thesunnyside posted in the forums:

"Here is a link to my new and improved CSS - no tables website http://www.thesunnyside.biz"

My Thoughts
When I look at the code, the first thing that jumps out at me is the empty h1 tag inside the #head section. If nothing else, this is a little strange looking, search engines will see it and might wonder what's going on. I thought it might be for image replacement, but there is no text in the h1 to replace, and the bird image is set on the #head element itself. There is also an empty h4 element later on in the HTML that is not following any h3 element.

Other than these empty elements, Trish does a respectable job of outlining the site. I would use more h3 elements (there are none on the homepage) but otherwise, it's well done. The Web Page Speed Report on WebsiteOptimization.com says that this page will load in about 32 seconds on a 56K modem - this is somewhat slow, and it's mostly because of some large images in the header and footer. They are nice looking, but I'd see if I could optimize them even more.

Trish does a great job of using semantic tags for things like the navigation list (instead of just div tags). But to make the HTML even more extendable, I would use classes and IDs that don't relate to the current design. For example there is a section called "#blueBox" - but what happens in a redesign when that section of the page is turned into a yellow column? Giving your classes and IDs semantic names (ie. describing what the sections are rather than what they look like or where they are positioned in the layout) makes the site more maintainable in the long run.

How would you critique this site?
What would you suggest to Trish to improve this design? Are there other things Trish could do to improve the site? Provide your own feedback on the site design by commenting here in the blog or replying in the forum.

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