Offer HN: I can review your web app usability and UI

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840109

by perucoder • 16 years ago

13 46 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

The recent postings of people offering free services has been great, and I've taken advantage of a few to help me with website copy and design.

I'd like to pay it forward by offering my own services for any who need it. Send me your web app and I'll test it out and let you know what I think of the usability and what could possibly be improved.

My email is in my profile or post a link to your app here.

dfl• 16 years ago

Our web app (free to use) was released earlier this year, it's pretty simple and I'd be keen to get your views the UI. http://www.tabzon.com. matthew@tabzon.com

perucoder20• 16 years ago

Here are some quick thoughts, although I didn't get too far:

The demo video audio didn't work, so I couldn't figure out exactly how to use product. There's also no help section or features section, which left me guessing on how to use product and what problem it would solve for me.

Minor UI issue I noticed, in Chrome, the background images on the signup page show a light grey background instead of the darker page background.

If you can fix the audio issue, I'll take another shot at reviewing.

jacquesm2• 16 years ago

Super, while you're at it: http://ww.com/

we're in the midst of a redesign and any input you have on the old site will be used to help make the new one better.

thank you very much!

email is j@ww.com

perucoder20• 16 years ago

Button design seems disorganized. I see 3 different button styles on home page.

Only the latest news should be shown on home page with a link to the rest on another page.

The wording "There is a free plan" seems confusing. Does this mean that there other plans I have to pay for? I didn't see any on the site, so I'm assuming its all free. Maybe reword or get rid of it.

I answered my own question once I signed up. It would be better to put a link to all the plans up front, rather than showing after I sign up. It might even be better to combine the basic membership and 5 day free trial. Make it so they automatically get the 5 day trial and then have it revert to a basic membership.

On the personal ww.com home page, the icons seem amateurish. Can these be replaced with more stylish icons? There are a ton of free icon sets that would look better than these.

top nav links are confusing, as they all lead to an upgrade page if I'm not an elite member. These should be combined into 1 page with a title like "Benefits of upgrading to an elite membership"

Overall, site design needs to be upgraded as I get the sense this is a scam site. Look for some free templates that can give it a more professional look. Not trying to be harsh, but wanted to give honest feedback.

jacquesm2• 16 years ago

Thank you for the very useful feedback. We will take your advice to heart (we really will!) and work it in to the redesign specification.

And I agree with everything you wrote, the site is essentially unchanged from the last 5 years. The button and the 'there is a free plan' are actually part of an ongoing AB test to see what works in terms of conversion.

You've confirmed my suspicions there :)

thank you again, if I can return the favor let me know, j@ww.com is my email.

endtime3• 16 years ago

I'd love to get your thoughts on http://track.com - thanks! Email is rich@ that domain.

perucoder20• 16 years ago

On the subscription page, the border of the text fields is very light and makes it hard to see the text field. Can these be darkened a little?

Also, both FF and Chrome say their is unsecured content on these pages.

I think your site might be a good candidate for gradual engagement. Chech out this article: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1128

Regarding the above, perhaps the subscription offers could be combined, so I can just start using the site and get everything for 2 weeks and then once 2 weeks is over, the site changes for me and presents me with subscription form if I come back. Right now, its hard to judge the quality of content before I sign up, even if its free for 2 weeks. Its still a barrier and makes me not want to.

On the about Us page and home page, I'd like to see more about the contributors. Quality of content on a site like yours is key, so I need to know more about who is contributing in order to get me to sign up. If you're just launching with no prior reputation, this is very important. As you get established and more known, this could probably be de-emphasized.

Think about possible redesigns for home page. Probably a good half of the page above the fold is taken up by the large Track image and the Track offers.

endtime3• 16 years ago

Thanks, that's helpful. I'm surprised FF and Chrome are claiming there's unsecured content on the https pages. I wonder if it's Google Analytics doing that...I can't think what else it could be.

Adding a page that lists all our contribs is on my to-do list - definitely agree that that's lacking. I also agree that the trial needs to be more explicit, and we should probably upsell with more than just an email when the trial progresses/ends. The other suggestions you made were helpful as well.

Thanks for taking a look!

rakkhi• 16 years ago

Late alpha feedback would be very useful simplesecurityra.com

perucoder20• 16 years ago

On home page, copy above try it now button is misspelled. Should be prioritizing, not prioritize.

Overall, I would clean up home page as it looks like too much is crammed in there. A cleaner look would help to focus on the most important things. Some suggestions: Get rid of the big image of 3 phones and replace with the gallery of images. The 3 phones really doesnt provide any useful info to me, but the gallery does. Take the Find out more page, rewrite and condense what you have there and put it on the home page. Make sure to be more specific about what problem this solves for me.

Everything below the gallery should be moved to a secondary page. If you have more testimonials, give them their own page.

