Ideally you want buttons and links to change when you rollover them. Lots of people won't notice the the FAQ tag is a link. And many won't think the nav is links either, as sad as that sounds.
Also. While I dig what you are trying to do. This is over-designed. The design elements are obfuscating the interface and the content. It looks cool, but it is very hard to read, it is very cluttered, and it is all around troublesome. Web-sites should always lean towards minimalism, unless the site is exclusivly for show/fun. If you are trying to send out information. Clearity is more important.
for example. www.williambralldesign.com/?style=_cool is a lot like what you did (With different colors and much more minimal) and is far easier to read.
You have to balance Interface Design, Graphic Design, and Typography to make a good, useable website. Just because most websites are designed by graphic-designers who don't care about how the user will use the page, doesn't mean that is how it should be.
That said. The interface design of your site isn't bad. It is simple and clean, it is just obfuscated by all this over-design and complexity that muddles the utility of the interface. Also, your color choices make for hard to read text. Generally, the closer the text and background colors are together, the bigger the text has to be.
You can either make the text brighter, the background darker, or the text bigger... or you can leave it the same and lots of people won't be able to read it. With some fooling you can make the font a few sizes bigger at least.
Also. On the contact page. You should have a contact form. They are easy to set up with PHP (e-mail me if you want some help with that) and you can use it to keep your e-mail address private or so people with web-based e-mail can still contact you with ease. Not to mention those who are just lazy... And you can mine them for more data by asking them better questions.
The only other thing I would do is prevent the forum from loading in a new page off the nav. Have that link go to another page, which has a clear link that says you are moveing to a new site. This will prevent people from doing the "Oh crap hit back" move when a new page loads after hitting forum.... or worse the "Oh crap hit X" move.
Also. While I dig what you are trying to do. This is over-designed. The design elements are obfuscating the interface and the content. It looks cool, but it is very hard to read, it is very cluttered, and it is all around troublesome. Web-sites should always lean towards minimalism, unless the site is exclusivly for show/fun. If you are trying to send out information. Clearity is more important.
for example. www.williambralldesign.com/?style=_cool is a lot like what you did (With different colors and much more minimal) and is far easier to read.
You have to balance Interface Design, Graphic Design, and Typography to make a good, useable website. Just because most websites are designed by graphic-designers who don't care about how the user will use the page, doesn't mean that is how it should be.
That said. The interface design of your site isn't bad. It is simple and clean, it is just obfuscated by all this over-design and complexity that muddles the utility of the interface. Also, your color choices make for hard to read text. Generally, the closer the text and background colors are together, the bigger the text has to be.
You can either make the text brighter, the background darker, or the text bigger... or you can leave it the same and lots of people won't be able to read it. With some fooling you can make the font a few sizes bigger at least.
Also. On the contact page. You should have a contact form. They are easy to set up with PHP (e-mail me if you want some help with that) and you can use it to keep your e-mail address private or so people with web-based e-mail can still contact you with ease. Not to mention those who are just lazy... And you can mine them for more data by asking them better questions.
The only other thing I would do is prevent the forum from loading in a new page off the nav. Have that link go to another page, which has a clear link that says you are moveing to a new site. This will prevent people from doing the "Oh crap hit back" move when a new page loads after hitting forum.... or worse the "Oh crap hit X" move.