think-x has 4 Reviews
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![[img: avatar]](/avatars/bluevenom.jpg)
bluevenom gave it
on 9th Sep 2011 and said:Hai guys :)
I know you've since changed the site to just blogging, but anyway, I hope you find this useful, though I'm not the best at writing reviews, haha. ^-^Layout
I love this layout, as I do all your layouts! It's beautifully simple and pretty :) I would try and make the font a little bigger though - perhaps 11px, the same as your italicized text - but it's not a huge problem for me, personally. I just think it'd balance it out a little more & improve reading for those with visual impairment.Coding & Validation
I'm not super strict on coding, but most errors can be easily fixed. I can't see a doctype - that would get rid of one error straight away. Also using the center code to center text is deprecated now. Georgina at heartdrops.org has some great tutorials on validating html/css if you wanted to. :) if not, that's up to you of course ^-^ I don't find it a massive problem. Your layout still works for me and looks lovely. :)Content
I'll put this as your blog instead. :D I love reading your posts, both Greg & Lindsay, they're always an interesting read and beautifully written. I'm constantly checking back for new posts all the time! I also like that you add pictures - I really need to start adding some to mine I think, aha - it makes them all that more interesting.Overall
Overall you've both got a beautiful site, I love it and it's definitely one of my favourites. I always love your layouts too and your blog posts are incredibly inspirational to me, keep up the good work guys! :DUsing Firefox on Windows | Report This?
amphigory gave it
on 20th Nov 2010 and said:Hello! I've some free time, so I'll ponder my way through your site. :) I can get a bit harsh at times, but if I do, remember it's not you personally.
1. FIRST IMPRESSION
I was pleasantly surprised. Looking at the screen shot here, I thought to myself, Oh God, how tacky. My hopes went up once visiting your site, mostly because of the soothing choice of colors. You should update the screen shot; it does you no justice.
While it does look like an improvement over what must have been your previous theme, there are still a few aspects that immediately turned me off. The two biggest are the strange padding on the navigation links and the same font size used throughout.
2. THE DESIGN
a. structure
The awkward use of white space really sticks out. There's not really any flow for a visitor's eye, so I end up just staring at the page until I find something else to do.
The structure could really use some work. The right side bar is most annoying, in that it's not level to the main content area, and when you don't have enough content, the sidebar sits flat on the bottom of the page (and trailing past the content area).
Smack in the middle is a whole lot of nothing, but you've crammed things onto the poles and sides. The navigation links are strangely positioned, and as I said earlier, the padding is weird. If you fix those, perhaps a bit of animation when hovered would help them be more interactive with users. (Who doesn't enjoy elegantly animated links?)
There's also the phrase shoved in the top right. The contrast is off here; with such a bright red following blue that's nearly the shade of your background, I only see "DIE" unless I make a point to actually look for something else (at which point I notice "WE'RE ALL GONNA"). You have to admit, it could be intimidating if the first thing a visitor sees upon opening your site is the word "DIE" is big, bright letters. I don't want to die; not yet, anyway.
b. typography
Très fade. It doesn't keep my attention at all; in fact, because of the standardness of it, I'm more likely to leave. Is there a reason you have the content text the same size as the sidebar text (and the same size as the navigation, for that matter)? The only thing keeping me from continuing left to right on a line is that blue divider between the content and the sidebar. It needs to be fixed. Perhaps bumping the content text to 1.1 or 1.2 em would be satisfactory.
Inconsistent headers? That's making me think you style each bit individually, rather than grouping similar elements. The part I'm talking about here is the bold font weight used in your sidebar compared to the normal weight in your content area. There's also the issue of letter case. I know you wrote the entry title in lowercase, but it contrasts (not in a good way) with the headings in your sidebar. I'd suggest using
text-transform: lowercase;with your sidebar headings,text-transform: capitalize;for your entry titles, or use proper capitalization on your entries when you're writing them.The extra styling in your text is bothersome. Italics are meant to be an italicized version of the same font face and color. Likewise, bold is meant to be a bold version. Instead, you have italics set to Georgia in a mulberry color and bold in a pink uppercase. Both fooled me into thinking they were hyperlinks. Speaking of hyperlinks, those are what should stick out. Rather than showing me where hyperlinks are, you have them set to the same color as your normal text. The only thing that suggested I should hover was the "You can check that out here!" line. Not only is using "click here" or any variation extremely bad practice, but I had no idea it was a link until I wiggle my cursor over it.
c. design conclusion
It needs some serious work in the typography department. Everything is the same; nothing divides sections. "Previous page" and meta data (i.e., post date, comment count, etc.) should be of their own style or have some way to distinguish them from the rest of the text. The color choice may be pleasant, but without a solid design, it falls flat.
Sidenote, I'm almost tempted to dig out my old 3D glasses (from the '60s, nice!) and see if that anaglyph image actually works.
