Competition Site

[kkbbcute]

I'm doing a website for a competition called Thinkquest and I was wondering if you guys could visit a content-less version of my site to comment on its design, layout and other stuff. Note that the info is all filler text, and the navigation is not complete. Also, this is meant to be the Low Media version of the site, so rollover graphics and flash elements are avoided, plus its meant to look minimalist to reduce page loading times. Any constructive criticism would be welcome! Thanks guys! :)

http://www.avaxmultimedia.com/lowFi/

Side Note: I'll be uploading the Flash version of my site sometime later. I know you Flash addicts will love its iPhone scrolling effect...

Side Note 2: I'm only 14, so don't tell me that you could make a better site, I already know that, you guys have much more experience than me;)

[rawmantick]

1. Never make titles of only capital letters. It's a bad tone.
2. Text style is bad... It doesn't match the site style...
3. Liquid layout - nice:)

[kkbbcute]

Thanks for the reply!
Any more suggestions guys? I would greatly appreciate it!

So how exactly can I change the text to make it fit in better? Any recommendations for fonts?

[rawmantick]

So how exactly can I change the text to make it fit in better? Any recommendations for fonts?

I not a real pro on that... I can say kinda what I "feel" when see the site:) And you text looks like someone has stolen the site, erased its text in Photoshop and inserted his own one with the first font under hand making no difference what font will be... Just try several fonts, work more on it... No secret magic things, just pay it more attention)

[maskedMan]

This is very small, and it's really only applicable to this stage of the design, but you might consider using Lorem Ipsum text instead of text in an actual living language that people can read.

I'd say drop the serif fonts from the nav.

[yell0wdart]

Gotta say, I'm not super excited about the "difficulty level" deal on the left side of your image/header. It's easily confused as navigation. It looks more important than it is. I'd dial that back quite a bit.

Also, I'd recommend reworking your "Chocolate Frog" image a bit. Looks kinda like a "Poopoo Frog" to me. Maybe it's the shade of brown mixed with the texture of the frog's skin that does it to me... not sure. Just a suggestion, though. ;)

[bkt]

Spelling and grammar are more my thing, so here are a couple minor issues...

"The first type of people are those that are simply"

should be "who are simply", which is correct in the "second type of people" section.

Also, "head stright to the good stuff"

"straight" needs an "a".

I'm not going to nit-pic your writing (a few too many "that" and "just"s), but will say, wow, you use "it's" properly, and that's impressive in and of itself. :cool:

(Looks like someone has the Photoshop Top Secret series...!)

[kkbbcute]

bkt: Ok, spelling and grammar mistakes noted, thanks for the editing, microsoft word missed those out.:rolleyes: and I do have the photoshop top secret series, but these effects have been done in Advanced Photoshop magazines and other stuff, so its quite common among photoshop users, just wanted to teach non-photoshop secrets some cool tricks.

[GFX Complex]

I like your 404, nice work.

[nakedkafka]

the fonts are abit problematic, but overall the design in good. solid work.

[kkbbcute]

the fonts are abit problematic, but overall the design in good. solid work.

Okay, thanks for the reply, a lot people are saying that the fonts represent an issue, so could you give me a recommendation for fonts?

[cjx3711]

Why didn't you include me in the credits? :(
Say I helped too...

[FormerSwinger]

You offer a lot of criticism so here's some for you ;)

Table layout? Really?

To tackle the text issue you could try adding a tint of color to your heading and body text styles (instead of #666666 and black). Just enough to make it fit better into the yellowish bg but not enough to make it look other than gray and black.

[kkbbcute]

Why didn't you include me in the credits? :(
Say I helped too...

cjx3711: Jia Xun, don't random, there isn't even a credits page, and I didn't even put my own name in there. Lastly, you helped in the Flash site, not this one.

FormerSwinger: Don't worry, I love criticism, keep it coming, anyway they said that the problem was in the font type, not the styles, which I have little clue about what font to used instead of calibri.

