Color scheme and especially the header artwork of this style is quite pleasing. The logo/header elegantly represents the purpose of the site by drawing a silhouette of a man, with a hat no less suggesting a kind of personality, and underlining the blue-white title of the site. The man is blue colored and thus the word representing "his" biography is too. That's pretty nice work.

Aside from that however, the design of the site is based on a theme I've seen in some of the previously reviewed sites. It contains an elegant distribution of teaser blocks in the main content area of the homepage and other article lists with a simple sidebar on the left. It looks and feels quite modern and does a good job at presenting the content in a pleasant manner.

There are however some of the same issues I've noticed with this kind of theme before. Namely, teaser blocks cut the titles and teaser text in middle of a sentence and sometimes word and seem to have a surplus of white space below the teaser and the "read more" link. The gray bar of the home link as well as the color of the search box input field seem a little too dark for their current background being almost indistinguishable on some LCD monitors (albeit depending on angle and settings).

I also typically suggest that a search widget be put on the gray bar with the home link, allowing the spacing between the header artwork and it to be reduced, putting more of the content above the fold and also creating some free space for a possible banner ad in the header area.

Other than that there isn't much to say except my usual comment on square ads inside of article content which, while not always, sometimes sit on top of each other creating a rather large disruption to the content flow.

I could only suggest, if further look and feel improvements are to be desired, to add teaser images both to teaser blocks in article lists and on article pages themselves.

Design Rating: 9/10

Focus:

Since it has a descriptive name the focus of Biography Archive is apparent, not that a nice welcoming about page wouldn't be a good idea. All of the content on the site is nothing but just that, biographies. Enough said.

Focus Rating: 10/10

Content:

This site contains a pretty impressive number of biographies, total of 241, covering people from politics, music, actors, business people and so on. Articles are fairly short and present a relatively condensed overview of these people's live usually with sections starting with early life including time and place of birth and continuing with their an overview of their life journey, special achievements or remarks.

I have a feeling some paragraphs could be split into shorter ones in some articles according to a sample I took a look at. But other than that I think their overall length and splitting into sections makes them fairly easy to follow.

Content Rating: 10/10

WhatCauses.net appears quite simple, but in a somewhat elegant manner. There isn't much eye candy to go around, just a simple title and plain blue background color on menu and block bars. There are a few nice elements that elongate the elegance of it a bit; the thick gray vertical borders around the site and border style of sidebar and teaser blocks with a thick light gray border on the left and slight barely visible dotted border on the bottom (at least on teaser blocks).

There are a few things that detract from said elegance somewhat as well; the two side by side blocks (categories and advertising) within the sidebar and a misalignment of teaser blocks when one of the side by side teaser blocks have its title occupy two lines, which happens once on the homepage.

Of course, the most obvious and glaring problem is that all teaser images on the homepage which were apparently intended to display do not display, and in fact show a missing image icon giving the site an incomplete feel and seriously detracting from the appearance of professionalism. They show up on some of the further pages of content teasers significantly improving the look and feel of the site where they do.

Fixing this and the other more minor issues mentioned above would be significant improvements, but to make it more impressive it could also use a nicer header as at least the site title displayed in a more attractive style and perhaps also featuring a logo design.

Design Rating: 6/10

Focus:

"What Causes", as the title of the site, may sound a bit odd at first because the word "causes" may be read as a noun when it actually makes more sense as a verb. The titles of articles on the site fix that possible impression instantly as they're simply questions asking "what causes X". Apparently, the site's focus is on providing information about causes of certain "things" which may be diseases or conditions, emotions etc. Pretty much all of it is related to human health and conditions.

An about page may be useful to describe the purpose of the site more explicitly. It takes browsing through all the content to see it actually covers only health related causes whereas one may assume it will describe causes of such things as natural phenomena.

Focus Rating: 9/10

Content:

We're offered one hundred articles describing causes of various diseases and health related conditions in form of not too long articles not all of which follow the same outline. Some have no sections and others, although most of them, start by an introduction and defining of the condition and then a section on causes outlining and describing various causes in subsections.

One thing I observed in the sample of articles I reviewed is that the introductory paragraphs tend to be a little long so I'd just, at least as a matter of reminder, warn towards making paragraphs shorter so they're easier to follow. All in all however, articles appear to be to the point and rich with relevant and potentially useful information and the site definitely delivers as far as providing information about causes.

The right sidebar also offers a featured video block currently featuring an illustraive video on the causes of a heart attack.

Content Rating: 9/10

I'm fairly pleased with what I see on WhoDiscoveredIt.com. Background pattern and background images of block titles, header graphic, RSS graphic, font style, comment form and button styles all conspire to make for a really elegant look. The header graphic showing a man peaking behind the site, at least in my imagination, almost suggests a "discovery" of something on the other side of one from which that guy is looking, perhaps a discovery of this very site. :)

I also like how visited links are visibly marked.

Only the header title remains distinct from the elegance of the site in that it is really just a big plain text. Other issues are also fairly minor. The footer links to XHTML and CSS validation, but there are a couple of XHTML errors preventing it from validating which is so close it might actually be worth fixing. And finally ads on some articles might be a little too much, that is, shorter articles with less content get a bit cornered by the two square ads.

I would also like to observe that the area containing the "home" link might be large enough to fit all category links as a horizontal main menu, so the categories don't have to display in the sidebar while this area of the header might look a little more complete. It actually seems made for a menu with more than just a home link.

Other than that, it's hard to find further faults with the site's design or make any more significant suggestions. Whether it's a theme or a unique design it's a pretty good work.

Design Rating: 9/10

Focus:

As a site called "Who Discovered It" and all article titles starting with "who discovered" determining the purpose of the site is no guesswork. It's of course, obvious and there's hardly anything else that needs saying here. Maybe there could be an about page to make further connection to the user, but it isn't a real necessity in this respect.

Focus Rating: 10/10

Content:

WhoDiscoveredIt.com apparently covers many different kinds of discoveries involving medicine, archeology, astronomy, physics and so on. In answering the question of who discovered it the site also provides further information about the object of discovery such as how was it discovered, what was its significance and history and so on. Nevertheless the articles are brief enough to keep the attention of an interested reader easily and split into subsections for easier digesting. There is nearly 100 articles available.

Content Rating: 10/10