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First Impression
The splash page looks nice, but it is ultimately unneeded. Very few people don’t have the Verdana font, and even less people will be willing to change their screen size just to view your website. As well, considering the name of website is Westlife-Planet, one could safely assume it’s about Westlife.

I don’t like the fact the first box in the second row of the splash image is empty. It looks too bleak.

Moving on to your main page, I’m greeted with a rather pleasant color scheme. I like the pale yellows—it’s not a common color for a website. I don’t much like certain bits of the header image, but more on that later. I’m also forced to wonder what exactly a Westlife is. The layout reminds vaguely of something for a television show layout. I have no idea about Westlife. I have never heard of it. If you’re going to have a fansite, I think it would be rather nice if you provided an introductory paragraph stating what the fansite is about, who or what Westlife is, and such basic facts.

And a quick Wikipedia search tells me Westlife is a band. Now, why didn’t you say that? I shouldn’t have to go on another website to figure this out.

Presentation
This does not look like a band website. The image you use is of a band member and his wife, I assume? Truthfully, it reminds of a layout I would find had I been reviewing a fansite for a television show, or some form of movie. Not a band. I also think it’s a bad idea to showcase only one member of the band—it gives visitors the wrong idea (it certainly gave me the wrong idea).

The layout image itself seems generally simple. Two rows of blocks, two completely empty blocks which don’t look much good at all. It’s a mass empty space in the middle of the layout, which, generally, takes away from the layout. Incorporating something into that space would quite possibly make the header image look significantly better. Also, adding the name of your website somewhere on the layout would be a generally good idea. One should always have the name of their website showcased somewhere on the layout.

I see no point in your iframe. I already have to scroll to access it, and the double scrollbars are bothersome. Why not simply use divs for the layout? It would be far more convenient and would eliminate that extra scroll bar. Also, the iframe cuts off the border that is supposed to be around it on the right and bottom sides. Iframes are a poor design choice all-together unless you plan on having your layout fit completely on the screen without the double scrolling.

Your tag board also cuts off the border that is supposed to be around it.

I would suggest centering the layout in its entirety. Because of its size it looks far too awkward shoved off to the side in the manner you have it now. Also, centering it would suit the way you have the navigation and header image lined up.

Your page headers look vaguely like your links. Change something about one or the other to distinguish between them. Make the headers larger, or alter the links—altering the links would probably be the best way to go since they cause other issues as well. All your links are are bolded versions of your regular text. Considering you bold some text is certain sections this can get confusing. If you want your links to stand out better make use of the underlining feature or make them a different color. You need to distinguish your headers, your links and your regular text from each other better.

Having back links on every page is redundant. Web-browsers provide their own back buttons, and I’m far more inclined to use Opera’s than scroll to the bottom of your page just to return to the page I viewed before that.

Your layout, overall, was average. It could have been executed in a far better manner, and, despite the fact it looks good at first glance, the problems it does have takes away form your presentation in general. Also, I’d suggest having a layout that has more to do with the band than just one member of the band.

Content
I already stated that I had to go on a completely different website to find out what Westlife was. I really do think an introductory paragraph is needed on your main page. Something like “You have reached Westlife-Planet, a website dedicated to the Irish boy band Westlife!” and so on and so forth. (I only assume they’re a boy band because that was what I found out when looking them up elsewhere. I have never heard their music and your website lacks any explanation on it what-so-ever, so I have to go by the sources I find.)

Moving off your main page, to the About section, I find the information you provide, in general, lacking. You have information on the members, but what else? Tell the visitor about the band. Not everyone viewing your website knows about Westlife (and don’t think people don’t go on website about bands they’ve never heard of. They do). You may think you're catering to people who are already fans, but adding more than just the minimum amount of information could be helpful to both the casual observer and the new and old fan. As a fan site, your website should answer questions like What is Westlife?, When did they form?, Who are they?, What was their first CD?, How popular are they/what numbers did they place on the musical charts?, Where are they from?, Who are their past members?, etc. Yours does none of this. Also, it seems it’s about Westlife and their wives. Or, “girls,” rather. Your website should answer any questions about them and their relations as best as possible, as well.

The information you do have on the band members and their wives is minimal. You have general information that can be found anywhere with the minimal effort. Considering they are a band, why not add more on what parts they typically sing, the type of music they perform, their musical influences, and their general style? Getting into the band’s stage personas never hurts, either. Things like these are far more interesting to viewers than the mole on Mark’s neck, of which the casual viewer probably has little to no interest in knowing.