[FormerSwinger]

The problem was that the text looks somewhat out of place. Using another font was suggested. I'm merely offering an other idea to make the text look better. I've found that even a slight change in the font colors sometimes makes a big difference.

I still can't get around the tables though. It's the nineties all over again :P

[tadster]

wow 14? wow, i've being arguing with a 14 year old kid? wow!
for 14 your a smart kid, you've definetly got a future in web design,
you just need some help with eligance in your critiques.
and your site looks great! you should have posted about it during your rantings with my site (actiontad)

on digital wave:
the design is very eye catching, and on dial-up it loaded for me right away, which is something i'm a stickler for.
but why did it take so long for the mouse overs to load?
actiontad is minimalist, this site is normal.
all in all, well done, i'm waiting to see the flash.

P.S.
see kkbbcute, no hard feelings, i'm a very honest guy,
and will never lie about what can be clearly seen :)
if you would have shown me this. say around the second post in our "flame war", my spanking could have been avoided :)

[kkbbcute]

Oh, thanks for the reply. No hard feelings eh?

Anyway how did you find the fonts, some other people said that they looked weird.

[cjx3711]

Just for everyone's information, we will be posting the high fidelity site for comment shortly before the deadline. That will be sometime late march. We are doing this so that the original integrety of our site will be mantained.

[tadster]

body,td,th {
font-family: Calibri, Arial;
color: #000000;
}


what's Calibri? I guess it looks like arial?
this is what i normaly do to account for arial:
arial, helvetica, veranda
in order that's pc, mac and those without arial

and that may be why some people are having font problems
I know my system does not have Calibri.

I would also recomend putting your styles in an external style sheet,
makes it easier to update later..but you may already know that.

[kkbbcute]

body,td,th {
font-family: Calibri, Arial;
color: #000000;
}


what's Calibri? I guess it looks like arial?
this is what i normaly do to account for arial:
arial, helvetica, veranda
in order that's pc, mac and those without arial

and that may be why some people are having font problems
I know my system does not have Calibri.

I would also recomend putting your styles in an external style sheet,
makes it easier to update later..but you may already know that.


Hmmm, I'll take that into account, thanks!

Anyway yeah, calibri sort of looks like arial. It's the font that comes default with MS Office 07.

[cjx3711]

Why is everyone here talking about fonts, arn't there any other flaws in the design? Or is the site really so flawless?

[kkbbcute]

Why is everyone here talking about fonts, arn't there any other flaws in the design? Or is the site really so flawless?

Haha, nitpicking is always god, my philosophy of critiques still stand, pick at every last flaw till everything is perfect.;) But good to know that the site is fine. By the way, the Flash site will be updated at around 1st of April.

[FormerSwinger]

Far from flawless.
I have just three words for you: tables, tables, tables.

If you're really 14 then I started to avoid table layout before you started elementary school. Why did you ever bother to learn the ancient practise of using table layout? And whos the moron who teached it to you...

[kkbbcute]

Far from flawless.
I have just three words for you: tables, tables, tables.

If you're really 14 then I started to avoid table layout before you started elementary school. Why did you ever bother to learn the ancient practise of using table layout? And whos the moron who teached it to you...

Haha, that moron would be myself:p

No seriously, I'm self taught, I just experiment around and after maybe a month or so I just figure things out. Anyway table layout has worked pretty fine for me so far, sure, you could criticize the code, but it all comes down to what the users see when they enter you site. Anyway I can't do a thing about it, because its Dreamweaver that dumps the code in, not me, if you could tell me a better method I'll be glad to listen.;)

[FormerSwinger]

call me old school but syntax highlighting, tag-name + css auto-suggestion is enough for me. I've tried using the crap dw generates for you but I found myself fixing dws code longer than it saved me time. :/

[maskedMan]

The arguement you give in favor of making tables, and the counterarguement against is the exact same as the one I made in the preloading thread in the best-practices forum. Sure they work fine now... but then when you need to redesign the site, or port the content to a different layout, you're stuck. It's a tradeoff between expedience and extensibility and portability... and it's not even all that expedient.

