Owner: Al Ingham
Editor used: Quanta Plus (Linux)
Comments from developer: This is an upgraded design from an earlier submission, taking heed of the comments made by Jennifer and improving the site. I have developed the back-end structure and system of my site over the last 2 years, implementing bits of code and tools to make the site as good as possible. Adding themes/changing styles is left to our friend CSS, which makes the whole design process very easy.
Technical Details:
Code: XHTML 1.0 Transitional
CSS: Invalid
Accessibility: Valid
Page size: 261481 bytes
Download speed: 58.51 seconds on a 56K Modem
Comments from Jennifer Kyrnin: In Al's first submission the site looked very different from how it does now. But since he got rid of the splash page and the Flash (as far as I can tell), I find the page much easier to use. I was somewhat disappointed to see the desaturated color scheme he chose, but it definitely works with the style of the site. And the colors all work well together. I just like sites that are a little more vibrant - but that's a purely personal preference.
This is a redesign in the purest sense of the word. It's obvious that Al put a lot of thought into the new design - he even switched from Dreamweaver to Quanta Plus. Some of the features I like include the way the navigation goes from blurry to clear when you mouse over it. It's not so blurry that you can't read the text, and in fact, I didn't even realize it until I moused over them. I love how he continues the headline styles in the right column, even though they might be considered less important. Because they're the same style as the headlines in the main column they fit well with the overall theme. I wish that the art and photography were higher on the page. Because the headlines are written as dark lines, they can act as stop markers preventing people from scrolling all the way to the bottom, where the interesting things are. Not that his photo isn't interesting, but the header is so large, that my screen breaks right at a point where it appears the page ends. Also, the floating arrow on the side was confusing to me. I noticed it moving out of the corner of my eye and my first thought was along the lines of "eep, what's that?". Since I have spiders in my house, that's what I thought was crawling on my screen. :-) Probably not the impression Al was going for. I like this redesign. Al did a great job.
URL: http://www.alingham.eirenz.net/