The comparison between your product and Archer definitely should be expanded and on its own page. Include more info if possible about differences, including screenshots.

Its confusing that About Us link goes to your twitter page. I was expecting a page with info about your company. Same with Contact Us link, and blog could be a link of its own.

kirpekar• 16 years ago

http://autolicio.us --> Thanks!

perucoder20• 16 years ago

Site looks great. Is there a way that you can combine the sliding copy on the home page. Its great, but I have to click 3 times to see your guarantee. Its below in smaller text, but easily overlooked. Always the best price, gimmick free pricing, and satisfaction guaranteed could be combined as they seem redundant.

On the get started now page, why does it say to enter 4 or 5 numbers for zip code. Should be 5 and with no default zero added. It just makes it confusing as I have to think extra and only enter the last 4 of my zip code when I'm used to entering all 5 digits.

Model of cars should be alphabetized on step 2

On step 3, can you reverse the order of Google Checkout and PayPal. PayPal is the most popular option and should come first. I've also read articles about how Google Checkout doesn't help much and lowers conversions in some cases. You might want to research this more and possibly get rid of this option.

dennisgorelik4• 16 years ago

www.postjobfree.com

Reviewing the whole web site would probably be too much to ask for, but could you review job details and resume details pages? They have the most traffic.

For example:

1) http://www.postjobfree.com/Job.aspx?id=69531a3762d0430cb0615...

2) http://www.postjobfree.com/Resume.aspx?id=4c6bea8dec2e45a4b6...

perucoder20• 16 years ago

Job details page.

First thoughts, its very white with a lot of text. Can some colors be added to differentiate sections? This could be in the form of background colors for different sections, perhaps borders. There's multiple ways to do this, but basically something that draws my eye to the most important points, such as job description and job details.

Google map on page doesnt seem to serve a real purpose and just takes up space. Is it really necessary?

Posted date seems to list a date range. This is confusing as I'm not sure how old this job posting is.

Posted by is highlighted but this seems to be rather insignificant info. There are more important things on the page to highlight. When I look for a job, I care about job description, salary, location and job type.

On the apply for job page, the subject is prefilled but it makes no mention of the specific job posting. What happens if I have multiple postings? How can I tell which emails are for which posting? This page should restate some of the info from the previous page. At a minimum it should include company name.

Rather than having a text field for resume, you should offer option to upload a resume. I would be wary of putting my resume in there as I will lose all formatting and it'll look terrible.

Resume details page

Same advice as job details page. Contact info links are confusing and really dont tell me what is supposed to happen. Can the call to action be improved with an image perhaps or more descriptive text? For the free send message, is login or registration really required? Not sure if I would send a message due to the inconvenience of having to register. If this can be dropped, great. if not, think about offering something that lets people login using a google acct or facebook, etc...

dennisgorelik4• 16 years ago

1) I changed text colors to make logical blocks. I also rearranged order of fields according to the priorities you suggested:

http://www.postjobfree.com/Job.aspx?id=69531a3762d0430cb0615...

http://www.postjobfree.com/Resume.aspx?id=4c6bea8dec2e45a4b6...

Does it look better or you had something else in mind?

Does it make sense to use something like Crazy Egg to find out what's the most popular attribute on the page and rearrange fields accordingly?

2) Google Maps snippet gives user instant hint about the location.

I have couple of users explicitly mentioned that having maps on PostJobFree was nice.

Nobody complained even when I asked if the map was unneeded distraction.

Google Analytics indicate that for every nine (9) Job page views there is one click on the map. Does it look like useful feature now?

3) "Posted Date" is a date range, because it includes original posting date.

Does it make sense that way?

dennisgorelik4• 16 years ago

Unfortunately registration cannot be dropped from ContactResumePoster page

http://www.postjobfree.com/ContactResumePoster.aspx?id=4c6be...

The reason -- scammers and spammers. If it's easy to send a message without registration -- spammers immediately abuse it.

On the other hand, I may allow to enter email and message without registration, but do not deliver message to the resume poster until recruiter confirms her email.

Would that make sense?

dawie• 16 years ago

http://tabtrick.com

Much Appreciated :-)

perucoder20• 16 years ago

On the take a tour page:

#2 should be for YOUR page layout, not for you page layout

#3 should be customize your images, not customize the your images

On about us page:

Sentence reads as: These tabs can contain anything and can be completely custom, so what is the catch.

Should be: These tabs can contain anything and can be completely custom, so what is the catch?

question mark should be at end.

Sentence reads as: Well, you have to learn FHTML and figure out how to get it onto you Facebook Fan Page. This can be tricky, so we decided to call oursleves Tab Trick.

Should be: Well, you have to learn FHTML and figure out how to get it onto your Facebook Fan Page. This can be tricky, so we decided to call ourselves Tab Trick.