[cjx3711]

What do you guys have agianst tables? As long as it looks fine, it should not be any problem.

[kkbbcute]

The arguement you give in favor of making tables, and the counterarguement against is the exact same as the one I made in the preloading thread in the best-practices forum. Sure they work fine now... but then when you need to redesign the site, or port the content to a different layout, you're stuck. It's a tradeoff between expedience and extensibility and portability... and it's not even all that expedient.

Har, that's the point, this content is made for a competition site, so I'll only be using the content and the design once, so I usually don't bother with AJAX and all that which many others use, with just months to create a site with all the info, you wouldn't bother putting so much effort into the so called low media version of all site, all your effort should be going into the main site.

But fine, as a best practice tables are not as good.

[cjx3711]

Most of the effort is put into the high bandwidth version of the site. Tables are quick and easy to use. Even though tabls have many problems, as long as the Judges like the design, it is alright. We never actually need to touch the tables agian. There will be no trouble with dynamically updating it.

[kkbbcute]

as long as the Judges like the design, it is alright.

The universal truth is spoken, if the client/judge likes the site, your job is almost done.

[cjx3711]

Unless your client wants it to be constantly updated, then tables arn'tt such a good idea. But here, it is a one time use site.

[kkbbcute]

Unless your client wants it to be constantly updated, then tables arn'tt such a good idea. But here, it is a one time use site.

Erms, isn't that what I said already?
so I'll only be using the content and the design once

Anyway, let's not talk among ourselves and let those who didn't have a part in making the site have a look at it.

[cjx3711]

We must emphasize on the point more.

Anyway, the Hi Fi site will be posted on thursday

[FormerSwinger]

If all that matters is the visual appeal and that the judges like it wouldn't it be easier to just draw a single image and put that in? Simple image map to trigger page transitions.

Anyways I find one flaw in your defence for tables. It's not slower to do it right with the proper html tags and css. It may be a bit harder to master but after you're familiar with the concept it's just as fast.

[kkbbcute]

That's all relative, and making everything as one huge image would increase load times. All the judges are looking at is user experience, or so they say. If the site is responsive and good looking, they don't really care what the site is using.

[tadster]

Tables? Dreamweaver? I did not read all this last time, kkbbcute your young so I think you should try to learn how to code things by hand, if you can master that early on, you'll be set. The only problem with tables is if you are relying on some program to make them for you, if you do things by hand it does not matter tables, divs, lists or whathaveyou. Besides you've got well organized tables there, doing changes by hand should not take long at all, if any changes are needed.

anyway, the judges are looking at user experience? I have not seen the Hi Fi, but on the low-fi, the home link tried to open up a flash for me. Is this on purpose or did you think that the 404 flash would load in a new window? because in firefox, it just gets downloaded like a pdf, this is a big problem, both for FireFox users and any chance of good SEO. ...but it may just be something the Hi-Fi version will fix?

[yell0wdart]

A couple things:

Is this really a home page? A home page should really only do one thing. And it should be done VERY well. Your home page should tell your visitors what can be done on the site. Any important content on your home page should fit within the confines of the browser window without scrolling.

The difficulty level bar on the left side looks way more important than it actually is. Many users would mistake that for navigation, because that's what it looks like. As a design element, it looks nice, but it might be a little less confusing if you made the color-coded bar a little thinner and toned the font size and weight down a little bit. Don't require your users to "figure out" how to get around your site. They don't want to think.

Your "next" arrow button that would normally navigate to your "using the site" page is too low. 99% of users would not bother scrolling, or read the wall of text on the home page, thus missing that navigation button completely. I'd either make that part of the navigation, or place another "next" button at the top of the page so it's easily seen.

There's nothing wrong with tables from a visual standpoint. From a development standpoint, it looks amateurish. Tables have one purpose and one purpose only: to display tabular data. Got an export from an Excel spreadsheet as HTML? Perfect! Want to lay out your home page? Use <div>'s and CSS.