3. THE CODE
I don't validate, as that's something you can do on your own. Rather, I look for things that stick out and need to be fixed for sake of sanity.
a. doctype
Pick a document type. There is no reason anyone shouldn't use a doctype. Without it, a browser needs to guess how to render your page, and different browsers guess differently. Padding, borders, margin...tons of CSS properties display improperly. HTML standards exist for a reason: to make a website appear the same, regardless of browser or operating system. IE6 (God rest its soul) is the worst in rendering without a doctype. No doctype is like wearing your pants on your torso. See W3C's doctype tips.
b. css
Stop with the inline styling. CSS (cascading style sheets) exist for a reason: to keep all of your page's styling properties together in one place. Serving it as an external style sheet (which you've done, thankfully) saves loads of bandwidth. Once you resort to using inline styles, that benefit goes out the window. Browsers are forced to download those style rules on every page load, and if you ever choose to change your theme again, you'll need to change the HTML of every page as well as the style sheet.
Back in the day, we all used to use very basic forms of making pages pretty:
<font color="#000000">Text</font>. Then CSS came around, and no longer did we have to put rules directly in the tags. Inline styling defeats the purpose of CSS.c. tag case
Regardless of what doctype you use, you should always use the same case of HTML elements throughout the page. HTML 4 and 5 support upper/lower/mixed case. XHTML requires tags to be lowercase. While case doesn't matter on a technical aspect if you're using HTML 4 or 5, you should stick to one or the other for readability.
d. indenting
Eh, it's just not there. How do you go through your code if you can't read it? The only reason it's possible to read your code at this point is because your pages are very short. If your pages grow, it'll be next to impossible to read (thus, impossible to debug). Nested elements should be indented past their parent elements. Whether you use tab or space to indent is up to you; I'd rather use tabs than spaces because it's quicker, but I hate the fact that Firefox displays tabs as 8 columns (side rant, irrelevant to your site).
e. borders
I'm focusing on the borders of your images. This is sort of a mixture in terms of design & code. At first, I thought my eyes were wigging out: I was seeing multple border colors, some with, some without. Upon closer inspecting (i.e., source code), I was disappointed to see it wasn't my eyes. You've gone wild with the borders, even going so far as to invent a new attribute, "border-colour".
f. html structure
WHOA. It's not there. You've opened an HTML tag (
<html>). Why didn't you close it? Where are the body tags? Why isn't the head tag closed?Also, you have quite a few lists on your site. Why aren't you making use of
<ul>or<ol>tags?g. coding conclusion
This needs some serious work. You have a basic idea of what HTML tags do, but you skipped over how HTML documents are set up. Just because the way you decide to code looks the way you want in the browser you're using does not mean it will look good for everyone else. Making a browser guess what you meant makes rendering the page take longer.
4. THE CONTENT
a. displaying images
I pity the dial up user. You could make wonderful use of thumbnails (randomly clicking, especially the "Layout Bases" page). Those are some monstrous images. For everyone's sake, consider creating thumbnails of those big images and linking them to the full size.
Also, it might be beneficial, in terms of aesthetics, to reconsider the width of those thumbnails. As they stand, you're displaying two columns of images, leaving a huge space to the right of them.
b. descriptions
You have a lot of content. With so much, it can get confusing to browse through it. You might want to add short little descriptions on the list pages. For example, on the "Tutorials" page, you might add something like "A quick guide to install brushes in Paint Shop Pro". Right now, I'm forced to click it to find out why I'm on that page. Is it Photoshop? Instructions on how to stick a paint brush in a can? A couple extra words can really point a visitor in the right direction.
On the topic of tutorials, the actual tutorial pages feel amateurish. They're cramped without any organization. No numbered steps, the images seem to merge with the text, no headings, no explanations. Especially on tutorials with codes, you have tiny little boxes with prewritten code. They seem to imply that what you have is the only way to do something, giving newcomers the impressiong that they must copy and paste your code to get it to work. There's nothing wrong with copy & paste as long as you explain why they're copying & pasting.
c. content conclusion
It's great that you have so much to offer your visitors (and it appears to be semi-unique), but you're lacking in the description department. Explain how to use things, why to use things, and offer tips. When it comes to tutorials, humans enjoy text (if not a video tutorial) as much as search engines. Your keyboard may take a beating but your visitors will thank you.
5. FINAL THOUGHTS
When I first went to your site, the improvement over the screen shot you have here at the time of this review gave me hopes of something unique. I know I may have been extremely blunt and heartless at times, but I really think your site needs a lot of work to really stand out. It doesn't have much of a personality and ends up blending in with the thousands of other "graphic/blog" sites out there. It's a shame, really, because you do have a lot to offer your visitors. If you work on your presentation, you can really bring your site out in the open. Keep working on it!