Other than minor spelling mistakes, the site looks good. Very clean and easy to navigate. One thing I did notice is that it looks like there's 2 "Features" pages, one at http://tabtrick.com/take-the-tour and the other at http://tabtrick.com/features

Can these be combined? I like how the images are bigger on the features page. You're leaving a ton of white space on the take a tour page, so it should be reformatted to make the images larger so I dont need to click on every one to see what it is.

Since the whole thing is based on facebook, why do you have 3 login options? They need a facebook acct to use your product, so perhaps they can just login with their facebook login only. Also, should include directions on how to setup a facebook account. If you can automate that part, then you've basically done everything for them and made it even easier to use your product.

oziumjinx2• 16 years ago

http://www.kwiclick.com

My name is vin@ domain name. Thanks in advance!

perucoder20• 16 years ago

Very cool! First impression is the site is great. I think you've hit everything with this site. Unfortunately, I can't use your product because there is no equivalent chrome extension. Is this on the dev roadmap? if it is, make mention of it, as I would definitely bookmark this page and come back.

Love the bring a video with you option. Some thoughts on additional features, can you add a compare to other sites besides Amazon? Perhaps newegg.com for electronics. just some more choices would be great.

What about send a web page thru gmail? I haven't found a really good extension for this. Something that sends the whole article rather than just a link and keeps the formatting.

oziumjinx2• 16 years ago

Thanks for the feedback! Chrome extension is in the works, expecting a mid December release.

Also in the works is an integrated shopping engine to compare across a variety of e-tailer sites, not just Amazon.

Our "send to friend" feature simply emails your friend a link/video without actually using your email account. It's like a simple form for your email, your friends, and a short message.

Thanks again for the ideas. -=Vin

kabuks• 16 years ago

Http://bettermeans.com Thanks!

perucoder20• 16 years ago

This is very ambitious! Home page video seems a little long. Seemed more like a tutorial.

You have a ton of content on the home page and how it works page. You might consider dividing and rewriting this content into more manageable chunks. Give each one its own page and you can use these pages to drive people to your site.

Same thing with the videos, convert some of these into an article and post on the site.

On pricing page, its easy to overlook your free option as its not in the same format as the other paid options. Free 30 day trial should be more prominent. Also, highlight what you consider to be the preferred plan. Take a look at the BaseCamp page for an example. http://basecamphq.com/signup

For the UI, because your app is so complex, I'm only able to go over a few things based on your screenshots. You definitely want to be a/b testing and if you dont have one, bring on someone who can do some in depth testing of your UI.

With that said, the dashboard looks too busy. A dashboard should be more about communicating important info quickly and easily. I wonder if so much stuff on it is overwhleming to your users.

One idea is to make more use of the lightbox. I like this feature and perhaps you can take stuff off the dashboard and include in the lightbox.

On the item estimation page, the dice are cute as a visual display of the credits but really not intuitive. A 2 is 200 credits but then a 3 is 400 credits. Is the image or text something that can be clicked? Maybe just get rid of the image and make the text look more like a link so I know I can click it.

On the motion page, I can foresee that some users might want motions to have anonymous voting. Is this an option?

Is the discussion forum something you created internally or are you using a 3rd party product. If the answer is internal, you may want to consider going with an outside company for this part. Basic reason being that you're probably not going to create something better than whats already out there, so why waste your dev resources? Better to focus on the core parts of your application. Obviously, this could be wrong if your discussion forum is deeply tied into your other functionality, but its something to consider. You could probably post on HN to get some good companies, but I've used getsatisfaction.com and been very happy with their features.

Same goes for the wiki, doc storage, data security and backup. Decide whether these are core parts of your app and outsource if they're not. There are a number of companies building cool apps in these markets.

Concours2• 16 years ago

Thanks for the great offer, beta product stage here, please take a a look at my site: http://www.mcsquare.me

perucoder20• 16 years ago

I'd like to see some kind of explanation on the home page about what the site is or does. First impression when I visit is its just overwhelming. All these links but I'm not sure exactly what this is. I would probably go back under normal circumstances.

Also, when you first go to the home page, the first things that stand out are the google ads and the flickr images. Brings an association of spam or scams, which is probaby why I felt as described above.

This is basically an aggregrator, right? Tell me how I can save time coming here or how its better than all the other aggregators out there.

Concours2• 16 years ago

Thank you for the great feedback, I'm trying to improve the design and try to find a way to make the site advantages stand out. Thanks

LabSlice• 16 years ago

A timely offer for my recent launch of http://LabSlice.com. I'll send you a private email request, but don't mind if you paste back a reply over here.

perucoder20• 16 years ago

Site looks good. Your call to action could be more prominent. Took a me a few seconds to find it because it didnt really stand out. Maybe changing the button color merging it with the register link that is higher up on the gray background. Because the button is orange, at first glance it doesnt stand out.