[cjx3711]

Well, granted that if one is a master at CSS, the work could be just as fast, or even faster than making tables. The problem is that the time taken to learn CSS would be too long. There will be not enough time to complete the site. Maybe next year.

[kkbbcute]

Okay, okay, from all the remarks, I'll redo the design on the site, but still in tables because I can't learn a new technique just yet, the deadline is in 4 days time!!! But it'll solve many of the problems you guys are talking about. And also @tadster, the links aren't supposed to work, and the content is all placeholders. ;)

Thanks for the input!

[kkbbcute]

UPDATE:

Okay, sorry for the double post, but here's a update.
http://avaxmultimedia.com/thinkquest/2009/lowFi/

Completely in div tags now, with a new next/prev buttons, and the nav problems are resolved! The animation section still leads to 404s, and the content isn't in yet, but what do you guys think of the new design?

[Kimchee]

I might just not understand the purpose of the site, but I just don't get what you are going for. What is the "Digital Wave"? Don't understand the difficulty levels, don't understand the different pictures, don't understand the site.

Color Scheme, not my favorite. Teal/ Pink/ and yellow-Brown just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Reminds me of eating a sour grapefruit, but just a personal taste in color.

Buttons at the top: Like the glow but don't like how three are dark buttons and three have a lighter tint to them.

Side Bar Menu (that is not a menu) is confusing.

Lower Case lettering for buttons are a personal point of dislike, but not necessarily bad.

Large image loads slowly, and I have very fast connection speed.



Love the bottom of the page menu though, very organized and well laid out.

[yell0wdart]

Completely in div tags now

No its not. You're still relying heavily on tables.

/edit

Why did you move the tutorial navigation all the way to the bottom? Nobody's going to bother scrolling that far down the page to know that there's more to your site. Navigation is important. You should move it to the top of the page.

Gonna go ahead and put you back on ignore now. Can't really give you proper feedback unless I read your commentary to the changes first.

[kkbbcute]

Okay, I think its time to re-emphasize that this is a low Media site, so I've chosen to cut down on rollOver and media effects.

I might just not understand the purpose of the site, but I just don't get what you are going for. What is the "Digital Wave"? Don't understand the difficulty levels, don't understand the different pictures, don't understand the site.

Buttons at the top: Like the glow but don't like how three are dark buttons and three have a lighter tint to them.


You don't understand the site because there is nothing to understand, like I said in my first post, it's only a design template for a website. So remember, I just want to know about the site design, because the content is really just filler. (Lorem Ipsum looks odd)

And when the content comes in, you'll understand that the lighter tint separates the tutorials I'm giving from the research content. ;)

Why did you move the tutorial navigation all the way to the bottom? Nobody's going to bother scrolling that far down the page to know that there's more to your site. Navigation is important. You should move it to the top of the page.

Gonna go ahead and put you back on ignore now. Can't really give you proper feedback unless I read your commentary to the changes first.

That's not the main navigation, that's the site footer/site map. It's a new development in site design, so do keep up with site design trends every now and then. Just for reference, Mozilla's and Apple's websites use them, in addition to the main navigation bar.

Funny to see how people just comment on something without actually realizing that all those things at the bottom can be accessed from the top nav bar as well. :)

[cjx3711]

Large image loads slowly, and I have very fast connection speed.


I know the connection speed is slow, but we are hosting it on a cheap plan (can't afford the expensive ones). So sorry about the loading times.

[Kimchee]

It's a new development in site design, so do keep up with site design trends every now and then.

You know insulting others input is a very big no no. I have tried to be tolerant of your belligerence but this one just takes the cake. You always voice negative criticism and are always the first and last to post an insult of one kind or another, you would think you might be able to take a little constructive critique considering all the crap you dish out. I am never going to read your posts from now on, so don't bother posting on any of my questions; your opinions are of no value to me.

