Review my Startup's Front Page

http://www.scribblewiki.com

by scribblewiki • 18 years ago

8 29 18 years ago

Looking for front page comments for ScribbleWiki; but, will take comments in general as well.

I like that design and I think it's a very popular template style. It's popular for a reason - people like it. I would suggest increasing the line-height and font-size of your main text.

Good luck!

tstegart• 18 years ago

Yeah, nice grid. I would make the boxes at the bottom the same size, it seems odd that one is larger than the others. Also, its very grid-like, but that one section of text in the middle is centered. Looks odd.

qhoxie2• 18 years ago

You might want to rethink the contrast and the color combinations on the band through the middle. Looks nice overall though.

STHayden2• 18 years ago

yeah. I would use an Image instead of HTML. If you check 37 Signals all their big text are images cause they can just be made to look better.

daveambrose2• 18 years ago

What made you decide to have "Online Collaboration Tool" in large font on the front page?

qhoxie2• 18 years ago

Yeah, and to add to that, some of the text on the front page is a bit less compelling than you probably want it to be.

daveambrose2• 18 years ago

I'm not saying that it's bad. I'm wondering the reasons? Does the text really add value to what ScribbleWiki does?

cschneid• 18 years ago

The arrows on the right of the blocks are misleading. They look like links, or at least active content, but don't do anything.

shiranaihito• 18 years ago

I agree.

The first block like that is a link, and the other three are not - it's not very consistent.

I'd recommend making the rest into links too.

It's easier to hit a block like that, instead of a much smaller text link to whatever the block is already advertising!

zacharye• 18 years ago

I like the front page, though your copy could use a bit of work as previously stated. It's clean and attractive - colors are pleasant.

One note though - the choice of coloring on the plan pricing page is not as desirable. Dark gray text on dark blue is not easy on the eyes.

scribblewiki6• 18 years ago

Thanks for the information, so all white text would work?

hellweaver666• 18 years ago

it looks a bit wank on the iPhone - you may wanna look into that...

scribblewiki6• 18 years ago

Never really tested on the iPhone, know of any links for doing that?

brm2• 18 years ago

you really should center everything on the vertical axis. the main paragraph is just kinda hangin out to the left.

Look at maybe applying a little more vertical padding to things like the logo (looks crunched).

Should probably also place more emphasis on the things you want people to do like "sign-up" and "try it out" even if its just making them bigger or bolder than their surroundings.

conversions are more important than aesthetics but you're off to a decent start balancing both

brm2• 18 years ago

downmodded why?

ig1• 18 years ago

No idea, your comment looks reasonable to me. +1 back to positivity.

martian• 18 years ago

I'm stoked on your concept and loving the logo.

Vertical spacing overall should be a tidied and made consistent. Maybe push the second line of your logo up onto the first line to compress the header?

Also I'd suggest you put some more constraints on the design. Pick three colors max. Also maybe limit font choice. You have at least four fonts (two in the logo, and two more in the text of the page), shifting between serif and sans-serif with all sorts of colors and weights and sizes that all add up to looking like clutter. Similarly link colors seem to be very different (the light green on a light blue background looks a lot different than the light green on the dark blue bg).

Font sizes in the three boxes at the bottom are too small. Also, headers on those boxes should be clickable (since there are little arrows on those headers).

You could try looking at one of the many CSS frameworks (I personally enjoy Blueprint) to add some cross-platform consistency to line-heights and font sizes.

Regarding content: It seems there are two places on the page to learn what ScribbleWiki does. Once in the light blue box and once in the space right below it. Maybe put all this text into one place?

Hope my comments don't come off as too negative -- just trying to provide some constructive criticism.

STHayden2• 18 years ago

Not to be harsh but I think you really need to work on that logo. your page design is pretty strong but the logo is the weakest thing on the page.

It's very hard to get a logo to look both freehand/scribly as well as professional. Either you need to do a mot more research in to how other have done good freehand script well or just stick with a typeface.

Perhaps the name could be all one typeface and you could have a more hand drawn icon to go with the logo.

either way the logo needs work.

good luck!

scribblewiki6• 18 years ago

I asked for comments, no need to worry about giving them to me. So something more like this http://janeknight.com/images/scribble.gif ?

gojomo• 18 years ago

Too many colors, and many of the color pairings wash-out against each other -- white on lightblue, lightblue on darkblue, white on lightorange. The scribbled 'Scribble' is almost unreadable.

maxklein• 18 years ago

- Online Collaboration Tool should be an anti-aliased image

- Don't sell a tool for experts to idiots

- Feedburner icon is messed up

- font size of 'here' is bigger than the text beside it

- Do not let .php show in the address above. You may change your technology in the future, you will lose all your google strength because all your pages will change location

- Create your own wiki now should be stronger and in the middle. It's the main action you want

- Support wiki sounds like you want people to support wiki. Like support africa, support tibet, support wiki

- Your ul under blog updates has a too large space at the top

- "Check out TicTakToe our support and information wiki". This sentence is too long

- those circular arrows on your triple feature could be mistaken for clickable items

Let me give you an idea:

Once you can get a person to start using your wiki, he is unlikely to ever change, because it's just too much hassle. So your PRIMARY goal is to get people to start using it and put their data in. My suggestion is to offer a special offer 3 Months for $5 offer, only available for the next 5 days. Use session tracking to customize it per user. Now, after the user has put some data in (BEFORE he gets tired), you POPUP a new special offer saying IF YOU register now, you get 6 Months for just half price!

Once they pay twice, they are yours, and will hardly change again.

scribblewiki6• 18 years ago

Thanks, for the ideas!

snorkel• 18 years ago

Hi, I'm your typical lazy web surfer with the attention span of a squirrel on speed. I want to see screenshots or some other visual example of the product before I signup for a trial, which I could not find on the first few pages I clicked so I left.

Always post at least one screenshot.

scribblewiki6• 18 years ago

Good information, we'll try that.

johns2• 18 years ago

Change the tagline to "Simple wiki hosting. IT Department Optional" or something. Either way, put what it is before the "punchline".

johns2• 18 years ago

Proper sentence casing (sorry for my previous bad example): "IT staff optional."

jpd• 18 years ago

"A "wiki" which is basically an editable website that allows people to easily collaborate. You can use a wiki from anything to organizing a camping trip to replacing your water cooler discussions at work. See some more uses of a wiki here."

If they don't know what a wiki is, they probably don't want to create one. Secondly, if you must keep it, make the font bigger and easier to read. I had to zoom in it just to make it legible.

prateekdayal• 18 years ago

I felt that What is ScribbleWiki and "Simple Wiki...." say pretty much the same thing. You may wanna look into that.

Also in general its a good idea to keep all three boxes Red, Yellow and Green header one of the same dimensions (height is different in your case)

I think consistency is generally great to have

Review my Startup's Front Page

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