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![[img: avatar]](/avatars/PopJustice.png)
PopJustice gave it
on 13th Nov 2010 and said:First impressions are that the layout is not up to scratch. It looks worthless and incomplete, if so you should make people aware that that is the case.
You have a large amount of content which is great, I love the coded layouts, it shows you have put your time and care into it, this shows that not only can you design great graphics but can match that with good HTML and CSS skills.
You should move your content/blog section so it does not overlap your affilates section as your friends deserve more. I dont see the point of the white strip going through the middle of your site, it just does not make sense, your content/blog should run in the strip and not overlap anything.
Your competitions look good but having to much of them could mean you fail to do something. So be careful.
Your navigation is getting on my nerves at the moment, its way to small and squashed together. You should spread it out a bit more.
Your site section is much more organised, I like the links at the top as it differs from the rest of the link on your other pages. I also like the idea of having a form to fill out to apply for affies as most sites do it the lazy way by adding their email (credit to you as my site is one of them!). It shows you took your time and care to manufacture your site. Its much like the rest of your site all in depth and nicely structured.
Overall I think content wise its one of the best, but layout wise its one of the worst. To get a higher rating work of the neatness of your layout and look at the compatability of it on different internet browsers.JAMES // POP-JUSTICE
UPDATED 13 Nov 10:
Hi, I dont appreciate you commenting like that for everyone to see. If you have something to say then I would you rather inbox me instead of creating a scene - how do u think I feel after you insulting not only me but my quality of graphics. I did not write this review to get insulted but for your own good, I don't need you to agree, I hope you understandUPDATED 13 Nov 10:
YHi, I dont appreciate you commenting like that for everyone to see. If you have something to say then I would you rather inbox me like this instead of creating a scene - how do u think I feel after you insulting not only me but my quality of graphics. I did not write this review to get insulted but for your own good, I don't need you to agree, I hope you understandUsing Firefox on Linux | Report This?
thinkxinfo's Response:
Hey James.
So I know that when I signed up for this website... I signed up to get reviews good and bad on my website. I love constructive criticism. It really helps with a lot of things around my site.
Some people give good reviews, and then others tell me I need a lot of work. But I honestly don't understand how someone with a website like yours can tell me that mine is no good ? How my layout is disgusting ?
I'm sure you're a nice person. And so am I. I don't want to be mean to you, and I don't want this to start some kind of fight. But I think that you really need to upgrade to a better graphic making skill before you come and judge a website like mine.Ok, I worded that a little wrong. “a website like mine” haha, it makes me sound like I think I have the best website ever. I know I don’t. But what I mean is that how can you judge my graphics when yours are 20% worse ?
Jesus, now I’m being really harsh. And I’m sorry. It’s just that your review really ticked me off.Also, you wrote:
“Your competitions look good but having to much of them could mean you fail to do something. So be careful.”
What does that even mean ? The wording makes no sense ? Be careful that I have too many competitions cause it would mean that I’d fail to do something ? I don’t get it.Now, I’m going to stop being an ass and actually thank you for some of your review.
I really liked what you said about the content. It means a lot. Greg & I have worked VERY hard on all of the content that we have.
And about the affies thing… bhahaha, yeah! I actually love any kind of form in general. I find them so fun to fill out… so when I first opened my site I was like “IM HAVING AN AFFLIATES FORM.” hahahNow to the layout, I do see what you mean with the organization bit of it. For some reason, each computer and each browser sees EVERYTHING different about it. I know, I was really harsh. And I really do apologize. Just be careful with what you say.
Thanks so much, Lindsay @ think-x.info
![[img: avatar]](/avatars/Sillyish.jpg)
Sillyish gave it
on 3rd Nov 2010 and said:Hi :) Welcome to review me. I guess I will be writing your first review!
LAYOUT
Maybe it's just me, but the Domain Rentout ad that's stuck to the bottom of the page is very distracting. I don't know if it's optional or what, but if you CAN get rid of it, I'd say DO get rid of it. And if you can't... Then I'd suggest switching domains/hosts/whoever is forcing it on you.The other thing that strikes me right away is the grays in your layout - The background of the header image is a darker gray than the background of the rest of the page. This is often a problem that inexperienced designers come across where the two colours match on their computer, but sadly, do not match for everyone.
An easy way around this? Instead of giving your body a hex background colour (#C6C0C0) give it a background-image that is a 1x1 square that you copied from the background of your header image. This way, the two colours are guaranteed to match on all computers.
Next up? Contrast.
The green text (in sidebar - two cases of think-x in italicized green; as well as below your halloween photo "click to enlarge") Is impossible to read against the gray background. A much darker green would probably solve this issue.Then there's the positioning. I see a few issues here:
01. The content vs the sidebar - these two items are VERY close together. Separating them with some more padding would make things much easier on the eyes.
