Name: Camilla
Site: Damn Sexy
Brief Description: It's a Westlife fan clique.
Date of Review: 08/27/02

Splash: Your splash page is very simple. In fact, it's so simple that you don't even list the requirements for your site. The primary purpose of a splash page is to advise your visitors in advance about what they're getting themselves into, so you should list all of your site requirements, such as Java, Frames, etc. The image on the splash is a little plain ... you might want to liven it up with some sort of interesting border, or even some brushes. Also, the black background on the page doesn't especially complement the splash image, so you might try for some sort of blue that is used in the image, and use that in place of the black. The other primary purpose of a splash is to intrigue your visitors, persuade them that your site is worth exploring, so consider it a sort of advertisement for your site, and make it as interesting as possible, while still clear and useful.  2/5

Layout: I see that your layout was not designed by you, but by a service called Ordinary Freak Designs, which means I automatically deduct one point in this category of my review. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using a layout service, but I think folks who do their own work deserve a bit more credit in that arena. Seems fair to me. This appears to be a standard blog layout, which is actually quite well-suited to your content. The purple background color in the text frame seemed to clash, though, with the blues in the surrounding image, so I'd highly recommend that you choose a different color for the frame background! Additionally, the title font for "Damn Sexy" looks quite pixelated and unprofessional. I'd recommend trying to find a smoother font. And, again, I'd recommend some sort of interesting border around the image containing your content, to help liven up this page, instead of just the simple black background. One last bit of advice: You should set up external links (for example, your guestbook and your links to Ordinary Freak Designs and Westlife Castle) to open in a new window. Otherwise, they open in your very tiny text window, which is unattractive and not very useful. It's pretty simple to set links to open in a new window, and your visitors will very much appreciate it!  3/5

Originality: Well, as I mentioned above, your layout was designed by someone else, so no points for originality there. Fanlistings are pretty common, and it's rather difficult to come up with something truly original and creative in that particular arena. I'm afraid there isn't anything particularly original about this site. Doesn't mean it's a *bad* site ... there's just a lot of other ones like it out there on the web. Perhaps you could try to come up with some stuff for this site that you haven't seen on other fanlistings? Perhaps some sort of polls for the members to express their opinions ... or little humorous mini-bios of the members ... or some sort of "Adopt a 'Lifer" ... or something. I'm sure you can think of better things than I can, since this is *your* passion, not mine. I'd recommend that you look around at other fanlistings to get some ideas, and then put your own unique twist on things. A fanlisting doesn't have to be the same as all the others ... you just have to decide *how* to make it different. Good luck with that!  0.5/5

Content: Geez ... I feel bad giving all these low scores, because your site is certainly not bad ... but fanlistings just don't have much content. It's the nature of the beast. As I mentioned in the "Originality" category, there may be some interesting things you could add to your content that would help to complement your basic fanlisting. You've got all the basics here, but I also noticed that there are quite a few errors in spelling and grammar. Perhaps you could ask a friend or fellow Westlife fan to help you with proofreading the content of your site.   2.5/5

Navigation: In general, navigation of your site was quite smooth and easy. I like the look of your navigation links above the text window, though I found the last couple difficult to read because their color is too similar to the background. You might want to see what you can do about fixing that. You may also want to consider adding some sort of buttons/links to the bottom of your sub-pages (such as the items in the "Extra" section), to link them directly back to the category in which they reside. That way, your visitors won't have to try to remember which section of the site they're in and click on that same category again, or use their browser's back button. It's just a little courtesy to your visitors, to make their navigation a little easier.  3.5/5

Various Comments: I just want to say that it's really difficult to rate fanlistings, because they by their very nature contain relatively little content, and it's difficult to make them original. Your site is a fine fanlisting, very similar to most that I see online. I just don't tend to rate fanlistings very high, because there isn't a lot there to rate.

Total Score: 3/5