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Not Quite Petite (V. 2) has 3 Reviews

Below are the reviews left by other members on Not Quite Petite (V. 2). Jump to review form?

1. 

   Vera gave it on 25th Oct 2009 and said:

   As requested, here I am to review your site. I nitpick a lot, so prepare yourself *manic grin* AHEM, so.

   = First Impression =
   --------------------------------------------------------
   It's not bad, but looks too "chopped up".

   = Presentation =
   --------------------------------------------------------
   One of the things I like in a design (as a general rule) is for it to be able to look as a whole, however on the other hand It should also have the various sections defined (i.e. header, navigation main content, sidebar etc).

   Yours looks as if you had made a collage of differently sized cardboard shapes and stuck them together. Granted, it's by no means ugly. When it comes to design, it seems to me that you stopped your plan when you found the suitable images. You need keep going, and think about how you can best make them all fit together.

   Your site title is well positioned, however the font style you used is rather ugly (or you're using a very bad quality image for it). I'd suggest using Trebuchet or Georgia. They're nice round fonts, which can have thick shapes, and look pleasant enough.

   To be fair, the more I look, the less I am bothered by the fact that your sidebar just "floats" there, seemingly as an afterthought. True, I prefer having everything inside the same box (well visually speaking, not technically), but then you've spaced out the text quite nicely, so it's not such a big problem.

   Your breadcrumbs, however are somewhat hard to make out. Thankfully, you chose a sensibly "faded" background, so my eyes are not actually drawn to the stripes themselves. Nevertheless, they are quite distracting as a background for some text. put this inside the light beige content box as well. Similarly, the pagination really bothers me, as it's just floating around at the bottom of the content area. It's either me, whose obsessive compulsive about designs looking as a whole, or you seem to be hell bent on making sure that your design looks chopped up.

   Your footer image comes as somewhat of a shock to me. It's... there, looks nice (quite nicer than the header image, actually), but it has absolutely no place there. Personally, I think your design would have been fine without a footer image. If you really MUST have one though, I'd suggest you use the bottom part of the original picture of the header image. That way, at least you have some continuity.

   Do change the link color in the footer, it's very hard to read. Use the same color, as you use in the rest of the content.

   Your main navigation looks fine, for the most part, but the current link needs to be better emphasized. Merely bolding it, is not enough. Change the box's background as well. Also, since you seem to have a color for hover upon links, use one for the main navigation as well. Or at least underline them, on hover.

   I notice that you have the bad habit of using the link color for text that is not link, as well. For example, you use #6F4792, for both links and headings. If a heading is a link, then it's fine to use that color, however otherwise just stick to the regular gray one (#3F4044). After all, you style the font weight and size of the headings, so there's no chance of them being ignored.

   All in all, I wouldn't say there is anything criminally WRONG with your design. It's just rather outdated. I remember having used a style like this sometime in 2005, for my own site. And I'm one of the least original people when it comes to designs. Browse around of smashingmagazine.com's articles. They have a lot on showcasing new and interesting ones. Arguably, one should not follow but innovate... but eh. :P

   = Content =
   --------------------------------------------------------

   -Home-
   As a rule, I tend to stay away from reviewing blog content. Being an incredibly fickle and all around bored person, it's a given that I'll insult people if I review their "daily goings". So I'll focus instead, on your sidebar.

   As far as letter spacing, font-size and padding goes, it looks well enough. As far as content goes... you need to review your definition of "brief summary". First of all, most visitors don't read. They stare at the pretty pictures, the blinking banners and maybe read some of the large fancy text. Second of all, there's no need to state the obvious. In other words, the entire second paragraph is useless. I'd suggest putting the link to your feed in the footer. Oh I see you have it there already. Alternately, you could have a link to it near the link to the comments, if you think it's not visible enough down there.

   Your first paragraph could be sized down a bit as well. There's no need to include absolutely EVERYTHING in there. A broad summary will do just fine.
   Here is a link of some sites, who have suitable short and well phrased introductions:
   http://www.jemjabella.co.uk/
   http://hannah.nu/
   http://www.jackygilbertson.ca/
   http://icupcake.org/

   A brief glance over at your blog entries, finds me looking at the "theta" character. Why did you choose to separate the date from the time, using that particular symbol? Is there a special meaning to it, or did you just look for a character nobody used? Doing things different to others, can be a good thing, but it also needs to have some sort of reason.