I still wish you the best but just saying it like I see it. Good luck on your competition site. :)

[kkbbcute]

You know insulting others input is a very big no no. I have tried to be tolerant of your belligerence but this one just takes the cake. You always voice negative criticism and are always the first and last to post an insult of one kind or another, you would think you might be able to take a little constructive critique considering all the crap you dish out. I am never going to read your posts from now on, so don't bother posting on any of my questions; your opinions are of no value to me.

I still wish you the best but just saying it like I see it. Good luck on your competition site. :)

I know me and yell0wdart had a long and lengthly debate on your site, but how does that lead you to read that statement in a negative way? You guys are telling me to keep up with developments in site design ,and telling me to use div tags, which I tried.

In turn, when you guys told me that it's a bad design choice, I merely told you to do what you told me to do, read up on design trends. How is that an insult?

Seriously, don't bring a flame war on one thread to another, and a BIG sorry if you read this in an insulting manner. Maybe you shouldn't have a preconceived notion of me wanting to insult no matter what I post (I do help people in other sections in the site, and do a lot more than voice criticism):p

Anyway, good luck with your Unpractical math site too, though I still feel that your text boxes are still to crowded.

[yell0wdart]

Wow. kkbb, you are quite presumptuous, you know that? I was referring to the next/back buttons, not the sitemap. By definition, those are navigation elements. This was a point of criticism for me before you "completely redid the whole site to use <div>'s" (I, as well as many other real designers, I'd be willing to wager, are still laughing about that). If you don't want to listen and benefit from the good advice others offer you, that's fine, but you don't need to come off so condescending.

[kkbbcute]

Why did you move the tutorial navigation all the way to the bottom? Nobody's going to bother scrolling that far down the page to know that there's more to your site. Navigation is important. You should move it to the top of the page.

Err.. yell0wdart, before you start another flame war like you did on Kimchee's thread with your mature tones and all that for no reason again, you might want to read your own statement. You asked why move the navigation bar down. So of course I assumed you were talking about the nav bar, because the next/prev buttons were always at the bottom, how can I move something that was all the way at the bottom, all the way down again?:confused:

[cjx3711]

to kkbbcute & Yell0wdart:
I don't mean this to sound commanding, but I would like to point out something.

The tones of your posts can be interpreted in two different ways, and the reason for these "Flame Wars" seem to be because of misinterpretations. The two of you may want to watch your tone or it just may start another huge battle.

Like I said, I would like you two not to take this the wrong way. :)

[kkbbcute]

to kkbbcute & Yell0wdart:
I don't mean this to sound commanding, but I would like to point out something.

The tones of your posts can be interpreted in two different ways, and the reason for these "Flame Wars" seem to be because of misinterpretations. The two of you may want to watch your tone or it just may start another huge battle.

Like I said, I would like you two not to take this the wrong way. :)

I agree, I think yell0wdart and I just have this communication gap. He thinks I'm insulting and aggressive, and I think that he's sarcastic and like acting mature and authoritative. So we both have a problem here...

Hmmm... Maybe we didn't mean to insult one another after all, because seriously, I interpreted your last point to be quite insulting, so if you didn't mean it, sorry, but my stand still remains, your post was not clearly made, so you could not expect me to know which nav bar you were referring to.

[yell0wdart]

So of course I assumed you were talking about the nav bar, because the next/prev buttons were always at the bottom, how can I move something that was all the way at the bottom, all the way down again?:confused:

You assume more often than you actually listen to what people are saying, don't you?

If you re-read my previous advice, I mentioned the next/back buttons before your attempt at getting rid of tables. I suggested you should bring them to the top (or at least duplicate them there). Nobody's going to scroll down that far (99% of users will not bother reading through all of that text, thus not seeing your navigational buttons).

[kkbbcute]

After you read, you assume, based on logic, everything is an assumption, there is no observation. Because there is always a chance for a different intepretation. For example:

Why did you move the tutorial navigation all the way to the bottom

This obviously implies that the navigation bar was once at the top, and I moved it to the bottom, if it was already at the bottom, how did I move it down again, therefore you must have been talking about something else!

