Uranus

Here we go again, back feeding my habit of reading Sailor Moon webpages. Remember kids, love, financial stability, and good health are poor substitutes for a good Sailor Moon obsession.

SereCindra's Sailor Moon Live, first impression. Well, I see a horizontal scroll bar, so already I'm not happy. And we also have scrolling text. Scrolling text is one of those human inventions that just never has any use worth the trouble. It's like a car alarm. It's really distracting and annoying and it just never works. Also in view on the opening page is a tagboard, which says it's not a realtime chat its (sic) a message board. Well if that's what you want, why not put up, oh, say, a MESSAGE BOARD?! Tagboards are supposed to be chatty. And this one has rules like no swearing. Oh, well fuck it then.

The navigation frame is on the right, which is weird (maybe she's going for a Japanese feel? Doesn't work.), and it's also kind of floating in space, instead of attatched to the top and side like we're used to. The tagboard and updates list are also floating out there. The problem with that is if you're like me and enjoy using the scroll wheel, you never know which of the three bars are going to scroll. And the text is not quite arranged correctly-go ahead and click on the biography of the little known character MotokiIkuko.

Time to go browsing some of the subsections before the tagboard refresh distracts me again. We begin with Senshi profiles. Man, it must be tough being a Sailor Senshi, having to do all these interviews for websites where they always ask you the same questions, birthday, blood type, etc. I mean, that must be what's happening-otherwise why would all the sites need to put up the same stuff?

And there are loads of spelling and grammar mistakes in the profiles. Big ones, that make you have to read the sentence twice and also make you wonder whether the writer is an ESL speaker and if it would be offensive to criticize. (And yet, I do anyway) Also one WTF moment: Usagi is called a second year junior-high-school student, and then said to be in tenth grade. Maybe you spent 10 years getting to that level, but I didn't. And she goes to Ward-Facilities JHS. Huh?

Time out! This beautiful site managed to cause a GPF in my browser! (for those of you who don't know, that's the "illegal operation" thing) Oh, yeah, that's the way to get on my good side. Maybe it's just that the browsers's been open too long. I'll reload. No wait, there's another one. Maybe it has something to do with the tagboard refreshing every 5 seconds?

The good news is that the content, once you get past the lyrics and act storyboards, gets better. There's a nice item gallery with closeups of some of the things you don't usually see in PGSM, like the karaoke passport and the cell phone; fanart galleries; and a real message board (so why the tagboard?).

So, overall, this is a bad site because of problems in layout and coding. A ground-up rebuild of the homepage would probably move this into my "thumbs up" column, especially if the tagboard were either removed or placed on its own page. Also, the good stuff, like the Item guide and such, should be the top links, not hidden at the bottom of a weird navigation bar. If I hadn't been reading the site for review, I probably would have missed them. Also a proofreader is needed. But this could easily be a cool site to hang out at. It's just not there yet.

Neptune

Let's start the review with what I see first. The layout is pretty ugly. It's a whole bunch of pictures molded into one. To top that off none of the images were blended so you can see it as a bunch of pictures molded. Why have a layout like this?

Next the left side of the menu-or main part-is just as bad. The tagboard is hard to read- have to highlight the text to read peoples' comments. Other then that the left side is ok. Right side of the layout is too crowded. All the cast info, Song Lyrics and Storyboards should open to a different page. Like click on "Cast Info" and be taken to a new page so the viewers can choose that way. Let's make it simple she should have done it something like this:

• Cast Info
• Song Lyrics
• Storyboards
• Forum
• Links
• Misc

That would make it less crowded and better off all together.

With that let's continue. When clicking on any link I am taken to a new window. Unless you have a pop-up type layout, I don't want to be taken to a new window everytime I click on a link-minus pictures..To make it worst, none of the backgrounds match the main layout. Always need to stick to one layout...even if it's a bunch of molded pictures. >.<

Ok on her links page it tells me to see the credits page but I can't find it anywhere. I'm sure she has one but it needs to be visible.