   Your area for search... takes up 3 whole lines... and each of these lines tells visitors to search at least once. I think that doing it just once is more than enough. In other words, have the textbox (input of type text) and the submit button. The rest can go. If you want to make them more visible, you can increase their height and possibly thicken their borders. Otherwise, they look just fine as they are.

   -About-
   The green link in the breadcrumbs is illegible. If comments are closed, you might as well take out the code for them entirely.

   Yours writing style is nice and easy to read, though I'd personally try to alternate the way you construct sentences. In some places, due to the fact that most of your sentences are made up of "I like...", "I think...", "I do..." etc, it feels as if you're writing a list. The images add a nice touch, but they look a bit oddly placed, centered like that. I suggest you align them to the left and right alternately (eg: first aligned to the left, second to the right, third to the left etc). While not a requirement, you might want to try and make them roughly the same size. It'll give this page a tidier look.
   And what's with the Page 1 of 0 at the bottom? Take out the pagination code from page.php (in the wordpress theme).

   In clothing the sizes usually run that 5'3? and under are listed as petite, 5'4? and over are regular sizes (I have no idea what tall is considered, I will never have that issue :P).

   That's one incredibly long and awkwardly phrase sentence. How about?

   Clothing sizes of 5'3'' and under, are considered petite, while 5'4'' and over regular. I have no idea what is considered tall, then again I'll never have that issue :P.

   I see that this page (about the site) has an open comment form. Why should people comment here? Isn't this a page where you present your site?

   But no matter how much I loved a good story, I found it quite difficult to do myself.

   I believe "do myself" should be "write one myself".

   Oh your previous layouts are not bad, and for the most part it shows that you've progressed a lot. My personal favorite is version 4 (with a bit more padding for the links).

   Not to sure why the archive is in the about section. It would be better placed on the sidebar, in the home section. Plus people are more likely to need filtering options in the middle of browsing, rather than after finishing looking through the home page.

   -Writing -
   Your fiction section looks interesting, but all that extra writing is putting me off. See, if I decide to read a novel/short story/fanfiction then I prepare myself that there will be a lot to read. But when I just want to see all that you offer, having tons of text there just intimidates me and makes me want to turn back.

   Don't get me wrong, I love reading a lot, but I have incredibly small attention span when it comes to presentations. Plus all that text feels as if it should be read if I want to proceed "correctly".
   Another problem I see with having so much presentational written stuff (i.e. introduction to the stories) is that the links to your stories get lost among all that.

   First of all, ditch the first paragraph of presentation. Or in any case, put it in a different page (in the about section). Second of all, shorten the summaries for your stories. Have no more than 2-3 phrases which give a brief insight to what one might be reading about.

   Also, I'd close the commenting form on the fiction page, and just leave it on the page for individual chapters of individual stories.

   I randomly chose to read a story, namely the prologue of Survivor. I LOVE this writing style. You're very very talented. I'll definitely be back to read more of these.

   Moving on to Essays, I once again randomly chose an essay to read: Point of view as a tool. It covers an interesting topic, but I quite dislike the way you started it. Instead of diving headfirst into arguments, I would've chosen to emphasize more how the point of view can influence the reader. Similarly, I would've chosen to phrase some of your sentences differently. For example:

   There is a limited focus with first person point of view; the reader is essentially looking over the shoulder of the person telling the story.

   This is the opening phrase of the section that talks about the first person narrative point of view. The way you start it, however, makes me feel as if I'd walked in on an ongoing conversation. How about something like:

   One of the most popular points of view, is the first person narrative. With the author doing the talking using the first person, the reader is...

   As said before, I'm incredibly lazy, and didn't read the introduction on the essay page. If these were things written for school, which you had been graded well... I'm not a teacher, and my attention span is jumping all over the place. Still, in case you'd want a second opinion.

   I wanted to review one of your... reviews, but then I've been led to another site. You should mention that the links here lead to a different site. It will confuse visitors less. Oh and, since I'm waaaaaaaay overdue reviewing you, I'll use this as an excuse to skip this part.

   More
   Your quotes belong to the About page I believe. Incidentally, maybe you could use a script to have some random quite displayed in the sidebar or as a sub-header text on your header. You know like a subtitle, if you like these so much.

   Technically... all these links could be placed in the about section. I've clicked through these and they look alright... well aside the fact that I don't think these need a commenting form.
   Oh I just noticed, there's something odd going on with your comment form. You have the list of smileys twice. I'm assuming that's because you put the code for the plug-in twice? Delete the second one.

