Howdy all,

I've been donig some prototyping for the HipSoft website and I've put something up for public viewing in hopes of getting some feedback. You can check it out at: http://www.hipsoft.com/test

The text is mostly place-holder (or "Coming Soon") for now.

In addition to general comments and complaints, I also have a few specific questions:

1) Do you get a narrow gap in the upper-right corner between the top banner and the scroll bar? Does it go away if you refresh?

2) Do you think the colors are too dark?

3) Does the page initially load up reasonably quick for you? (I believe you can press Ctrl+F5 to force a full refresh)

I'm clearly not an html guru, so if there are any technical problems with the layout, inline-frame, etc., please let me know!

Thanks for any input! :)

Looks okay to me; the colors aren't too dark on my screen. The only downside I see is that it took *forever* to load for me -- and I'm on a broadband connection. Not sure why it took so long.

Thanks alchemist. There's 52k of gif data on the right...with two of those being animated gifs. I will try removing them (but I'm going to wait a bit to see if I get any other feedback).

It was relatively slow for me as well, so I figured it was going to be an issue--I just kinda liked having the animations :)
-Scorpio

I really like the logo banner on top, it's very nice. I'm not a big fan of the Java applet below it. I'd rather it were in Javascript. (which is quicker besides). I think the rounded edges on the central area is a nice touch.

1) Do you get a narrow gap in the upper-right corner between the top banner and the scroll bar? Does it go away if you refresh?

2) Do you think the colors are too dark?

3) Does the page initially load up reasonably quick for you? (I believe you can press Ctrl+F5 to force a full refresh)
1) Yes. Nope. Worked fine on both IE and Mozilla.

2) I don't particularly like the rust orange hyperlinks on the left and right sidebars. But it doesn't bother me in the central area. I'm not sure if it's the darkness or just too much of it. Probably the underlining doesn't help. I recommend you try a lighter color and CSS hover highlighting. For examples, check out the Dexterity Home Page (http://www.dexterity.com) or a page from my non-game site (http://www.egotron.com/ptv/ptvintro.htm).

3) The page loaded up quickly for each time, in both browsers. I'm also on broadband.

Looks pretty cool. I like the logo alot. I'd buy a shirt or two :)

I didn't like the orange links either. With the resolution I am running they are a bit too dark to really stand out. Isn't the link color a bit lighter in the middle? There it looks ok.

I had absolutely no problems loading the page. I am on broadband and the thing snapped up in under two seconds. If this is too slow I am getting old ..

Works very well for me, no gaps or refresh problems at all. (IE on an XP system)

Can't comment on loading times because I am on a fast ADSL line. Loads almost instantly for me.

Design:
If your focus is selling games then the site could look a bit more cheerful.
I don't mean 20 blinking buttons in all colors (gah I hate sites that burn my seeing-nerves) but a more designerish-playful approach that fits your needs.
Maybe a mid-way approach, like turbine-games.com or similar, looks professional but still has an aha! effect. (although I don't like their main color choice on the first page, the sub-categories look great though)

Your design fits well if you want a sincere, pro-all around-software developer approach, but your contents indicate that you want to mainly sell games. The site should show that, it should transport the right mood to the viewer, that will increase your sales.
'Form follows function' so to say.

Thanks for all the feedback! I made a few minor changes (including ditching the java hover buttons for dhtml underlining)

I made a few tweaks to the colors...but I'll really need to get together with our artist to make significant improvements.

The slightly revised site is now available at: http://www.hipsoft.com/test

Also, thanks for letting us know that (some of) you like the HipSoft logo. :)

-Scorpio