Actually, I agree with you about Yoursite’s reviewing quality (or near lack of? :P). Nowadays, it seems like I mainly get “Nice site. It’s so simple and clean and easy to navigate” with a four or five star rating. While I don’t mind the positive feedback, I’m pretty sure there must be something wrong with it, but I don’t know… Although I do get some helpful pointers from some folks (however short it may be), like “The background’s bright green for some reason” or “The navigation doesn’t show up for me”. These are primarily what I’m looking for. Even if they don’t tell me how I could fix it, I wouldn’t mind looking it up myself. That sucks about the reviewer lowering your score though. Someone can’t handle having their “reviews” being questioned?

Heh, I’ve run into some WPRs that are like that. They seem to be disappearing off the Internet though (and it looks as though the one WPR that managed to stay strong is Rhiannon’s).

Ehe, sorry. It wasn’t directed at you personally. I just wanted to mention it before people got the wrong ideas…

I was talking in general, about YS.nu. I’ve been a member there for about 2 years, before I gave up because the review quality got lower and lower. Sure, you’ll find one or two members who can give good reviews. And in the good ol’ days when Ys.nu was opened (3 and 1/2 years ago), a lot of the reviews were better than what I can get from most WPRs.

Nevertheless, YS.nu has largely been abandoned by the owner, so not much is going on there, anymore. Most reviews are just one paragraph long there. Unless the site reviewed is not using any stylesheet and has dreadfully boring content, I really don’t see how one paragraph can do it justice.

Plus some of the reviews were along the lines: Oh such a nice site… 3/5. When I actually dared to ask the reviewer why it was a 3/5 if she liked it, she got all butthurt and changed my score to 1/5 (probably would’ve put 0 if it were possible).
Granted, a lot of WPRs these days believe that they’re God’s gift to the Internet for deigning to write one measly line over your layout, content and a conclusion respectively.

I didn’t take this as a How-To either. It was just my input, having been a member at Ys.nu for over 2 years, and a reviewer for 3.

As for the shapes as eye candy, I think it’s all just a matter of personal preference. For me, I’ve seen layouts that didn’t use any kind of shapes or images and they still managed to look good (WordPress template Hemingway Reloaded is one). I think the thing that has to catch the visitor or the thing that has to stand out can be text (i.e. like the site title) or an image, just as long as something stands out (although I’m not sure if I integrated it very well in this layout…), which is the Contrast part of CRAP.

And as I said earlier, there always seem to be exceptions. Some people have said gray (or any kind of monotone color layouts) are too boring, but if you play around with it a little longer, maybe use a different variation of the color or use white, it might not look so overwhelming and people won’t notice it as much. Which is why I think people should experiment with layouts as much as possible. If they make mistakes (as we all do), they’ll learn from them.

I’m aware that Yoursite is a WPRC (I probably should’ve made that clear in the post…), but I really don’t go to get opinions and the like on my layout. I mainly go so people can spot any technical errors the layout might have (they can comment on the layout if they want. I won’t stop them), like if something’s acting a little weird or if there’s a validation error. (Although I’m not sure why reviewers’ opinions on Yoursite seem to be seen as lower than one on a WPR. Someone care to explain that to me? I’ve seen some reviews that looked as though they could go on a WPR.)

This post wasn’t really meant to be an actual How-to (even though the title says “How to blahblablah”) or tutorial. It’s just some suggestions I have for people starting out or who are struggling with creating web designs. It’s kind of a response to other articles I read written by amateur web designers like myself. Ones that tell the visitor how to find their own style (take an image, study it and find out what you like about it), and the trick to coming up with a good layout is to get something that’s both professional and simple (both are actual articles/reviews I read). What I felt like they should’ve said was that even if you manage to find your style—it may change in the next two months to a year once you experiment more or see other layouts. And it looks like the second one was left by someone who is into simple layouts, because I’ve seen some elaborate layouts that were done quite well (i.e. still had the frills everywhere without overdoing it).

For example, take your own layout. If you would not make use of the Flickr photos, it would be incredibly bland, despite padding and color use and all CRAP which you employ.

It’s those picture that make a difference. Of course, I have actually seen a grayscale layout I liked. It’s a free template that Sarai offers (chiklita.net/gray/).
Still, I found that visitors very much like having some short of shape which can attract their attention. Eye candy if you will.

For the record, YS.nu is a WPRC (web site reviewing comunity), which is different from a WPR. It’s good if you’re just looking for opinions, and not suggestions, however in that case it is very important to be able to read between the lines. But if you genuinely want to improve, I’d say you go to WPRs (like petshowgirlsreviews.com )