All in all this is a site that is badly put together. There's tons of good info but again I had to "dig" my way through the site to find things.

What can be improved:
Layout. Get something different and bends well. I'm not saying make it perfect but atleast have it so it doesn't look choppy. Menu. The menu is too crowded. Shorten it by combining things that go together. Credit Page. It would be nice to give credit were due. I do see a few credits but if you have on your site "please visit the credits page" then you need to have one and have it visible.

Pluto

Breakdown of site usability in 18/100

Welcome and site Identity 3
- no splash page. title of site different on browser than on the web page itself. Title not readily apparent and in a colour that is hard on the eyes.

Navigation 5
- content opens in new window rather than the frame provided for it. Horizontal scrolling is against best practice in web design. links are not set out in an orderly fashion and not all of them work. Even if you're going to have a blank page, all you need to do is make a page that says 'coming soon' so we know you're working on it.
- the link titles would be better navigation than having each of the links there by name, cluttering up the nav bar (or what passes for it). some of the links make no sense in relation to the any purpose of the website.

Content of Interest 4
- links open in a new window instead of the frame at the left. the photos are before and after the text. They might have well been better served by putting the photos in a separate gallery. each page has a different background. Not good. Needs a spell/grammar checker.
- poor design of storyboard section. Might wanna take some tips from Shingetsu on how to do it properly.
- HP fanfiction doesn't belong on a PGSM website, sorry.

Advertising and sponsorship 0
none, altho the site is hosted by Genvid, there are no visible links on the front page to reflect this.

Self-promotion 2
- link me page is a link to several other pages. ppl aren't going to want to navigate thru this to find links to you, sorry.

Filler 2
- the graphics look mashed together, little blending of images done, not coherently assembled. It uses up space that could be used to rest the eyes before moving on to the rest of the site. Too much going on and it's off-putting for anyone looking for information.

White-space 2
- 'empty' space filled by above-mentioned graphics. Horizontal scrolling uses up any white-space and clutters up the page.

Other
This site still needs a lot of work to bring it in line with acceptable web design practice. The graphics are not consistant throughout the site, the links aren't either. All of the links are improperly targeted, either opening in another window, or in the same window, thus obscuring the main site and not encouraging the user to go back. The information is mixed with photos, and not in a pleasing manner.

Saturn

Alrighty. Lemme see what is in this page....

OH DEAR GOD! First off, I almost went blind after this page loaded. Once again people, keep in mind that just because it is a cool picture, doesn't mean that it makes for a cool layout. The Princess Sailor Moon theme could have been MUCH better emphasized then what is here. It looks like the owner took a bunch of screen caps, cut off the side with the clock and jammed them all together. The fact that the lighting on them keeps changing doesn't do well for the eyes. In fact it is quite hard to look at without adjusting my monitor to keep from going outright blind.

The colors are hideous! Do NOT DO NOT DO NOT combine these shades of pink and blue on any future sites unless you want me to show up at your front door with a baseball bat. Better yet, how bout a paintball gun filled with these two colors. You wear it for a bit and see how your site feels about them. To spare the torture of viewing this site for those that care to keep their eyes, the hex code for the pink is #E95FCF and for the blue it is #89BDED. Keep this in mind children, these two colors should never meet each other outside of a cotton candy cone.

After the initial shock and blinding of this site, I continued to look at the bad set up and realized that because of those colors I couldn't really read what they were supposed to say, but unpon careful inspection through the glass of a biohazard suit I was able to decipher that the top line of the page reads 'In the Name of the Moon, I shall Punish you!" You got that right! You are punishing me with your awful site.... nuff said there. There is another line of pink text down the left hand side of what appears to be something like an iframe and I have deciphered that as "Layout By Pinkgirl". Remind me to find this Pinkgirl and give her web design lessons as she is horribly lost. The last line of awfulness isn't in that horrific pink but the blue that I spoke of and it reiterates the pages title... bad placement and use of an "inner shadow" blending element from photoshop does NOT do it justice... even if a gun is being held to your head. It just doesn't work for a title folks... really...

