Reviews for Straight From School

We at Straight From School feel the need to get reviewed once in a while as we consider that we should always be accepting the advice and critique of others in order to improve what we can offer to visitors! We will archive any reviews here, good or bad, as you'll maybe be able to see if the site has made any improvements since these reviews. Thanks to all the reviewers! If you would like to submit a review of the site please do! We'd love to hear your opinion.

January 08 by Shellz at Bubbly Chica Reviews | (Now Closed)

Olivia @ Straight From School
Review done on: January 5, 2008

First Impression / Layout



I first wanted to find out what your site is about, so I read the welcome message, which says: "Welcome to Straight From School, a multi fansite for actresses - with a difference. The actresses we support won their roles either by being spotted for their talent or queuing with thousands of other girls all by chance. We celebrate that not only child-actresses with a family of film producers can squeeze into the limelight but normal, everyday girls, like you or me, can too!" I think the last sentence "We celebrate that not only child-actresses with a family of film producers can squeeze into the limelight but normal, everyday girls, like you or me, can too!" could be re-worded differently so that it makes more sense.

The layout isn't exactly stunning, it's very plain. I think that the title of your site on the layout could have stood out more. I do like the idea of having an animated layout displaying all the girls of the site, that's very creative.

Under "projects" since you're displaying one of them, why not display them all under there? I think by them all being right there on the home page it's more of an informative first impression.

Olivia: I actually considered this (when we listed each actresses' upcoming projects in the sidebar). Being a multi-fansite it made the sidebar too cluttered! In the end, we removed it altogether.

Content: PROFILES

I love how you went into depth about your site, the name, and clarified the name. I would not have known that if you hadn't wrote that description. I thought "straight from school" was like a show or something, but that helped me understand more. In firefox, at the bottom when viewing "submitting a link", the form causes this the come off the page a little. [screen shot here] So, I'd suggest making the form width smaller for more compatible viewing. The text in the form is really tiny as well and hard to read, so you should make the font size on that bigger. Also, I would suggest having these "links" on a separate page, I think it would be more organized and you may even start getting more and more links submitted which means the list will grow, so I think it would be better if this had it's own separate page. Maybe you could even create a separate listing on your site relating to the girls.

Olivia: This was a very good suggestion which we took into consideration. Seperating the fansites and the fansite links was the next step in making the sections clearer and more detailed.

CASTING

So, not only does your site provide information about these girls, but also provides tips on casting calls and auditions, maybe you could add that to your welcome message. I really like your articles they're very informative. On your "open casting calls" page, these dates are way over due and should be updated. Either you should update them and if there is nothing up to date, you should take those dates down and display that there's nothing currently available. No one who's interested in that sort of thing wants to come to your site to only found out dated things. Again, your form causes the content to come off of the page. [screen shot here] and the text of the form is difficult to read. The link is missing for the "Harry Potter's History of Castings" article.

Olivia: The huge problem with listing open casting calls for up to 18 year olds is that they are extremely rare, and the casting call page will nearly always display that there is "currently no casting"! Shellz is completely right when she points out how annoying it is to come across dead and old links.

PHOTOS

The link to this page is broken, you should consider fixing that.

SITE/ONLINE

Just want to point out, that judging from your past layouts - version 1 - you've come a long way on your site. I noticed on the "staff" page, in your "about me" you have you hate: "Wasted life on the computer", is that referring to wasting time creating your site? Or just spending time on the computer period? Just like all the other pages of your site section, I think your F.A.Q. should have a separate page, but it is understandable if you want this to be noticeable and stick out for people who may have these same questions.

Additional comments

I think that your font size could be a couple of points bigger, it is quite small. By default, your font should be set to a nice size, easy to read. It's not as convenient when visitors have to come to your site and manually have to increase the size themselves as I had to do. This is a big thing with the font size on the forms of your site, that is one of the things you should definately change. Any page of your site that has a form, the font size should be larger and the width of the text box smaller. When I go to your site page (there is a form there) and here is what it looks like [screen shot here].

Olivia: Yes, I agreed concerning this layout as the font was too small. Readable text is definately the first thing I look for now.

Overall

I can tell that you have put a lot of hard work into your site. It's extremely informative, it gives a lot of information about the subject and that is a plus as a web owner. Just with making these improvements it'll continue to be better.

Olivia: Shellz made some really valid points which I'm grateful for. Her tips were useful and I'm glad we took them into consideration.