Princess Jupiter's SM Shrine

Sometimes you come across a site that seems to stand out a bit from the pack. Every so often you find a site whose author put lots of know-how about the latest webpage-building techniques and how and when to use them.

Princess Jupiter's SM Shrine is such a site. The site combines very nice graphics with an abundance of information and an attractive layout.

When you first get to the site, you are met with a nice-looking splash page. Probably the first thing that will load will be the nice flower petals and flowers that drift slowly down the page. The splash page itself, while a bit busy, is balanced off. For the most part, if there is a picture on one side of the page, there will be another one of equal size on the same spot on the other side of the page, giving the entire thing a nice symetrical look.

The mood changes throughout the site, from section to section. The main page is done in a dark purple with light purple stars. The main page is laid out simply, with all of the content areas linked with little text links on a slightly transparent background.

I'll spare you going through EACH section, as there are a bunch of them! In almost ecery section, the viewer is met by a different background. A couple things I will mention that are definately worth checking out: there is a large picture gallery with a good selection of pictures, and there is a good selection of MIDI files. If you have a suggestion to make to the author, there's a suggestion box.

There are a scant few problems on the page. Some of the backgrounds appear clipped off along the right side. An example of this is on the main page. I dropped my screen resolution fo 800x600 and was still able to see it. I'd suggest modifying the background to make it wider.

The picture gallery is marred by the fact that the author uses the same background on each gallery, so if you go to the Sailor Moon gallery, there's this nice background of Sailor Moon. If you go to the Sailor Mercury gallery, there's this nice background of Sailor Moon, and so on...

The text in some areas of the site scrolls onto the right side of the background and makes it hard to read. Again, I adjusted my resolution and this didn't help.

There could be more profiles of the characters.

The main page menu could use a bit of organization. This would allow users to pick and choose what areas of the site interests them more easily, and it would allow you to spotlight certain areas within the site that you want to draw attention to.

There's not much more I can say here. The site is quite well-designed and has enough content to keep a visitor at the site for a good long time. Keep up the good work!

Artemis' Score: 9.2

LAYOUT: B

The splash page exhibits a creative use of DHTML. The matching color scheme is a great effect. Sadly though, the layout gets a little cluttered around the bottom. With links to sponsors, awards, and contests surrounding the "Enter" sign, the viewer isn't exactly directed to the site's entrance.

Luckily, the main page is neater and simpler. The dozens of sub-pages consistently utilize a straight-forward style with decorative backgrounds. This system gives each page its own personality, while lending the sense of high-quality to the entire site. The repetition of font styles and horizontal bars is just enough to keep you from wondering if you've stumbled onto another site. Sadly though, the text overlaps the backgrounds every once in a while, making it unreadable.

NAVIGATION: B-

It's good having all the links on one page, and it's even impressive at first. But there should be more organization relative to what is the most important, and what the web-mistress spent the most time on. The site is so concerned with having every link instantly available, that it does not point you to the really good stuff, like the Sailor Quiz and TTSWNS.

I believe that the awards pages are the weakest point. There are many links for awards and credits( Awards to me, awards to you, site of the century, links of note, nomination forms, etc.), yet only a percentage of your visitors are probably interested in that. Consequently, all of these links should be grouped together because they are so similar.

CONTENT/INFO: B

As the main page suggests, this shrine has tons of stuff. Princess Jupiter finds many different outlets to make her page original (e.g., The Quiz and the Contest). Unfortunately, these gems are mixed in with all the extraneous things people add to their page just to make it bigger (Adoptions, Chat, Awards, Love Calculator, and so on and so forth). Thankfully, if you take the time to really look around, you will be rewarded by a good deal of content and images that cannot be found on other sites.

Nitpick: The quiz showcases the webmistress's familiarity with the anime and the manga, and tests your own knowledge. Unfortunately, if you get one wrong, you will never know the correct answer. Also, you cannot proceed unless you have 5 questions correct. This is really frustrating because you can't change your score if you happened to get only 4 right (like me).

OVERALL: B-

The site's sub-pages range from the modestly beautiful ("Learn Japanese") to page after page of painfully monotonous and unreadable text ("Win My Awards"). Therefore, it's no wonder that Princess Jupiter's SM Shrine excels in terms of variety. However, variety does not make it a great web-page. My suggestion to Princess Jupiter is to prioritize your site in terms of how you want your site to be remembered, because your site does have some very entertaining activities.

Luna's Score: 8.5