   Contact
   Not too sure why you would need a separate main section for this. I believe this belongs in the about section as well.

   = Coding =
   -------------------------------------
   The XHTML and CSS are nice clean and well indented... but they seem to be mostly credit to Melissa.

   Score: 3/5

   I took an insane amount of time to finish this review... mostly because I didn't really know what to make of it. On the one hand, some things bored me, on the other hand I kept finding excuses to not finish it. I had started your review, shortly after I answered your message here, in case you were wondering.

   Personally, I'm an avid advocate of doing everything yourself, but... sometimes maybe using a template is not that bad. OK, granted I'd give you a lower score if I were reviewing you. But eh, only by 1 star (if the rest were OK). :P

   All in all, I have the impression that you love to write. And you're good at writing. Unfortunately, you're not that well versed every kind of writing you use on your site. Your essays and fictions are much better written than your pages in the about section.

   I believe, your website would be so much better if you oriented it more to present your writing. One of the sites I really really like from an organizational point of view, is the one belonging to the writer Marian Keyes: http://archive.mariankeyes.com/
   So the layout's not that interesting, but the information is organized very well. Most places have shorter written stuff, which the longer pieces are mostly the autobiography and book excerpts. And keep in mind, that most people who visit her, like to read (her books are generally very thick).

   So you have great potential, but you need to organize your stuff better.

   I know this review is incredibly disjointed, and somehow all over the place... but if I don't submit this, you'll probably never get this review T.T

   P.S. I noticed that you did a few changes here and there since I started the review, which are good. But I'm such a lazy person that I can't really be arsed to go through it all again :P
   I like your picture in the sidebar, but I'd lower its size, and use a wider sidebar. The way you end up with one word/line for the text which is on its right is very unappealing and annoying to read.

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   Distant_Star's Response:

   Somehow I missed that you posted this until just now. Thank you very much for such a thorough review. I took copious notes :)

   You've made a great many suggestions that I think I'm going to take. My writing style has improved over the years, so I think some updating is due for some areas, like the About page. (On a side note, the essay you chose to read, happened to be the very first one I wrote in college -- I think I should state that somewhere.)

   I agree with your organization suggestions, and will be looking into fixing that probably first. Some of the rest of your suggestions I'm not sure how to fix quite yet, so I'll have to do some research first. (Such as taking out the pagination at the bottom if there is no second page, and taking out the comments spot if there is no comment form).

   I especially agree with your suggestion of making my writing the focus of my site. It is my passion and as it stands is in a back room of the site. I think making it more prominent will be a good thing. Coupled with organizing it so there isn't so much all at once that it gets swallowed up.

   I have my work cut out for me, and I'm going to start picking away at my list (almost 2 7"x5" pages just from your review) between school work. Hopefully if you do come back to read more, there will be some positive changes afoot.

   Thank you again!

2. xDorine gave it on 19th Oct 2009 and said:

   My first impression of your site is : Wow!Designed nicely,even though your header image's colors does not really matches your layout.Despite that,your layout is quite nice.

   Your site name is simple and sweet.But it has three words and it is very long.But I suggest you better don't change it because site names are mostly for life.

   You have twelve errors in your coding and your CSS has only one error.Some of your errors in your coding are :

   div class='footnotes'>
   The mentioned element is not allowed to appear in the context in which you've placed it; the other mentioned elements are the only ones that are both allowed there and can contain the element mentioned. This might mean that you need a containing element, or possibly that you've forgotten to close a previous element.

   One possible cause for this message is that you have attempted to put a block-level element (such as "" or "") inside an inline element (such as "", "", or "").

   …itepetite.hello-love.net/feed/" alt="subscribe" class="liinternal">feed s

   You have used the attribute named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not support that attribute for this element. This error is often caused by incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Transitional" document type to get the "target" attribute), or by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "marginheight" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).

   This error may also result if the element itself is not supported in the document type you are using, as an undefined element will have no supported attributes; in this case, see the element-undefined error message for further information.

   How to fix: check the spelling and case of the element and attribute, (Remember XHTML is all lower-case) and/or check that they are both allowed in the chosen document type, and/or use CSS instead of this attribute. If you received this error when using the element to incorporate flash media in a Web page, see the FAQ item on valid flash.
   

