You’re using a typical wordpress template, so there’s not really much to say about the layout itself. I do think this new, darker layout is an improvement from the last one that you had (which I did start reviewing) but it takes up a lot of my screen, and I keep wondering if I’d be as happy with this layout if I was working with a smaller resolution. Upon closer examination, I find some ads that are placed in awkward places and a blank spot where I’m assuming an image of some sort is supposed to be off to the right hand side…

Information

Site: Zwinkyness
Type: Personal
Owner: Morgan
Reviewed By: Vicky
Date Received: 2/6/08
Date Completed: 7/14/08
Preview

Presentation

First thing’s first, the theme that you’ve used - while it is quite attractive - is a bit on the large side. The header itself is huge, considering you only really have your site name and a small description on it, but it takes up a third of my screen already. Width-wise, as I’ve already mentioned, the layout is quite large as well.

Your sidebar looks fairly neat and organized. I’d suggest adding a small blurb at the very top that welcomes the visitor and explains what exactly your site is about. You could actually add that at the top of your existing blurb about yourself in some way (example: “Bonjour and welcome to the personal site/blog/etc. of Morgan, a 17 year old…) Looking further in your navigation, I don’t really understand the difference between “Categories” and “Tags”. As far as I can see, they’re essentially the same thing, they’re just organized in different ways and one is more detailed than the other. It feels a little redundant, and I’m not really sure which one I should be clicking to find my way around. (By the way, “sparetime” is two words!)

Your “font size” drop-down menu is a tad big and pushes the “increase font size” and “default” links to the bottom and it ends up looking a little disorganized. You could either move the “decrease font size” button to the bottom with the other two, or make the drop-down menu smaller. Below, the first is your current setup and the two following it are two different suggestions. (And, as a sidenote, it’d also look a little nicer if “default” had an icon instead of just text as well. Perhaps just the letter, without the minus or addition signs.)

You have a header - “The Queen” - in your sidebar navigation that doesn’t have anything under it…

It seems that your google ads get in the way of your content. In the latest versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari, the google ads block out the title of the next entry. While they all look slightly different in each browser, the following is pretty much what it looks like to me: (This was a screenshot taken in Internet Explorer 7). It actually seems that I.E. 6 is the only one that doesn’t have a problem with your ad:

One last thing: I’ve noticed that the links in your content and the text are the same exact color. That bugs me, because how else am I supposed to tell where to click and where not to?

Content

The Queen

• Your “some reminders of the heroic history of said country are coming later on.” link doesn’t lead to anywhere.
• “birthdaypresent” is two words.
• Under “Hobbies and stuff”, you use the abbreviations “HP” and “POTC” and while I know that HP stands for Harry Potter (or it might not…) not everyone does.

My Internet History

• You say it’s been seven years, but it’s actually been eight years now.
• “cartoondolls” is two words
• When you’re talking about thanking Geocities for hosting you, and your new domain being born, it’d be nice to have links to those two as well.
• You claim that Zwinkyness is a showcase of your knowledge of “coding, designing and accessibility”, but the ironic thing is, your main layout is a premade Wordpress theme. I fail to see the coding, design, or accessibility that you’ve done for your site.

My Personal Favourite…

• There’s way too much spacing between each interest. Your page isn’t that big to begin with, but it seems a lot longer than it really is because of all the spacing. To change the padding, to into your style sheet and find:
  

  html>body .entry li {
margin: 7px 0 8px 10px;
}

  And reduce the 7px and 10px to something a little smaller.

My Personal Profile

• Page not found!

An In-Depth Investigation of Yours Truly

• “The information displayed on this website” = I believe you mean “The information displayed on this page“, not this website.

Opinionated Individual Alert

• Page not found!

Writings

• “fivehundred” is two words
• “in my mothertongue, namely Dutch.” = “in my mother tongue, Dutch.”
• “Those articles, you will find in the visitor section of this website.” = I don’t see a visitor section on your website.
• “Most of these (and more) stories can also be found on Quizilla, Fanfiction.net or ToujoursPur.” = You can use this sentence to link to your QUizilla, Fanfiction.net, and ToujoursPur accounts.

Zwinkyness

• “It is made with as solemnly purpose to entertain me during the countless hours I spend browsing the world wide web and of course, to house as an online journal where I can write and express my feelings, thoughts and emotions.” = “It is made with the purpose of entertaining me during the countless hours I spend browsing the world wide web and to function as an online journal where I can write and express my feelings, thoughts and emotions.” (In other words, “as solemnly purpose” makes no sense whatsoever, neither does “to house as an online journal”)
• “I suggest you leave since this page is actually stiffed with them.” = Um… I’m not sure ’stiffed’ is a word; I’m assuming you meant ’stuffed’. Also, saying that this ’site’ is stuffed with them is probably more accurate than this ‘page’.
• “and the eight circle of Hell” = ‘eight’ should be changed to ‘eighth’~
• You don’t really need all that information under ‘Designs’, considering you’re not the one who coded, tested, and designed the layout. (Not to mention, by this point, if the design doesn’t work in a resolution or browser, I’m pretty sure people would’ve noticed by now.) The first paragraph of ‘Designs’ can be cut; the second paragraph looks good.
• The dictionary is very interesting, but what exactly does ‘Zwinky’ mean? And where did it come from?
• Links 4 and 6 under ‘Listed at’ lead to dead sites.

Sitemap

• Your site map (and it is two words, not “sitemap”) is kind of a mess. I suggest taking everything and putting them in levels. Skyefairy’s site map is a perfect example of what I mean. See how she has the main page, and the sub-pages? One way you can do this in Wordpress (if that’s what you’re using to set up this sitemap) is to put specific pages inside one another. When you’re creating a page, you can usually set a “page parent”. So for example, “The Queen” would be the parent page to “My Internet History”. And when you’re listing them in Wordpress,
  

  <?php wp_list_pages('child_of=2&title_li=' ); ?>

  where child_of=# is where you put the page number of the parent.

• “Archives” leads to an empty page.
• A lot of these pages aren’t even listed anywhere else on the site other than the site map. Site maps are made for people to easier navigation, not another list of new links that nobody’s ever visited before. Pages like “Accessibility Statement”, “Advertisements and Sponsors”, and basically all the pages listed underneath can go under the “Zwinkyness” page parent somewhere. But you do have to link them somewhere other than the site map.
• Your messages textarea for your “Contact Me” page is way too small, and instead of centering the drop down menu for your Subject, align it to the left like you have with every other field.
• “Credits and Resources” leads to a blank page.
• Under Disclaimer: “emailadress” = “email address”
• Guestlog is pretty much an empty page as well.
• Your Terms of Service is outdated; I don’t see any Visitors section at all.

Final Statement

Overall, Zwinkyness is pretty much an average personal site to me. I think that you’ve done a pretty good job writing the content (I didn’t find that many spelling/grammar mistakes, even though English isn’t your first language!) However, I think you really need to go through your site and work a bit more on organization. I feel like your site had a lot more sections in the past and you decided to scrap them, but didn’t do a very good job throwing those sections away (like the nonexistant Vistors Section that’s always mentioned, but that nobody can see.) You need to go through your site and delete whatever is old, rewrite some of the sections (that mention the old pages that no longer exist) and just reorganize a little. Otherwise, there’s nothing particularly spectacular about the site itself, but it is well made.