing note:  You have an apostrophe before the word “phone” in
the second to last line of the first paragraph.

OK…I’m through bashing your site! :-)  

Really not a bad site at all.  Just a few things to fix is all.  I
wish you success with your website and with your business.  If I’m
ever in the UK and have a plumbing emergency, I know who to call!

- ddelphi

Dear Gan,

One group of users you may care to consider is those using BT's
internet-access telephone kiosks (in the UK); there are two sorts of
these.

The older variety, known as Multi.phone, were installed first and only
at comparatively few sites, such as major transport interchanges:

http://www.payphones.bt.com/2001/multimedia/multiphone.html

The newer sort, BT Internet kiosks, are now being installed more
generally around the country:

http://www.payphones.bt.com/2001/multimedia/internet/kiosk.html

I don't know what the browser is on the older sort, but it is
certainly non-standard and fails to render many web sites (including
even Google Answers) correctly.  But its attempt at your site is
particularly unhelpful: it makes a complete mess of the pipework and
also fails to display (at least in any readable form) both your main
title and most of the text of the page.  Since the browser won't let
me open more than one window, I cannot open Google Answers at the same
time and so cannot conveniently describe the result any more
accurately here.  But you may well wish to take a look at the
rendering yourself if you wish to attract custom from potential
customers without home internet access.

I haven't tried the newer sort of kiosk.

I hope this helps.

Carnegie

Hello:

Using IE 6.0, screen resolution 1024 x 768.

You might want to run your page through www.netmechanic.com.

You have a few broken links.  The page is a little on the 'heavy'
side, but not annoying slow to load.

Looks fine to me.  However, if you set the text to large, it goes
outside of the pipes (pretty clear your intent was to keep the text
'within' the pipes.

Installation: 
• taps, sinks, toilets 
• water heaters
<snip>

Lots of 'dead' space on the bottom of your page.  Unless there is a
specific reason for it, I would recommend you remove it (it'll lighten
the page a little).

Also, I would rethink having your text run the entire width of the
page.  It's a little easier to read when its not so side.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck to you.

Your site looks very good.  You already have plenty of comments in
which to seek advice.

On the site, I like that you give the user enough information on your
first page.  If it was any more than that, I would definitely not want
to read it!

Photographs are always great, they give you a look and feel.  The van
definitely represents your company.  Maybe you want to add a picture
of a plumbing job that is worth showing?

Good choice of colors on the black-colored background.

Here comes some suggestions..

Yes-- you do want to attract visitors to your site which they will say
WOW!, but since this is a business site you really want to keep it
simple and straight to the point by avoiding a site design which is
too complex.

The lever might be a bit confusing to visitors who arent very good
with computers -- just a little hard to see and a different style of
doing something.  Instead, you might want to consider having a
scrolling banner where the user will get all that content without
hitting a lever (Also it will attract the eye!).  There are many good
JavaScript applications at www.dynamicdrive.com.  They will tell you
if they are cross-browser complaint.

Your source code is very hard to read, infact it looks like it was
generated.  You might want to position elements in a table rather than
dynamically.

I also noticed that there are several pipe images surrouding the
title.  Using CSS, you can set one of the image's width to 100% (<img
style="width: 100%" .. >) therefore the user's browser can be any size
and it would be adjusted automatically.  (This would only work in a
table because your image would span across the entire browser
otherwise).

You really need to avoid dynamic positioning of elements because it's
going to be more work than you need to be all browser compliant. 
Although this might seem easier (if you are using a web development
tool), it will make your website much cleaner, smaller, and easier to
handle.

Great site! Best of luck,

br :)

Here's my contribution. I viewed it with images off and couldn't read
the telephone number on the home page nor on his business card.
answerfinder-ga

Just like to thank everyone who has taken the time to comment -
appreciated. I have plenty to be getting on with!

Why do you have
1. underlined blue text
2. underlined blue text with [] round it
3. grey text with [] round it
as links? A link is a link is a link is a link and should be the same
colour and style throughout the site.

I checked the site using W3C validator and it validated as correct
HTML4 transitional. That's the good bit.

The "Check if you're in my area - view my" text in grey on a white
background is almost invisible, so however you did it is incompatible
with a user selecting a user style sheet.

On your map page you have a map with no proper ALT text and two links
labelled "click here". They don't go to the same target, so they
shouldn't have the same text. Some browsers - Opera included - can
present links out of context, which is very useful when skimming
through a page. "click here" should be avoided on websites as it
excludes people who do not or cannot use mice or similar navigation
systems. Links are obvious to all but the most experienced of Web
users, and telling users "click here" assumes they know nothing about
how their
browser works. It's superfluous and condescending. Not everyone has
sufficient manual dexterity to use a mouse. Not everyone can or will
be using a visual screen. The web was designed to be accessible
regardless of the technology used.