Moving on! We have two iframes in this page. That is all fine and dandy, but if you are going to have a page that works ONLY on a 1024x768 resolution, then you should have the iframes fit into that res. There should be ZERO need for a scroll bar on the right side of the screen if you have a site for only one res. It seems that somebody has said something about this on the tagboard and the "reason" given for the one res is that higher res is not dialup friendly. WRONG! I have been on dialup before. And I sure as hell never had issues with something not being dialup friendly on a higher res. I like this person's comment about at least having a colored background, and I am curious as to why there was no background given. When I turn up the res on my machine it shows up white behind the layout.... that isn't a layout... it is more like an image. Lemme check the coding on this to find out why.....

PROBLEM FOUND! A quick check of the source code showed the problem right away. This person didn't make this layout. They slapped it together with Frontpage! Now why would you give credit to somebody for "making a layout" if they did it in Frontpage? That doesn't make any sense.... lemme check a few more things here.... yup, just as I expected..... I hate to say this, but it seems that this "author" doesn't know anything about code. I can say that because I just checked the coding of their iframe and I find that they have put double style tags in the head of their page. I am not here to knock coding but to review a site, but give credit where it is due, and you have not. You have given credit to somebody for "making a layout" but it plainly says that it was done in Frontpage. Frontpage doesn't take a genius to use as it is nothing but a code generator, but at least say that it was made with Frontpage, not that somebody else made it for you.

Now that that is said, lemme get onto the content of this page. Well first off, the first thing in this iframe on the left where the content should open, is a tagboard. Normally tagboards are somewhere a bit less intrusive. I don't feel like seeing your tagboard first and foremost when going to a site, so anybody reading this, keep this in mind when designing. This iframe is badly done as I can't read the text without highlighting it. Once again it goes back to the blue color that they have used for this iframe. The worst thing is that the "designer/photoshop rapist" has dropped the opacity on this iframe so that you can see the awful background behind it. It doesn't bode well for reading NAVY BLUE TEXT!

Uhm.... there is a serious problem here.... You have a layout that only works in 1024x768... ok, thats fine... but explain to me why your iframe inside it has to horizontally scroll to read everything. It is called formatting, you should try it sometime! Contest.... Fanart, Fanfiction, blah blah blah... typical opening page it seems. She makes a reference to being sick. So I took the liberty to looking around this site to see if she mentions what she has and if it is an ongoing problem. Maybe she has brain disease that causes her to be able to see this pink and blue mess as something beautiful...

Seek and ye shall find! Her own quote from her tagboard "serecindra: On a happier note thaks all of you for your support...I have an on going illness it's a heriditary strain of mono that lasts many years" Heriditary mono, well I will assume she is speaking of h-e-r-e-d-i-t-a-r-y mononucleosis.... hmm... I wonder what that is like considering searchs on WebMd and multiple search engines have no idea what the hell I was talking about. But I did find a great article on what Mononucleosis is (I already know this, but for those that do not, keep reading), which I am sharing a link to for your viewing please. You can find it here. Seems that mono is a bug, not something that can be carried by heredity, as to do that would mean that the bug is in your body from birth, hense your immune system would not react to it because it would be native to your system, causing ZERO effects.... Looks like this sites host his trying to feed people something that doesn't exist.

I don't like liars and this has put a rather bad taste in my mouth as is, but I am going to try to continue this review with as little bias as possible. Please excuse me if it rears its ugly head.

There is a second iframe on the right of the page that has the content links for the page. Once again, it is poorly formatted and has a horizontal scrollbar. It includes categories of "Main Cast" (barely able to be seen because it is blue on a blue background), Supporting Cast, PGSM Songs (once again barely visible, this time green on blue), Current Act Storyboards (barely able to be read for font purposes), and Misc Stuff.

