On first load the look and feel of this site is quite catching. Given the association that the site's name makes with baking the background of TrueBake.com is indubitably a kitchen table! In any case the color scheme and style looks (and almost smells) right given what the purpose of this site appears to be.

Aside from the background the next most catching elements are the image frames, made to be stylishly fuzzy and look like either wood or cardboard. However it's easy to notice that the actual image we may expect in these frames is actually missing for all of the articles displayed on the front page. We can only feast on the image of potatoes from the topmost featured article. However even following the link to that article reveals a page which has no image on it either.

The suggestion I'm building up towards here might already be guessed. If we're given such nice image frames we've got to be given some nice images for them too, and for the sake of consistency and adding some of that attractiveness to article pages, the article pages should contain the image as well, the larger version much like the one displayed in the featured article about potatoes on the homepage.

Aside from that there are a few more detailed suggestions. What if that nice search box was put on the top bar instead of below it? This could allow the site to be put further to the top making more of the content visible above the fold. If it's easy enough, it might be something to try, for space efficiency's sake. Otherwise I think it looks great even as it is.

Secondly, on the top of the article pages there is a bar displaying "Posted in | no responses", but the color of the category and responses links is too similar to the background color making them harder to discern. It's safe to say the link color should be adjusted to something brighter or the same should be done with the background color.

Finally while the site seems to have more than 7 articles visible on the homepage there is no "next" or "previous" link or any kind of pager that would allow browsing other articles. They can only be browsed by clicking on categories. And the pages of those categories don't have category titles.

Other than that there's a standard critique I make of ads at least wherever we're given two square ads within actual content which sometimes end up disrupting the style of the article page.

Design Rating: 7/10

Focus:

The name of the site sounds slightly strange in that it's unclear what "true" bake actually means, but one might suppose it means baking things right, with the help of this site of course. While there is no introduction or about page or any kind of similar marketing it must be admitted that in addition to the name, article titles which restlessly keep repeating "how to bake" pretty much spell it out. Bottom line is that the purpose is still clear and the focus strong, as is already quite typical from this web publisher.

Focus Rating: 10/10

Content:

There's over 30 articles about how to bake a variety of foods. Just reading the categories reveals quite a variets.. beef, chicken, bread, cakes, cookies, ham, pizza etc. Speaking of category list "cookies" seems to be misspelled as it says "coockies".

The articles start with a description of what is cooked, how it can be useful and so on and proceed with instructions. The outline of article sections seems to vary from article to article though most seem to follow a general outline starting with ingredients, steps or procedure and additional information. Some have sections for various styles of baking the same food.

I would suggest using more of the list form for presenting instructions and procedures as this is easier to follow and more attractive.

Content Rating: 9/10