[yell0wdart]

This obviously implies that the navigation bar was once at the top, and I moved it to the bottom, if it was already at the bottom, how did I move it down again, therefore you must have been talking about something else!

That point referred to your other problem: the different tutorial elements that lived just below the main header. The fact that those moved down only serves to confuse when you originally had them at the top of the page. Their new location only makes your site more difficult to use.

[cjx3711]

The two of you still seem to be at it. Can this please stop?

[kkbbcute]

Okay, tell you what, I'm getting really confused right now, because you don't have a clue what I'm arguing for here, and I don't have a clue what you're complaining about, so why doon't you try posting a PrintScreen or something, that would solve our misunderstandings, right? :)

[yell0wdart]

This should be easier to grasp:

[kkbbcute]

Oh okay, I don't think you get the site hierarchy and stuff, the site isn't a full fledged tutorial site, tutorials are just part of the site. The nav bar in which you said I removed the lessons from, actually show all the pages under the "home" section Just check out the bottom of the page, the footer should give you a very clear idea. ;)

Also, I made the difficulty bar thing two times smaller already (width), how much smaller do you think I should pull it till?

Also, I've already considered putting the next/prev buttons at the top, just that I didn't include it in this version. And why should the "Using this site" page be on the front?

[yell0wdart]

Oh okay, I don't think you get the site hierarchy and stuff, the site isn't a full fledged tutorial site, tutorials are just part of the site. The nav bar in which you said I removed the lessons from, actually show all the pages under the "home" section Just check out the bottom of the page, the footer should give you a very clear idea. ;)

The footer and site hierarchy is very clear. My point is that nobody will see it because they're having to scroll so far down the page.

Also, I made the difficulty bar thing two times smaller already (width), how much smaller do you think I should pull it till?

Also, I've already considered putting the next/prev buttons at the top, just that I didn't include it in this version. And why should the "Using this site" page be on the front?

A home page should do only one thing: Let the user know at a glace, what they can do on the site. The home page needs to do that single thing very well. The rest is just fluff.

[kkbbcute]

The footer and site hierarchy is very clear. My point is that nobody will see it because they're having to scroll so far down the page.

But then how will moving the "Design"section up like you said help then. The site hierarchy would make no sense! And it'll confuse newcomers.

A home page should do only one thing: Let the user know at a glace, what they can do on the site. The home page needs to do that single thing very well. The rest is just fluff.


And under the competition rubrics, they insisted on having a index page which described the project well, not that I agree with it at all, just giving them what they want.

[yell0wdart]

But then how will moving the "Design"section up like you said help then. The site hierarchy would make no sense! And it'll confuse newcomers.

The rest of the hierarchy was non-existent prior to your change. I think the prior existence of the tutorial elements was in itself confusing. Maybe it might be best to just get rid of that subnav section alltogether now.


And under the competition rubrics, they insisted on having a index page which described the project well, not that I agree with it at all, just giving them what they want.

Knowing that ahead of time would have been fantastic.

[kkbbcute]

The rest of the hierarchy was non-existent prior to your change. I think the prior existence of the tutorial elements was in itself confusing. Maybe it might be best to just get rid of that subnav section alltogether now.

How then, would you suggest I present the hierarchy yet continue to let the user have access to the buttons that were once in the nav bar that you asked me to dump off?

And...
Knowing that ahead of time would have been fantastic.

You can't always have the things your way when it comes to rubrics, I learnt that the hard way last year.

[cjx3711]

I'm glad the argument stopped, anyway, about a post I made previously about the Flash site being up. I'm sorry about the delay but it should be up about tomorrow.

[kkbbcute]

Yup, sorry guys, many unexpected bugs are cropping up and we are trying hard to fix them, seeing that the deadline is 2 days away.

[CyanBlue]

Guys... Let's chill out abit and be more constructive... Hopefully you guys are already in the cool zone... ;)

[yell0wdart]

How then, would you suggest I present the hierarchy yet continue to let the user have access to the buttons that were once in the nav bar that you asked me to dump off?

