Hi,

We've just released a new retro gaming website for Norwich, Norfolk, and beyond.

Norwich Retro Gamers

We cover all things retro, including shows, groups, books, magazines, clothes, and more. Although it's still a work in progress, new content is being added daily.

If you've got a minute, check us out. B)


Cheers,
Retro Kid.

Nice idea, not sure about the orange background though...

Hi,

Thanks for the comment. I have to confess to have real problems deciding what background colour to use. It was all black but it seemed too dark.

If anybody out there has a colour combination that they think would work (with the buttons and titles) then I'm open to suggestions. It's my first bash at a website and I'm still learning. :blink:


Regards,
Retro Kid.

There's a white border around the black, I'm guessing that's not supposed to be there. If it is, I don't like it, its just wasting space on the screen.

It also looks like you've used fixed widths on your layout instead of percentile scaling. This is making the page overflow off the right of my screen even though I'm at 1024x768 (ideally you'd design the page so it works as low as 800x600, especially as its a retro site so may be accessed using old hardware).

The Mario image and the email link one are also off the right hand side, so I only noticed them because I was having a critical look at the site. If I'd just been browsing, I probably wouldn't have bothered scrolling horizontally to see them...

I'm not sure the cityscape fits the rest of the design either.

Given the limited page length you're using, I'd be inclined to maintain the entire navigation bar on the left of the screen on every page rather than reducing it - at the moment there's no real reason for the reduction and it just confuses the navigation instead of making it seamless. Easy enough to use frames for the outer design and navbar with the linked content inside in the orange bit just like the front page. Tbh, it'll probably make your design and editing simpler.

The changing image in the top left isn't a bad idea, but it needs to be better integrated into the page. At the moment the Space Invader is the only one that really works, all the others look out of place as they're stuck up there in a white box - changing the background to black may be all it needs.

Minor design issues really, the content seems fine as far as I looked at it.

Wow, thanks. :(

Only kidding, I appreicate the comments. I just about died when I saw the size of your post but they are all good points. I've spent a bit of time addressing some of the worst ones (and learnt a few things along the way), so cheers.

I guess websites are never really finished but at least if the layout is okay, then I can concentrate on the content.

And thanks for visiting the site.

Regards,
Retro Kid.

That's looking better already.

Are you manually coding the navbar into each page? It seems to move about a bit, its not sitting quite the same on each page.

Don't have time to look at in depth, I'm at work.

Nice to see you updated it so fast though.

Think about how people will access it. Most users (like me) are lazy, so you have to make things as obvious and clear as possible - keep navigation consistent, keep layouts similar etc. It may not make the layout unique, but it makes it usable and content is king ;)

When we move we may be heading that way to live....

Looks like Norfolk could become very retro !!! ;)