02. The size. Why so small? The layout takes up such a small square of my screen, and I actually have a fairly small sized screen compared to much of what is out there. I would make the content area 200px or so wider, and the sidebar area maybe 75px wider.
03. The position - I think centered would look much better.
04. The navigation - So non-obvious and off to the side. It could definitely stand out more!
I did my best to illustrate how these changes might start to look, although obviously more tweaking would be required: See my changes here
----Your header image - I like the idea of the 3-d... I recently saw another layout that had a similar idea, in fact, and I liked it there too... But I still have a few comments on the header.
Number one is that the scribbly line underneath seems pointless and adds little to the design of the header
Number two is that the way her shoulders cut off on the left and right seems... meh. Bad graphic design.
Number three - I'm not fond of the text used- not the font or its positioning on the image.
Also, all the little heads to me seems silly. I'd rather just have the 3-d woman with the think-x.info in bold letters to the left of her ear (and slightly below, sort of where the curve of her face starts) I think this would look nice in a centered layout especially.
I just realized that the scribbly lines are there to hide the poor cut-off of the bottom of the photo - I think I straight 4px or 5px black, uninteresting line would probably serve even better.
---
Positioning of content -
Do affiliates really have to be the first thing in the sidebar? I'd think they'd be closer to the last. Also not a fan of the + + + for links, although I can see why you did it with so many affiliates. Maybe have them on a rotation so that there's only three showing at any given time? And that way you can include the full site name?I would move the affiliate section below 'link us' and get rid of the etc altogether. The hit counter and the review me link can kinda float on their own at the bottom without a header I think.
----
When I start to get into the content I notice two more things:
-The horozontal subnav is hard to notice. I think using tabs could probably help.-Your text could use a larger line-height, as it's hard to read when there's lots of it (It's squished together too much)
-----
CONTENT
#1 - I HATE IT when a navigation link leads me to a completely different site and layout. Drives me CRAZY. (Your 'Compete' link.)I also find it silly when I click on a link (like owners) and am taken to a page with only three lines of content. And those three lines are nothing but links to more pages. I would put the story of lindsay and greg as the default, with a link on each of their names to more info on each person. And then I'd just put the contact info underneath the story of lindsay and greg.
A spell check or having someone proofread your text would also help - as an example, under "Lindsay"
Original VersionYou know... biographies on websites never really seem to tell you enough about a person, therefore, if you actually read the whole thing... your usually still left wondering. Well... lets make it simple then.
Edited Version
You know... Biographies on websites never really seem to tell you enough about a person. Even If you actually read the whole thing, you're usually still left wondering. So I might as well keep it simple:
(I fixed some grammatical errors and also just re-worded some things to make it a cleaner read)
----
I wouldn't bother crossing out re-distribute under visitor stuff. Just saying "You're Not allowed to re-distribute' is good enough.
Hey: You know what else is confusing? Your links and your text are EXACTLY THE SAME - black. Links aren't a different colour, they aren't underlined... This definitely needs to be changed.
----
Your uncoded layouts page looks more like a bunch of graphics or desktop wallpapers than layouts...
Your smilies are cute.
Your Displaying html tutorial is 100% wrong. It shouldn't be inside a textarea tag, and xmp has been depreciated for years.
As for the rest of the content, I'm just going to be honest and say that I have been to a million websites with celebrity icons and graphics and buttons and I could never care less about any of them. I'm sure there are visitors out there who like them, so I'm not bashing you for it - I just can't bring myself to even critique them. It all seems so cliche and boring to me. And that is personal opinion! Not a judgement on your site at all!
------------CODE
When I validated your HTML code it came up with 29 errors and 12 warnings.Off the top of my head, some errors I found were:
<style type="text/css">
a:hover{background-color:#5fb7a8}
</style>
Randomly sprinkled in the body of your html (This has to be in the head, it's not valid anywhere else. Better yet - put it in your .css file, minute the html tag part, of course!)-Links with a &lr;br> between them that would be better off in a list format. eg -
<ul>(You can use CSS to get rid of the bullets and list styling so that it would end up looking exactly the same - just better semantically.)
<li> link one</li>
<li> link two</li>
<li> link three</li>
</ul>
And finally, this:
<BR></h4>
<BR>
<BR>
<Br>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
I'm not sure where the <h4> tag started but it seems to be lost. And all those br tags? Are they needed? There's nothing underneath them anyway... And CSS margins would probably be a prettier way to go even if you did want all that space.----
CSS Validator came up with 18 errors, such as float:center; does not exist.
-----Final thoughts -
A tutorial on centering layouts can be found on tutorialtastic, if that interests you. Tutorialtastic also has a validating your website tutorial that you may be interested in.As for the rest - Good luck! We're all striving to improve and every review and bit of experience helps :)
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