   You have lots of content and I guess it took you a long time to set the whole site up.I love how you describe the pages in all the main pages.At home,it is so obvious that there is where you write about your daily life.In About,I think it's very nice that you put everything about you in it like your favourite things,about your pets,and so whatever.In writings,it is great that you put different kinds of writings into different categories.I especially enjoyed Jealousy in Essays,but it was so long that I only read until here :

   Pauline’s head disappeared without comment just as footsteps were heard coming from the end of the thin hallway between the cubicles. Elizabeth looked over when she heard the footsteps stop beside her. An older man, a little heavy set and balding, named David stood with his hands in his pockets. He sneered at her and looked bored. “Mr. Warner wants to see you,” he said before leaving.

   More?What do you mean by,more?It looks like some kind of things for your visitors.If you name it extras it will be better.Actually,Contact Me should not be anything that is about talking to each other.Why not use MSN or Google Talk for that?It's truly a puzzle to me.

   I realized that you have few visitors.Why don't you make a 88x31 banner,then get advertised on some sites that have tons of hits.Who knows,you may get 200 hits a day instead of 100 hits a day!You don't have any wrong spellings on words on all the pages that i've read and great job!

   Changes To Make
   1.Change the 'More' title.
   2.Remove the footer image.
   3.Lessen your writing,or divide it into two parts.

   =============
   I apologize if I had been rude to you in any way.I can't stop my self sometimes.
   =============

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   Distant_Star's Response:

   The errors you mentioned are from plug-ins and are things that I can't change (even if I did know how to get into the depths of the code in the plug-ins and could figure out how). The CSS I can fix though, and will run it through to check for errors shortly.

   I don't think that I get anywhere near 100 hits a day (I also have no way of knowing), so maybe advertising would be a good idea. :)

   I think dividing my essays up into categories is a good idea also, and I'll defiantly do that. I'm not sure what I'll change "more" to, but I agree that it could use something a bit more catchy.

   I'm confused about your mention of Google Talk or MSN? I'm not familiar with either of these applications. In the contact me section, it's just a form to email me with, and a list of where else to find me... other ways of contacting me. How is that not relevant?

   Thanks for your review!

3. 

   Atomterrible gave it on 10th Oct 2009 and said:

   Firstly, this site is more of a tool for yourself. Web Logs basically are always that way. You do not really provide any service other than a free one which allows random people to take a look at (usually) unpublished writings.

   With the above said, let me explain my reasons for a 3.5 rating.

   Layout
   While it does not strike me as particularly intuitive, it certainly does not make it any harder to browse the site. I have seen some of those types, and I can appreciate the clarity of thought that it takes to keep everything from being cluttered. There is a good balance here of empty space when there needs to be to avoid clutter.

   Content
   There are some nice pictures in the Log posts, but the text on the banner is pixelated – low resolution in other words. I would suggest a smoother-looking banner.

   Purpose
   It is a Web Log; that is easy to tell. It certainly not a unique purpose, but it is an invaluable one.

   Text
   There is nothing special here, yet you have a gift for thinking clearly. I can tell because you write clearly. While it is not a particularly entertaining style, you are relatively short-winded, which I can highly appreciate. The spelling is well enough from the large sections I read through, but I noticed at least 4 minor errors in punctuation on the home page alone.

   Originality
   This is not a site that is cutting edge; there are tons like it, but this is not a negative thing. This site serves a wonderful purpose, and it is invaluable in the long haul. You do have other personal things of your own on the site too which adds to the "purpose" section here too. This site oozes yourself.

   Activity
   There are no apparent regulars or active guests. While you may not want to be a famous logger who interests every peruser, it does catch the eye of a reviewer to see that you have a location on the Web where people feel comfortable interacting.

   Conclusion
   Not Quite Petite has a unique, personal charm. It offers a look (which is clearer than most) into the mind of a living soul.

   Suggested Changes
   1) Change the banner text like I mentioned.
   2) Remove the bottom image or decrease its height.
   3) Migrate all of the links on "About" and "Writing" into the "More" page or maybe even change the name of that. You can then categorize them based on whether it has writing, pictures, links, or what have you. It would save space, and give a quicker idea of everything there is to see.

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   Distant_Star's Response:

   Thank you very much for your review! I'll have to read through and check on those punctuation errors (and probably some spelling too in areas)! Thanks for mentioning it, I usually read over a few times before publishing, but they always seem to sneak through. It's probably commas, I'm terrible with those.

   As far as activity, you're right, I don't really have regular visitors. I'm not entirely sure how exactly to entice more my way.Your suggested changes seem sensible, you make many valid points. I will be taking care of those things the next bit of free time I have to work on my site.

   Thanks again for your review.

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