Reader Blog Critique : HomeDesignFind.com
Welcome to the 10th Reader Blog Critique. Last weeks critique of Carl Ocab had some great feedback from Hussein, Desk Coder, B. Durant, Rarst and Nicole.
This weeks review is on Home Design Find, a magazine style blog which focuses on home design products and ideas.
Here are the questions the owner Yaw would like to ask you all about the blog :
- What do you like and dislike about the design or layout of the site?
- Content promotion ideas?
- What do you like and dislike about the content?
- Any ideas for social media success?
In addition I welcome commenters to talk about the blogs content and design and any suggestions you have for promoting the blog.
The most helpful and constructive commenter will get $10. Alternatively, if you prefer, I can register a domain for you at eNom and push it to your account 
Yaw will decide who the best commenter was.
As usual, I remind everyone that positive or negative, all feedback should be constructive.
If you have any questions about any of this please let me know in this thread
Blog to be Reviewed : Home Design Find
Written by Kevin Muldoon from Blog Themes ClubPosted on October 29th, 2008 and filed under Reader Blog Critique
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10 Responses to “Reader Blog Critique : HomeDesignFind.com”
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Hi Kevin,
What does one have to do to get themselves critiqued in this manner?
I really like the colours used in the logo and the layout of the site, looks very professional and the items pinned to the top of the site really add interest to the design.
Thanks for the kind comments Logo Design Online!
Danny – I’ve added your blog to the submission list
New one for me, fresh impressions.
First impression – design is awesome. It’s best possible usage for WP – very original theme that uses well-done header and very advanced layout options (view switcher) while retaining usual design elements.
1. Some minor validation errors http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.homedesignfind.com/
Few more that w3c can’t catch – mostly for missing space before slashes closing tags.
2. RSS links blend in too well. Could use bit more color or some house/furniture metaphor. RSS is more recognizable by color than by form so if color blends it becomes hard to spot.
3. Text in forms (search, subscribe) is not properly centered in Opera.
4. Right part of header feels like it’s missing bit of interactivity. Maybe some decor items appearing on table and chair on rollover and linking to relevant tags?
5. About and contact pages are to the point (which is good) but small enough that maybe better combined. It also could use plain email address.
6. View switcher could use bit of graphic to display layouts so you know what you are getting before clicking.
7. I don’t like uppercase on tags.
8. “Send your tips here …” here is crappy for a link. Rephrase it to something like “Feel free to send us your tips” and make whole phrase a link.
9. I don’t like bit of plaster or whatever that is on top of sidebar blocks. Ruins top border look.
10. Advertisement page could use some numbers and graphs.
11. Recommended look like paid links. Are they? Maybe rephrase “recommended” if that’s case. If not make links more tidy and descriptive.
12. I don’t like categories blog. It’s not very focused – hide categories that only have 1-5 posts. Maybe separate categories that are kinda parts of home from those that are news and such.
13. Using a lot of images downscaled via HTML. Makes index page heavy and looks like crap in Internet Explorer. Resize them manually for best results.
14. Recent posts makes no sense. It has less posts than page itself and by the time visitor reaches footer he probably has no use for it.
15. Don’t think link on copyright is needed.
16. Lose login link.
17. Theme could use fancy name.
18. Boring 404 page.
Overall I am nitpicking for small details here. Awesome blog, very focused design and good content.
PS I am very crappy at promotion
so no comments on that from me
I can’t think of anything really negative to say about this site, but I do have a few suggestions.
The color palette is stunning, and the overall design is elegant and appropriate for the subject matter. However, the use of the dark hairline to separate posts and outline boxes doesn’t jibe with the feel of the site. Instead, try using a thicker line in a subtle light blue. Also, you might want to adjust the shade of your tinted boxes to make them less stark. Try dropping the borders on these boxes or switch to one just slightly darker than the box background shade.
Don’t EVER justify text on the Web! It never looks good and serves no purpose. Justification is especially horrendous in narrow columns, as in your Post Info section, because it creates unsightly gaps and rivers of whitespace. In your posts, tighten up the word spacing to make reading smoother.
The heads and links on the sidebar sections are easy o read, but the heads are the same color as the links. That’s confusing, especially since your links are only underlined in hover mode (my link format preference). Have you tried a dark blue for the heads? Maybe the background color would stand out enough against the sidebar background color. Or, you could use light teal for all your links and various shades of the steel blue for the rest of your text. I personally prefer even general text to be tinted to match the color palette of the site. Instead of #333333 (dark grey), your text could be #003333 (dark blue-grey).
Usually I dislike large graphic headers, but in this case it sets the tone for the site and establishes the color palette. The slogan (Home Design from Conception to Reality) may be slightly misleading, as it appears the site is selling interior design services. However, the prominent “About” box clarifies the concept and purpose of the site.
I LOVE the choice of views for the posts! The full view is great for regular readers, while the list offers an easy way to browse the posts. Wasn’t sure how useful the grid view was, but ended up clicking a few interesting photos, so it does serve a purpose.
The sponsor section is highly visible, but not intrusive. However, I would keep the number at four, six at the most. I prefer having the categories listed before the recommended posts, but that’s probably just a personal thing.
I like blogs that list post groups (best, recent, recommended, etc.) in the footer, and you’ve done that nicely. If you’re not getting enough subscriptions, you might think about moving your Subscribe section to the sidebar and the Recommended section to the footer.
Your posts are graphic-heavy, but all the images are not only relevant, but add to the meaning of the text, and in most cases are necessary. The photos are sharp and clear, and load quickly. However, the borders are inconsistent. You might want to experiment with subtle css drop-shadow borders. It bugged me a little that most of the photos were just slightly narrower than the line-length of the posts.
The only place I can find fault is with the writing. If you want the content to be a professional as the design, you should hire a copyeditor. Sentence structure tends to be awkward in some places (i.e., “This week, website wise, why not have a little flick through the pages of http://www.tumidei.it .”) Punctuation is inconsistent or incorrect in some cases. For instance, a serial comma (before the “and” in a series) is used in some places and not in others. The possessive “its” is confused with the contraction “it’s.” Also, remember that periods and commas ALWAYS go inside quotation marks, and hyphens are not bad. (“under the bed table” should be “under-the-bed table”)
I know all of this is nit-picking, but I like this site so much I want it to be perfect! Great job!
Wow! I really like your layout and It is really nice. I also love the colors. You are very creative and your site looks professional. Keep up the goodwork.
Well first of all the header section does convey the message of what the blog is about, but there are number of images in the collage simply give a confused clook, also it is very large in size, thus making very less content visible in the first scroll.
The colors used in the blog are gorgeous and definitely makes the content readable. The content is good too and often many home users will find valuable information on the blog.
Social networking tools are a bit invisible on the blog and some small icons would do good rather than using sharethis, but the icons should be only for important networks.
The size of the header is killing me. Remember that now days very few people run a “clean” web browser. By that I mean we all have a ton of toolbars at the top and tabs and whatever else so it causes things to get pushed down even further than they would normally be on your page. Just something to think about.