Constructive criticism required

Not sure if this should be OT or not, as it's vaguely on topic.

I know we've got a few web savvy bods on the group so I'd like some
feedback on the site I've set up for BRC. Both on the site and on the
grammar/spelling.

It's all been done in vi or windows write using a template, so no
frontpage rubbish has been added.

You can get to it here:

http://www.lanoyeraierocamadour.com

Ta.

 

Sir might like to have a look at using http://validator.w3.org/ to
straighten out your code - having squeaky clean code will help you on
many levels - including SEO.

Pictures - good photos worth more than words in any language.

 

I appear to be have missed a memo or two.

I know we don't "do" on/off topic, but in what way is it remotely
"on"?

 

Already done that and I've seen that I've got a couple of odds and
sods to sort out. I'm more concerned about the site itself atm.

There are some pics on there already. More to come, when BRC sends
them to me.

 

BRC is a UKRM lurker nowadays and her business does have a biker
influence.

 

I have a bit of a dislike of pull-down style menus. I know it's a
bi-lingual site, but can't the menus be organized more accessibly?

Other than that, jobs a goodun.

 

I'll bear that one in mind, ta. One of the remarks I had by BRC was
that the menus weren't obvious before (I just had the flags) so I had
to add the word "menu" between the flags.

Ta

 

The pictures need to be more integrated in the pages. When describing a room
I want to see a picture of it on that page.

Like prawn I don't like the menus either. Can't you have buttons to select
the language and then links in a column for the different sections instead
of the pull-down menus.

 

I found the para on the front page difficult to scan. Plus, if you use
"the plan is" you don't need "in the future".[1] )

As others have said, the menus are a bit hidden.

I'm not sure of the Englaish *and* French menus being available. Most
other sites you select the language and the site is the same whichever
is chosen.

On the Gite page "Independant" is spelled incorrectly.

"Tarif" might be "tarif" in Frog, but it's definitely "tariff" in
English.

Some of it I found to be a bit "wordy", where list/bullet points might
be better. One example is on the Cafe page where the opening times
would be better separated out from the text, imo.

[1] One of my current bugbears is people peppering their sentences with
"going forward" - "Our plan going forward is...". Aaaaaarrrggghhh!
Lose it.

 

I think it's pretty good - though it wasn't obvious to me that the
'menu' pull down was where to go to get more information. It would be
nice if there were photos next to the text, rather than all clumped
together, especially for the room descriptions etc.

 

Okay, I'll look at this.

Oops/.

Ta for this. The English text was done by BRC, so I've pretty much cut
and pasted this into the site. I'll pass on your comments though, in
case she's not reading this.

 

Thanks.

The "menu" thing seems to be a pretty common theme, so I'll need to
work on this. Initially I'll put an explanation on the landing page
whilst I figure out ways of modding it.

 

A very good point. Thanks.

Noted

 

So lurkers can now make commercial posts by proxy, then? Cool.

If I'd wanted my screen filled with French "Biker" B&B opportunities,
I'd have logged on to Facebook.

 

Nice to see that the menus work in a text-only browser (and therefore a
screen-reader) but an invisible (in graphics mode) 'skip over this menu'
link would help a lot. Check it for yourself in lynx.

'after all' (pets page) should be two words

On bilingual page(s) suggest a <div lang="XX"> ... </div> or whatever the
correct xhtml equivalent is (I only speak html 4). On the front page the
two paragraphs in EN abd FR need definitely to be in separate <p> ... </
p> even if you ignore the div advice.

Otherwise seems to be fast, neat well-ordered site.

 

When sitting at home with a 2 meg broadband connection, I agree. Spare a
thought for those using dial-up in a hotel bedroom or a slow EPRS-only
phone signal while on the road. If you must incorporate piccies make them
clickable thumbnails. I might lose patience and look elsewhere if large
graphics were forced on me.

 

Will do. I've noted as well that the menus don't work in Opera on the
iPhone. :-/

Ta

 

Oh, in general yes, me too. "Going forward" seems to the current
mgmt-speak du-jour though.

Quite.

 

don't do the menu like that. Have an overall language selection (two
flags, d'uh) on the top right of the screen, and then a seperate menu
for each language sub-site.

I don't actually like javascript/DIV style menus any more generally
though - a bit 2003. Plus, you'd get a "fail" for accessibility.

 

As an afterthought, I just checked the source of a random Francais page:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en-US"
xml:lang="en">

OOPS! That really is going to **** up a screen-reader! Probably sound
like Ted Heath The divs with different language declarations will
help screen-readers too, so perhaps not as optional as I'd first thought.