The fact that all the "profiles" open in a different window is more then annoying. (Why have an iframe on the left side of the page if nothing opens in it?) The profiles are the generic profiles that can be found on any site that has PGSM information, some images follow of the characters in civilian form, and then there is a box with another profile, this time in paragraph form, and then more picture on the bottom of the page of the characters in their other forms.

There is a link to "General's Cast Info" which bothers me as nowhere are they EVER referred to as "generals" in the series. That is a fan thought up name for them. They have always been and always will be by Naoko's own statement "KINGS!" Shitenno doesn't translate into generals folks! It translates into "Four Heavenly Kings" or "The Four Kings of Heaven". Where you guys got generals from I will never know, and it bothers me knowing that so many sites including the one being reviewed calls them "generals".

To sum up the profiles, they are bland to say the least. I am moving on to the music. This music is nothing special. It is the same music that is available on other sites througout the internet. Nothing miraculous in this day and age of P2P programs.

The "Current Act Storyboards" starts at Act 21, so I am viewing this, and once again, it opens in a new window which is frustrating but tolerable. However, the set up of these "storyboards" is NOT tolerable.... There are screencaps... ok... except that the image are set up into larger images of four rows of screen caps where she feels she needs to advertise her sites's address in the middle of the four rows. That is fine... IF YOU ONLY HAVE FOUR ROWS! Please tell me you had a seizure and fell on your keyboard and it randomly did this without your knowing, as that is what my brain is wanting to do with me right now. I think a seizure sounds good compared to this... Did I mention that the background and format is different for this page as well?!

Did I mention that on every bit of content throughout this site has done the same thing? Every page of "content" has a different background and a different format. Usually consistancy does wonders, but I guess this web author didn't think so...

Misc Stuff.... oh how I usually fear categories like this... and this is no exception. Once again, everything has a different background and different layout from the main page.... There are redundant links here, and I am STILL trying to find that credits page that she spoke of in the main frame.

WARNING! WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NO CLICK THE "News Corner" LINK! YOU WILL GO BLIND!

Now that I have warned you, if you do it, it is your own fault. This person has actually used a white background and YELLOW, I repeat YELLOW text! I thought that was outlawed in most places! I guess not, either that or I need to get in touch with some authorities.

The presence of a forum along with the already mentioned tagboard doesn't seem to make sense... I am still trying to figure out why you would have both....

I have already stated in previous reviews that I don't read fanfiction anymore, but this is a bit annoying. There are THREE, count them, THREE links for fanfiction. *Starts singing "one of these things is not like the other... one of these things just doesn't belong...* A better tactic would have been to just have a link that says "fanfiction" instead of having a different link for EACH fic, and then letting people choose which one they want to read from a seperate page. Having it open in the iframe on the left of that page would have made it better, but knowing that this site was coded with Frontpage states that they don't really know what the hell an iframe is or how to use it.

"Link Me" was just as bad. Normaly that takes you to somewhere that has link buttons and banners for use on your own sites. This one takes you to a site that has a second link that says "Link Me", along with a "Guest Map" and links to read and sign her "Dreambook", which of course I intend to sign.

I am still trying to figure out the point of a "Summary" other then you must have had a need to fill that table cell as you can't figure out how to code a table yourself even though I know people that are 10 that can do so....

This site has really REALLY earned its place in "The Ugly" column and that is where it will stay until it goes through some major plastic surgery and a complete face lift. Not to mention, when its web mistress can admit that she doesn't have a disease as I have been looking while doing this review to find ANYTHING on hereditary mono and have found ZILCH! I would think that in this day and age that you could find at least something, but the only mentioni of it on any search brings me back to THIS SITE! Hmm... that doesn't sound good does it. Oh wait! I know! She is the only person in the world that has this disease because it is that rare! Nah.... it doesn't exist and we all know it.