| Serious Problem on Profile Page | |
| 1 | The high saturation red buttons overpower the pale blue color scheme. |
| 2 | The high saturation green buttons overpower the pale blue color scheme. |
| 3 | The script font and pale blue colors are reminiscent of a baby shower announcement. |
| 4 | The decorative vines and flowers have a distinctly feminine appeal and do not address a professional urban audience. |
| Critical Problem on Profile Page | |
| 1 | The orange side bars take attention away from the main content. |
My first impression is that the overall design is fairly feminine. I mention this because you specifically mentioned that you want the site to appeal to both males and females. The features in the design that contribute to this impression are:
1) Script font used in the headings and logo. When I first looked at the layout before reading your description, my immediate reaction to the headline font was “wedding invitation.”
2) The vines and flowers.
3) The light blue and cyan colors. While blue is normally a masculine color, its pale blue presentation here interspersed with some cyan and light green gives the layout an appearance evocative of a baby shower announcement, in my opinion.
Since your stated goals are to “appeal to city professionals, both male and female” I think that the typography, decorations and colors need to be re-thought.
I don’t see any design appeal to urban professionals aside from the skyline, which is not sufficient to meet your stated goals. To reach out to urban professionals, use contemporary, urban colors. To get some ideas on colors that might work well in reaching urban professionals and inspire people to live a more balanced lifestyle, I would suggest looking at product packaging for organic, natural foods. These colors are frequently chosen to appeal to an urban market while eliciting a sense holistic well-being.
The orange sidebar text boxes and red and green buttons do not match the pale blue well. The blue is low saturation and these other colors are fairly high in saturation, so they do not work well together. The orange also really calls attention to the sidebar at the expense of the main content. This probably is not what you want.
| Serious Problem on Profile Page | |
| 1 | Due to the colour, these side bars attract attention and look like the main focus of the page |
| 2 | Poorly placed button. It shouldn't intrude over the text area, it might obscure the users text |
| Serious Problem on Register | |
| 1 | This box looks out of place because it breaks out of the content border. |
| Positive Feature on Profile Page | |
| 1 | Clean, distinctive logo which stands out |
As has already been said the light blue colours and floral patterns make the whole site seem to feminine to appeal to both urban males and females.
I like the design of the logo, which is simple and stands out, but there are a few things I'm not overly impressed with.
1) The orange side bars on the profile page attract all the attention
2) The existing account box on the login page looks out of place because it ever so slightly breaks the border of the content area. It should either be inside the area, or make an obvious breakout
3) Red "Leave your wellbeing thoughts" button shouldn't intrude on the text area, it might obscure any text the user puts in
Overall I'm not impressed with the concept. purely aesthetically the design looks pretty good for a wedding invite or personal blog, but it's not something I would visit every day.
More importantly I find myself questioning the need for the website. It seems to incorporate elements of facebook and twitter, but without offering much that's different or couldn't be found elsewhere with a simple search.
Given that the target audience probably already use facebook and twitter, I don't believe that they would want to use another social networking site that does pretty much the same things.
| Minor Problem on Profile Page | |
| 1 | too colourful, overuse of red and orange colour, too many details |
| 2 | very, very "girlish"... |
| 3 | simplify! |
| Serious Problem on Profile Page | |
| 1 | this ornaments is definetely not for boys! at least not for all of them ;) |
| Positive Feature | |
Colour paletteI like your colour palette (using a similar one myself) but you can do a lot more with it. Definetely this palette can be "unisex" if you rearrange the proportions and make it less decorative. Remember that orange and red are quite aggressive, especially here. Don't overuse them. I like your use of blue shadows. | |
| Positive Feature on Profile Page | |
| 1 | nice shadows, simple and balanced colours |
| 2 | nice, maybe the icons could be larger and the border is unnecessary |
| New Idea | |
Do some research about the common design styles in this nicheYour subject matter (wellbeing, ecology, balanced lifestyle) is quite popular, and it does have the most popular symbols, colours and patterns. You don't need to use them (and repeating them would be meaningless) but try to see what others are doing in this area. For example, I think that this design could be simplified, without all those decorations. After all, this is what "balanced lifestyle" should be - get rid of unnecessary items and enjoy simple and natural things :) which can be reflected in colours and composition. | |
Do some research about the common design styles in this nicheYour subject matter (wellbeing, ecology, balanced lifestyle) is quite popular, and it does have the most popular symbols, colours and patterns. You don't need to use them (and repeating them would be meaningless) but try to see what others are doing in this area. For example, I think that this design could be simplified, without all those decorations. After all, this is what "balanced lifestyle" should be - get rid of unnecessary items and enjoy simple and natural things :) which can be reflected in colours and composition. | |
| New Idea on Profile Page | |
| 1 | nice idea, but maybe a photograph or handmade illustration would be better |
I like your idea and choice of colours. It just needs a little more work and the project will be great.
| Minor Problem on Profile Page | |
| 1 | It doesn't look like a progress bar but more a rating (number of flowers) |
| Serious Problem on Connect with / Invite Friends | |
| 1 | Not very clear it's a process. Maybe use arrows or your flower that will become red step by step (from bottom to the top) |
| New Idea | |
| Why not use Ning to create your social network (it works really well) | |
| Other | |
| Website is packed and it's hard to understand where is where | |
| Other on Profile Page | |
| 1 | Header is high, and you loose large part of the screen to show your brand vs. your service centered around the user |
| Positive Feature | |
DesignGreat Design and colors | |
| Serious Problem on Profile Page | |
| 1 | Awkwardly placed tagline. Maybe move it below the logo? |
| Critical Problem on Profile Page | |
| 1 | Too prominent on first look! |
| 2 | Color scheme is really not consistent. Use the consistent colors for links, headers, buttons, etc. Also, limit colors to 3 or 4 and use them smartly - Colors that pop should be used on elements that need emphasis. The orange boxes on the right are too prominent. |
| Positive Feature on Profile Page | |
| 1 | Color scheme is more feminine which isn't what you are aiming for. |
| 2 | The flowers/weed looks inspiring but is too girly. Perhaps don't make it stand out so much? Use a muted color |
| 3 | Paper-like feature looks inspiring. |
Great concept but needs a lot of improvement on the aesthetics aspect.