The Service Area text list should be better linked, it should be set
in correct case, and probably ordered in some logical way.

You also need to bear in mind that people may be browsing with
scripting disabled, either through compatability or security issues or
because scripting does not work well with screen readers.

You should really give the site a thorough check for accessibility.
There are hints at
http://www.rnib.org.uk/digital/hints.htm
with useful links therefrom. Bear in mind in the UK the Disability
Discrimination Act does apply to websites.

Owain

Thanks Owain. Appreciated your inputs.
At some point I will be testing with 'unplugged mouse & switched off
graphics' - lot of work to do yet though :)

Hi, I just wanted to add some comments:

First, I guess you've done some "repairs" as my Netscape 4.7 doesn't
look anything like the screen shot lsited above.

Now the comments:
The pipes are "seated" correctly. 

The lever works, but even though I was expecting it to be there, it
didn't sink in immediately that there even was a lever, let alone that
it works. (On a side note, due to what I believe is an error in
Netscape, when the lever is clicked, the cursor doens't stop being an
hourglass until moved away from the lever.)

Defineately try to get the van logo for your heading.

While the colour you've chosen for hyperlinks does stand out, it is
non-standard (especially since they aren'y underlined) and this could
caus eproblems with anything trying to interpret the page (like speech
recognition software or text to speech converters.) Also, the headings
above your bullet list shouldn't be the same as the links when they
aren't links. That can add confusion. Links are supposed to be
underlined, and blue, and I would recommend sticking with that.

While everything seemed to be working, Netscape was reporting a
javascript error when your page first finished loading. I didn't see
that again after clicking on the lever. Sometimes Netscape does that
to indicate something as simple as a missing or extra semicolcon, or
other minor things it doens't like.

Your map page-
I love the way the map fades into the black at the edges. I would,
however, have either a little map of England next to it with a box
indicating what we're looking at, or something along those lines, to
put the map into reference. Of course, since I'm in Canada, not
England, that may be simply my problem for not really being 100% sure
where Ormskirk and Lancashire are. Be prepared for visitors from all
over the world though, and you don't want to waste there time if they
don't realize they're not looking at a site close to home.

The counter was still taking quite a long time to load. Perhaps you
should check out http://www.sitemeter.com instead?

Also, there was a lot of space to scroll down and then find nothing
but the little box for the counter.

Main page again-
You still have an apostrophe before phone.

All the info below your name, needs to be cleaned up a bit. You have a
little envelope that links to a javascript "tell_friend" but without
clicking, or pointing at it and reading the alt-text, it's not clear
what the envelope is for.

Also, the lines of links and information don't flow well to the
reader. There needs to be some sort of dividers between links, and
maybe brighten it up a bit, or make it larger. I have a feeling a lot
of people aren't going to read the areas.

You have some interesting ideas on the site. You need to have a
copyright notice, and since you have at least one area that collects
email addresses (the tell a friend thing) you need to have a privay
policy. Check out http://truste.org for a good sample (you can see my
versions of it at http://ww.compusmartvan.com and
http://www.discountgifts.ca as well.) Also http://www.p3ptoolbox.org
has some interesting info about making your website compatible with
personal privacy protection tools.

You have a couple of links that pop-open new windows. That's not good
unless you give some warning.

On your contact card,  it sounds like it's supposed to print
automatically, but didn't. Beside your name is a little blue blob that
when clicked opened up a stats4all page for your home page. For some
reason, it wasn't showing any traffic before today. Really disturbing
was the list of IP addresses of your visitors. There was mine at the
top. And that's another reason why you need a privacy policy, so
people know you're collecting IP addresses. The collecting them isn't
all that bad, but the displaying them is.

The contact card says: "Card available to UK visitors 8am - 10pm

 24 hour service " Which I didn't really understand. How can the card
only be available to UK visitors, and only at certain hours?


I did a couple of quick checks:

without images, the main page looks fine and makes sense. None of the
images actually showed ALT-text until I hovered over them, but theree
was a Title across the title area that was separate from the ALT tag
for the title graphic.

It sure looked funny seeing an image placeholder icon scrolling left
to right where your flame thing is.!

With javascript off, you have a white background. There is a vertical
pipe going down the entire left habd side, which makes some of the
text difficult to read. Every image is stakced up somewhere along the
left edge of the screen. You might consider using tables to display
your images instead of javascript/CSS. Unfortuneatly these days, with
the security problems, and innundating waves of pop-ups, pop-unders,
interstitials, and obtrusive over the text ads, as well as animated
and sound banners, a lot of people browse with javascript off.

Thanks sparky4ca-ga - your time appreciated. Some very notable points
there which I'll be attending to!