I'm still thinking about that. If we ditched the sub-nav (under the header image) it'd have to live somewhere. My initial thought would have been to create some sort of fly-out menu (or set of menus) to show the hierarchical page structure. We're doing something similar at work with dynamically generated jQuery drop-downs do display page hierarchies. Not that you need to do something that complex, but I think consolidating the navigational items and offering some form of the page structure represented there would be a good complement to your footer (whether you use a fly-out or accordion style).

Anyway, overhauling your navigation isn't always a very easy task to accomplish quickly. I know you're under a time crunch. Just a few ideas to kick around if you find the time, or decide to implement a similar page structure on a future project.

My only issue was that the page structure lived so far down the page, that the unsuspecting user often wouldn't see. Now that I more fully understand the constraints of the project, I can understand if it's not a high priority item on your list of things to do in the next couple days.


You can't always have the things your way when it comes to rubrics, I learnt that the hard way last year.

What I was getting at here was that it would have been helpful for us to give your more directed feedback if we knew some of the limitations of your contest project ahead of time. ;)

[yell0wdart]

Guys... Let's chill out abit and be more constructive... Hopefully you guys are already in the cool zone... ;)

I think we've reached a mutual understanding.

[CyanBlue]

Appreciate it... Next time when you guys have a communication gap, pick up the phone or skype each other... :p

[kkbbcute]

Guys... Let's chill out abit and be more constructive... Hopefully you guys are already in the cool zone... ;)

Don't worry, we're ice cold:p

@yell0wdart
Darn, still can't think of a way around the navigation thing. I thought of putting the big fat words there "Sub Nav" with a big arrow pointing to it, but that would just look retarded (just kidding).

[Kimchee]

I must apologize to kkbbcute, I mis-read your intentions.

I was thinking of how you might solve the difficulty setting on the side that everyone gets confused about.

Either pick natural colors that display emotion, like blue for easy and red for hard and kick the difficulty level stuff, or simply write easy and hard where there is the color menu.

Just a thought.

[kkbbcute]

I must apologize to kkbbcute, I mis-read your intentions.

Don't worry, I didn't really mind.:)

Anyway I tried the write the text below idea but it looked way too wordy. So that didn't work out. But I'll take the colors into account.

Other than that, thanks for the input! And look at the other thread that you posted in, I think you made a mistake.

[yell0wdart]

Soooo... any update yet? How'd the contest go? Or is it one of those lame contests that make you wait a few weeks before they announce the winners?

[kkbbcute]

The wait is a month apparently, and they won't allow us to post the site till then (I wanted to but they told us not to, so darn! Don't understand why they need all these weird rules.). It's quite sad really, as I wanted some comments. Either way, I think I'll start a new thread about this in June or something, in the meantime, I'll be working on a new site, and letting this thread die off ;)

[cjx3711]

Technically, its a world renowned international competition so it's not lame. (And I'm not saying this because I mean it, I'm saying this because I don't want to get on the judges bad side)

[kkbbcute]

Technically, its a world renowned international competition so it's not lame. (And I'm not saying this because I mean it, I'm saying this because I don't want to get on the judges bad side)

My stand still stays, not letting us put our site on another server is just plain dumb.

Hey, its technically world renowned, but the problem with the competition is that they place too much trust and power with the teachers (which do only the admin and not much else) and leave the students (those who did all the work) with no power to even submit the site they made, because apparently, only the teacher can authorize the submission of the site in which he or she had no part in creating!

Why? Because apparently, anyone below 18 is not to be trusted, they slap rules like, "don't talk to people you don't know", "don't be mean to other members", and other stuff like that (as if we didn't know). So that's my main beef, they should rethink they're policies, especially the one which says, you can't place your site anywhere else, because I think normal people are responsible enough to know what to do with they're site.

That said, I don't want to continue this thread any further, as its of no use anymore. Could a moderator like close this thread or something?