Your register for free option is a little confusing. I dont see a free plan on the pricing page, so it makes me wonder what I'm getting for free. Can this be changed to a trial period of 15 or 30 days?

Good job on highlighting a plan on the pricing page. Making the highlighted plan a little more prominent would be better. Right now, the only thing you've done is raised the gray box with professional. Adding more cues would be better, like a border around this one or maybe a shadow. Not too much, but a little extra to make it stand out more.

nischalshetty• 16 years ago

Here's my app http://justunfollow.com Any help would be appreciated :)

perucoder20• 16 years ago

You've got over 100k users, so I think you're doing pretty good on your own :-)

The home page is a little bare. I understand what the product does, but it would be good to move some of the questions on the help page to the home. For example, one thing I wondered was, once I login, will justunfollow unfollow everyone all at once? ON the help page, there's an answer to that question but the avergae user might not search it out.

Screenshots are always helpful. Gives me a chance to see what I'm signing up for.

Not really UI related, but saw your faq and you charge per year per account. Something like this, I can see it pissing off your power users/people who could promote your product and not really bringing in that much extra revenue.

After I signed up for your service, I see that its just basic and you have a premium package. It would be better if this was explained upfront. Perhaps a pricing page. The pricing is confusing also. On the FAQ, you say you charge per user per acct. On the upgrade page you say someone can link multiple accounts.

Home page needs to be widened. On Chrome, the top nav is being pushed to 2 lines. My Twitter username is partially covering the Like button and the upgrade link is on a second line.

Can the big justunfollow image be removed once I login? Its a better use of the page if this is reduced once people login. As it is now, the image is just pushing the stuff that people really want to see down the page.

MyBoxnRama• 16 years ago

Please help us with http://disqourse.com ! :)

perucoder20• 16 years ago

Site and product look very good. You're doing everything you're supposed to be doing. One question, are you based in the US and where are your clients based? I noticed a couple times that certain words were used/spelled that are not common in US english. For example, in the collect customer requests form, you use surname instead of last name. On the same form, the button is labeled "send enquiry" instead of "send inquiry"

If you click the pricing link at the top of the page, you go to http://disqourse.com/pricing/ but if you click the "Check out the pricing options. Try our FREE Plan!" link at the bottom of the product tour page, you go to http://www.smartupz.com/pricing/

Sorry I dont have more, but unfortunately, you left me with very little to criticize :-)

citizenkeys2• 16 years ago

Mine is http://wikitorrents.org/ . It's goal is to be the internet's largest collection of user-created pages of downloadable videos. It's a work-in-progress.

Tell me everything that's wrong with it.

Patrick Keys citizenkeys@gmail.com

perucoder20• 16 years ago

The light blue text color needs to be changed. It's too bright on a white background. Same with the yellow in your logo. Try using several different colors in your color scheme. I think the recommended number is 3. So have the nav in one color and the title of articles in a different complimenting color.

I noticed a lot of the articles are submitted by you. It might be good to not show this on the main page as it gives the impression of a low quality site. It's fine to show this info on the article page itself, but showing on the home page only lets me scan down all the articles and see they were written by you.

citizenkeys2• 16 years ago

I really like the idea of not having author in the main page. I went with light-blue because that seemed sort of a neutral color. Any ideas for differetn colors?

I want to re-design the main page entirely. I want a mix between youtube, vimeo, and khan academy ( http://www.khanacademy.org/ ). Any ideas?

Also, what about the site layout did you like?

HackyGeeky2• 16 years ago

Great ! This one is in alpha, but let me know what you think - www.areafarming.com Thanks again ! Let me know how I can return the favor - geek . 1701d at gmail

perucoder20• 16 years ago

This is a cool app, although the name threw me off. I'm sure you've heard this before, but I thought your site had something to do with farming in the literal sense of the word, meaning a farmer growing crops or something like that. I get the explanation but if you have to exaplin the name, it might be better to come up with something that just instinctively makes more sense.

The design of the site is a little jarring because somethings are really well designed, such as the buttons with nice gradient images, but the text of the button looks like minimal effort was put into it so it doesn't seem to fit. Thats probably the biggest complaint I have with the site. Imprving the typography will go a long way in your case.

Is the actual app using frames? I'm getting the dreaded horizontal scroll bar when I try to demo the app. The help is useful but it needs to be moved so I can keep it open and be able to change the map. Right now, the help covers the map when open.

When thinking how to change the layout, try putting yourself in the shoes of someone who has never used this before. Maybe rather than showing the map first, you can collect info from the user step by step and then draw the map from there and allow them to customize further.

HackyGeeky2• 16 years ago

Awesome bud, that helped a lot more than you can imagine !!

iworkforthem• 16 years ago

Hi. I just put up my pre-alpha release - http://www.tradesalerts.com/ ... Any feedback welcome.

Offer HN: I can review your web app usability and UI

Related Stories