CSS || images || 800x600+ || NS4+ / IE4+
2003-06-12 - anifish

first impressions
older.html: Bright blue background, everything centred. Pink header pic featuring text about fish. Five images under that, supposed to be navigation, but two are coded wrong and one wouldn't load. Archives centred below that.
entries: Match archives layout, pretty much. I'm starting with 030525_7.html

general aesthetics
The font seems to be Verdana (or maybe it's just using my default) at about 13px. A good size, and the black text is legible on the blue background. However, the text spans almost the full width of the screen and in 1024x768 that's a very long line. Bad For The Eyes if you know what I mean.
-2.5 points

layout
Much the same as the archives page except the text is left-aligned, there are text links for navigation as well as the image links, and while I got fed up waiting for all the images (.bmp files) to load and hit Esc, all the links seem to work this time. But that almost-full-screen-line-width is nasty.
0 points

user-friendliness
Good: cursors, hover and scrollbar are the same as my defaults. On the other hand, those slow-loading images drag everything down.
0 points

navigation
Very basic and straight-forward: archives/current/email/notes across the top and notes, previous and next at the bottom. Quite okay, except that visited links are black (same as text).
0 points

continuity
Fairly regular updates.
0 points

comprehension
Punctuation is a little misguided but grammar is good. Spelling is mostly fine. Altogether coherent (though the "off of"s are getting up my nose).
2.5 points

content
I had a little difficulty getting into it (most likely because I started with an entry that mentioned Church stuff, and I'm an atheist, and I tend to run away whenever anyone says "church") but now it's good. Her style is clear and her sense of humour agrees with me. Descriptive without being verbose - not only do I feel like I'm getting to know her, I feel like I'm getting to know her friends, too. Good stuff. :)

While buying a watch at Wal*Mart, I try to pick one that looks like I got it from Wal*Mart. That way I avoid the situation in which one of my friends will ask me what happened to my nice watch, and I have to lie to hide the fact that what looked like a nice watch had actually turned black and/or green after a week. I buy the cheap-o watches.
My Style, My Story, and Good Eats

LDS mothers usually would ask, "How's her testimony? Is she active in the church?" and other such things. What did she ask? "Can she cook?" Elder King had heard the legend of Megan's talent (and lack thereof) in the kitchen. He laughed at his mom when she asked him. Megan has many talents. Singing and cooking are not among them, bless her heart.
Weird Steve and Sugar Ray

2.5 points
5 bonus points

contact
Email.
2.5 points

link back
Yes and no. On the reviews page, which is reached via the extras page, which is the "cast your net" graphic link. It links to her original review here (before my time).
2.5 points

extras
imood in the template.
2.5 points

my comments

Your fishy .bmp files should be .gif files. The image for the link back to diaryland doesn't load. Your line width is hell on my eyes. It's a shame your layout isn't better because your writing is good - engaging and easy to follow. Consider cleaning up your layout. And 5 bonus points for not scaring me when you talk about Church stuff. ;)

Archive structure is poor - everything going back to April 9 is on the one page.

scores
Total negative points: -2.5
Total positive points: 12.5
Number of neutral scores: 4
Final score: 60/100 plus 10 bonus points

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