Something went wrong with the formatting of the About Shane page.

The Voting page and the Birthday- and Congrats- books should be moved to a different page. They aren’t news. Other than this, I have little to say about the news section.

Your Gallery page is organized generally well; however, you should use real thumbnails. Resizing the images in your tags does not cut down on loading time, and causes the images to look cramped, pixelated, and awkward. Instead, take the time to make actual thumbnails from parts of the images—this would save on loading time, making your gallery pages far more user friendly. Right now, your various galleries on your pages cause far too long to load on my dial-up and has generally bad reactions with my computer.

Your Albums and Singles pages were complete and very well done. You even have release dates and where the album/single premiered on the charts! Now if only the rest of your pages were this informative.

For your Lyrics page, I highly suggest having it so there are Return to Top links underneath each song’s lyrics.

You have a decent amount of pages in your Fun section, and a good amount of avatars, blends, wallpapers, etc. in their respectful sections. I think the Dolls page, however, is a little unneeded. None of them are specially designed pixel dolls of the girls and could be just as easily been made by anything else using the appropriate doll websites.

In the About the Webmistress section, I like how, rather than just going on about yourself, you state your favorites of Westlife and the times you met them. It incorporates better into the website. The rest of your pages under Site also had the appropriate amount of information. It would be nice to see you comment a little more on your past layouts, reviews, and whatnot, however.

Overall, I believe your informational content needs a lot of work. Unless one is already completely familiar with Westlife you give out no information whatsoever on the band. You also provide no new facts about Westlife for visitors who are knowledge-endowed fans of the band. As a fan site, I strongly believe your website should do both. You do have a good amount of graphical media and “fun stuff,” however.

Errors
You need to watch your comma usage (you tend to leave them out), as well as your use of spacing with slashes and capitalization. These are off on almost all of your pages—far too much for me to point out. Instead, I’ll be focusing these errors on grammar problems.

About

About Georgina
Second Section: She did a business degree at university and, now she has graduated, she would like to start her own business at some point. would sound significantly better as She has a business degree from a university and wants to start her own business as some point.
About Gillian
Line 9: (she dyed it blonde.. her natural colour is RED!) should be (She dyed it blond. Her natural colour is red!). Excess capitalization and ellipses should be left for casual e-mails and blog entries, not websites.
Line 29: Change She knows Shane since when they were 12 to She has known Shane since they were twelve.
Line 30: She has (had) braces should be She had braces.
Line 31: Did you know that she goes and shops for Shane, she just buys this really cheap thingies should be When she goes shopping for Shane, she only buys really cheap things.

Music
Change Review Allow Us To Be Frank to Review: Allow Us to be Frank

Coding
In order to have valid coding you need to specify a DOCTYPE. Assuming that you're using HTML 4.0, a DOCTYPE would look a little something like:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

Also, although not necessary, if you ever want to move up and use XHTML, all your coding should be in lowercase. You should also not compress your tags, like <center>--instead, use the whole code: <p align="center"> or better yet, use CSS to center whatever element it is.

Instead of using so many <br> tags, you should set off paragraphs by enclosing your (paragraphs of) text in <p> </p> tags. The <br> tag should be used for single line breaks—there’s no need for you to use them to define paragraphs.

On your home.php page don’t close your <body> and <html> tags. Considering you do it elsewhere, I’m assuming this was just a mistake—although you should go about fixing that.

Short of the above mentioned things, your coding looks generally good.

Conclusion
I find that your website, as a whole, could be significantly improved. You need more information on the band than what you provide—I’ve also mentioned in the content section of this review just what I think is needed. You need to work on bettering your presentation and make your website far friendlier to fans, and potential fans—had I not had to review your website and just simply stumbled upon it, I wouldn’t have bothered trying to find out who Westlife was. Rather, I would have shrugged my shoulders and moved on. One less potential Westlife fan, one less visitor for you. As I already stated—have your website so it’s interesting and informative to potential fans, new fans and old fans alike.

Star-wise, I’m giving you a two, because of your amount of viewable content, and other such graphical things you provide to the fans. However, it needs to improve in almost every other area, and I do believe, that until a more is provided—at the least—your website hasn’t quite hit the average mark, especially not beyond.




Reviewed by: honest truth reviews


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