putting this site under the microscope...

Lose the default W3C buttons, either make your own or use a text link instead.

The colour seems a little low-contrast, especially the left nav items, they may be hard to read for some people.

You also have a bit of divitis and classitis going on there

Pineapplehead,

Thanks for your quick response. The color schemes have been chosen by a client.
As for navigational menu, I use matching purple shade as rest of the webpage instead of the matching yellow shade ...this to help make words being more readable.

As for W3C buttons, those shown on index page are *NOT* default W3C default buttons. The default W3C buttons are huge and ugly (from W3C validator website). The ones on index page are discreetly designed being small by others (I dont know who made them).

hmm divitis and classitis.... I'll figure how to make the code more leaner & more effective.

Thanks again for your 2 cents

My mistake, I should have said "default-looking" - they don't match your site.

Irrespective of the fact that the client chose the colours, the text is still hard to read - if I squint my eyes a bit, I can barely even see there's text on the left.

I'm also not a big fan of two-colour gradients, but that's just personal preference

It's definitely a little difficult to read.
Maybe the menu background could start off yellow then go all funky when it's hovered over. At least that way you have been able to clearly read what's there initially and it matters less if you can't read it when hovering - chances are you're pointers in the way anyway.

It's worth explaining to the client that while he/she may think it looks great, it could cause visitors problems and they may end up leaving.

Also, remove

They dont seem to be doing anything - any CSS that applies to those div's can be moved up top the parent - content-wrapper. Or netter still, remove content-wrapper and inner2 use content to style the ...um ...errrr ...content.

I'd agree with P. about the validation buttons - style some text to do the same thing. Most people will have no idea what they are, they'll just think they look out of place. Those who care will find them, even if nicely styled and not doing impressions of sore thumbs.

Generally the layout is good, I would definitely explain the colour and contrast issue to your client - it is to their benefit in the long run.

HTH

Fat Freddy

The good ! Always fun to start off with that, right?

- The logo is kicking! I am really into it.
- The message is good, and seems purpose driven
- It is organized, well coded.

And here are some pointers...

- The top image is stretched, originaly the width is 720px , but stretched to 740, def. can notice and takes quality away from that cool logo!
- Overuse of the gradient. Loses effect after doing so much.
- Background is interesting, but the birds maybe shouldn't be getting as much attention, my eyes want to go everywhere!!! I would make them more transparent.
- Menu Contrast, the text is somewhat difficult to read.

This is nice a clean, but it would really set it over the top if a few modifications where made

header image being sized at 740px instead of 720px

redesigned the validation buttons and linked them to appropriate validation page(

changed the images for navigation menu and made text being colored purple instead of black

any critisms for the rest of the website?

Yes

http://www.wordandworshipchurch.org/images/logo.jpg

Why isn't that actual text?

Wrong section. Mods, can you please remove.
Ta

Whoops. Sorry about that

could spambots harvest info from an image?

No, but that's not the point. What if images are disabled? What if the link to the image is wrong?

It shoudl be actual HTML text

I agree for image instead of text. Bots can't extract info from image (ok, they can from alt tag) but this is not standard procedure in getting good page rank. Getting proper and correct information is something you must crave for in internet.

Regards.

It should be actual HTML text

Took care of it...the actual texts are in the homepage.

http://www.wordandworshipchurch.org/images/logo.jpg

Why isn't that actual text?

Now...this gets you to the hotlink page. Good to know that this site has hotlink protection working well.

I noticed that the criticisms tend to be for the main page. I wondered if there's any criticisms for the rest of the website? :?

Personally I would add a touch more padding to the text on the welcome page - as it's a pretty 'wordy' page, the extra whitespace would make it easier to read. (like you have on the mission page)

Also think about putting in some headings throughout the text - just to break it up a little and allow people to scan it for 'sections' of info.

I would suggest something like:

Word and worship members
before "The body of believers here at Word and Worship..."

and

How we will help you
before "If you truly want to grow..."

and

Come and join us
before "Find one of our small groups..."

Not the catchiest of titles (I'm sure with more than three seconds thought you can improve them dramatically) but there definitely seems to be four sections to the text on the page, why not introduce each one with a heading? With a bit of thought, they could also boost your profile with the search engines by including keywords.

As someone suggested - maybe fade the background image of the birds a little, it does tend to make your eyes jump around a bit and distracts from the parts you really want people to focus on.

HTH

Fat Freddy