OSDev.org

I'm looking to improve the professionalism of my site, but need some help. I've got some basic stuff here, but I'm not entirely sure where to go from there. Compared to my current home page I like that one a bit better, but it still needs a lot of improvement. Unlike my current home page, however, that one is iPhone compatible!

P.S. The only valid link on that page is the Forums one.

If it's professionalism you're after, I'd remove the "Vertical Ad" from your site. I'm yet to see a commercial site that is sponsored by ads. I think the theory is that if you sell enough product, you don't need the ads. If you're not selling anything, then it's not a commercial site.

I think the header looks pretty cool, I like the colours of it. The only thing I would do with that, is if you had a logo of some kind (like a larger version of that favicon), place it up near the text "Fawkes Software", between the text and the left-hand border of the page (perhaps moving the text to the right a bit to compensate). A common feature of websites is a logo that always links back to the root of the site.

The fonts and colours used in the main part of the page are also nice, I like those a lot. I'm not sure about the textured background though. That might look better with more text boxes covering it. It's just a bit overwhelming at the moment I feel.

The only thing I could notice apart from that was that the right-hand border of the text box was cut off in IE7. Screenshot attached.

Well, I don't sell anything yet. I'm saving up until I can get an iPhone development licence ($99USD) and then I'll release some stuff. I do have a logo, but it's still in the 'tweak until I like it' phase, and I don't want to show it quite yet (My real site does have a larger version of the Favicon). I do hope that the textured background will eventually be a little less visible due to text boxes and whatnot. It's strange that I didn't notice that thing in IE7 when I was editing it locally...

Edit: Fixed in IE7...

What? And why white? Why not #F0F0F0, or #EEEEEE?

berkus wrote:Non-uniform background goes to hell. Please, use solid color (and it better be white).

Gradients are also nice sometimes

berkus wrote:Non-uniform background goes to hell. Please, use solid color (and it better be white).

Non-uniform background (background images) make it extremely annoying to view a webpage under Terminal Services over a slow connection.

Well, I generally hope that no actual text goes on the 'dirty white clouds.' I plan on covering them up mostly with text boxes and other stuff, and they're there to break up the monotony. For example, on my actual site (of which this is a revised version of) you can't really see the brushed metal-ish background because it's mostly covered up by the actual content, which use a solid background.

It is an improvement over my current site though, right? Perhaps I should implement the theme there and see how it looks in the 'wild' for a bit?

Edit: I guess there are some problems with the non-uniform background, but considering that it will mostly be covered up, would that help?

I tried removing the background, tell me if it's truly any better. I think what I need is some sort of product info area just above the 'news.' Too bad I don't have any products yet...