Can I ask for feedback on our rough draft website?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9008087

by garyjames • 11 years ago

3 5 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hi,

I am not sure if this is allowed...or if it needs to be posted elsewhere...

In short, we have just finished a rough draft of our website which is our MVP version 1.0.

We are looking for feedback from people who visit this forum...on the website...the service offering...price...anything that you think might be valuable to us...

The url is: www.ledgerforce.com.au

Ledger Force is an online bookkeeping service for small Australian businesses.

Please don't hold back on your feedback...crucify the site and the business idea if you feel the need!

Kind Regards,

Gary Leech Ledger Force Pty Ltd www.ledgerforce.com.au

davidw• 11 years ago

Another place you can talk about small, bootstrapped businesses is http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/

I don't have much to say about your site because I'm not 1) a design guy 2) in the market for bookkeeping or 3) Australian :-)

shahocean• 11 years ago

I am sure you can improve the template!

drchiu• 11 years ago

It's not bad, but definitely feeling what it's like to be at Rough Drop Ver 1.0.

You can improve the overall design of your site by focusing a little on the typography.

For instance, your font stack is currently "Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif". I think a different font, eg. Open Sans, which is available from Google Fonts, may give your site a better appearance.

Also, pay attention to the line-heights and relative sizing between headers and paragraph contents.

These are enormous pain in the arses if you aren't a design-centric person, but are subtle differences between a website that looks polished enough to get the user to give up their e-mail address and not.

raquo• 11 years ago

Quick rundown of my impressions:

Good:

+ "Bookkeeping Services For Your Business" – The headline is short and stands out

+ "Request an invite" – Call to action stands out and repeated on top & bottom. However, I'm not sure what this action will accomplish. Will I get access immediately? Will a sales rep contact me?

+ Listing partners and "featured in" makes you feel more important. But is Oracle really your partner somehow? (you mention OpenOffice.org) Also, perhaps add client testimonials?

Not-so-good:

- Font sizes are all over the place. Headline should only have one font size. The brief summary right under it should be bigger than the standard-sized text in benefits descriptions, etc.

- "Learn more" link is below the fold on my 15" laptop screen, and the page looks quite complete without it. Some people might not get the idea to scroll down depending on your audience.

- Instead of "Submit" and "Send" buttons, use descriptive labels like "Request invite" (bonus points: A/B test a few variations)

- Benefits are impossible to skim. The sections should be titled in a useful way, e.g. "Deep Analytics", "Low, predictable cost" etc.

- I've just noticed you have a dedicated "features" page with more content. And "prices" and some other stuff. But they're buried in the footer in tiny gray text. No one will see them. Also – they open in a new tab? Boo... But good that you have the call-to-action on those pages too.

- Front page doesn't really address why I should choose your app over something else. It is a web app... right? I'm not sure because there are no screenshots, not even a teaser. That alone would be a dealbreaker for me personally, and I feel that unless you're selling something for $1000/month and do high-touch sales, you do need to at least show me your product, let alone let me register for it without invites or contacting sales.

- Please, please don't use puzzle (or humanoid) clip art. Even if it's custom-made for you... It's such an overused concept, my bullshit detector is screaming Full alert. This is not a drill every time I see it.

mhoad• 11 years ago

I say this as someone who is actively interested in paying you money at this point but I have initial concerns about the credibility of it at this point.

Some assurance that you guys will be around in a few years time and that this is a solid model (well aware things like Bench.co would already validate this for you). Trust that you guys actually know what you are doing (I see you are certified accountants but it still feels off for some reason).

Actually, just contrasting what you have with Bench is a good example. If they did Australian bookkeeping I would sign up for them right this second despite the fact they are almost 3x the price of what you are charging.

If I could make an extremely crude attempt at summing up some of the things that stick out to me in the first 60 seconds it would be:

1. This looks like a generic theme from themeforest or something that had little customisation done to it out of filling the blanks. Fonts are all generic, images are all clearly stock photos. 2. Who the hell are you guys? Show me some faces, give me some profiles of some of the accountants on your team.

Otherwise, for real I am a genuinely interested potential customer. Would be happy to chat further if you like. mark [at] afterwire.com.au

Can I ask for feedback on our rough draft website?

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