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Concept Reviews
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this site is not appealing yet.. you can do some changes, such as..
make the search field bigger- a lot bigger than it is now.
keep it simple, remove the angular design from top navigation band- make it flat
selected screen ('home' in 1st screen-shot) should be highlighted more.
remove the times family font if you are using, you can use Georgia instead.
too many pillars- you can keep one or if the idea is to hold the top navigation on pillars- still you don't have to use this big and prominent pillars.
even if you keep two pillars dont cut one for google ads- keep in a box or remove the bottom part of the pillar
you can do a lot with alignments and overall design for inner content.
the ratings could be 1 to 5 - doesn't have to be 1 to 10.. keep it simple- make it 1 to 5 instead.
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The colors are nice, the columns are a cute idea. The overall feel doesn't say "news website" to me.
I would suggest this: 1 - Use a background to bring things together. Please take a look at these web sites and see what great bg they have: http://www.the-waiting-room.com http://www.six11ink.com/about http://all-for-design.com/portfolio
2 - Rethink your fonts. All fonts are pretty much the same size and very unattractive. Please refer to the-waiting-room.com and pay close attention to the richness of sizes and styles they gave to each font. Each font has a distinct purpose on the page.
3 - You have lots of empty space at the top besides the logo. Having negative space on a page is not bad at all, what is bad it is to have negative space that doesn't have a purpose. Since the audience that visit your web site is after information, you should have as much of it above the folder as possible. I would suggest placing the main menu besides the logo. You have plenty of space to do so.
4 - The columns seem to fragile. When I think of column I think of support and strength: things that give support to a structure. The columns on the picture are so light and delicate. The one on the right, with the google ads, is about to let the whole building to fall on my head. Please look at these columns and see how strong they they are: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/ClassicalordersfromtheEncyclopedie.png I don't think I need to see a whole column in order to get the whole strength of it. Try using just the capital of the column. On the site, you are using a Greek Ionic column and that brings me to my next point.
5 - Create a theme for the site. Right now you have a web site that has two Greek columns. If you are going for a theme... really go for it or you will end up with a constipated look. Do some research on Greek architecture, sculpture, Socrates, and whatever you feel it will inspire you, then start bringing elements you think will better inform and guide the user who visits your web site.
6 - I clicked around your web site and the internal pages need some love too. Even the simplest field can be given some thinking: http://nettuts.s3.amazonaws.com/584_form/demo.html
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Kyle Hawke commented:Marcio - this is a high-quality, thoughtful comment. Thank you a ton for this. As I was looking at the backgrounds of the other sites, I think that there is a huge opportunity to use the background to tie the whole theme together. If we are going to go "news" theme, then the background could be a newspaper like feel, if we are going to go greek, then the background could be a real marble like feel. We are thinking about that. If we go with the strong marble background, I am not sure the columns are going to add much value....(hmmmmm?) Form fields need love too. I love it. Thanks a ton.
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Kyle Hawke commented:
Marcio - I dont have access to this link: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/ClassicalordersfromtheEncyclopedie.png ... Can you send it again to a non-restricted page?
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Marcio Cabral commented:Strange how that link didn't work even for me afterward: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ClassicalordersfromtheEncyclopedie.png
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From what I can see from the screenshots the site seems to offer a very useful functionality.
What I think is good:
Very simple and easy to understand layout
Good overview listing of articles
What might be improved:
On first view the site to me looks a little too much like a mash-up site with too less original value. As a counter-measure I could imagine that in the listing not all articles are styled the same way, but that there are some featured articles including images
For me the site does not convey enough trust on first sight to make me want to stick longer there and discover more. Maybe the overall look is a little bit too unfinished, especially the ads make it look a little cheap
- the Greek columns give the site a very unique look but on the other hand might also be a little bit too bombastic and distracting from the main content
Maybe some sidebar items would be good to make the site feel a little "deeper", not as flat as now
Hope that helps a little bit
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Kyle Hawke commented:
Tobias - thanks for your comments... great idea to style the articles a little bit differently and include a few images. Re: the greek columns, we are thinking about creative ways to include the greek theme but drop the "bombastic" columns. Do you have any further ideas on good items to include in a sidebar? Thanks again, Kyle
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Tobias commented:Thanks for the credit and the comment. To get some ideas for sidebar items maybe just look on other news sites what they have. They keep their visitors going to click on content by offering lots of interesting links on the way. Some of these require maybe a bit development work. For example: Featured articles list, most popular list, featured user comments, blog roll, background reports; most important: related information to currently viewed content
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Nice website, but not a very good design. With web getting more and more complex, designing gets easier. They are hundreds of tools that can be used to develop a beautiful yet simple website. There are many things that have to be changed in this design.
The first that I noticed was the adsense spot. Very bad emplacement for the ads; destroys completely the design. Try to integrate it into your content.
I would suggest you to change the overall design. Try searching for "newspaper" or "magazine" template and you will see that they are completely different from this one. This website doesn't look professional.
To conclude I would suggest to follow the improvement above + those suggested by other users.
Good Luck
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Kyle Hawke commented:
John - thanks for the feedback. The adsense placement has a ton of room for improvement. Thanks for that. I Googled "newspaper web template" and ended up finding a bunch of cheapo-looking $65 pre-packaged templates with cheesy stock graphics. Do you know of any good commercial sites to look at web templates for inspiration? Or, do you typically refer to custom-designed templates for this sort of thing?
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John Wazir commented:Hi,
Have ever heard of Newspond (http://www.newspond.com). It is a beautiful website and it is just like yours. It perhaps a bit complex but the design should be an inspiration. There is Digg.com that has a simple yet professional design. For more inspiration visit the link below; They are all free, but they are designed for wordpress and can easily be coded for any other cms:
1) http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wordpress/60-free-yet-premium-quality-wordpress-magazine-news-themes/
2) http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wordpress/great-magazine-newspaper-wordpress-themes/
3) http://eblog.freehostia.com/category/wp-themes
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The site has a simplistic and minimalistic direction, but has fallen short on some areas.
-As mentioned already, the pillars are a bit overpowering, I would find a way to minimize them, possibly allowing for some sidebar content that would be engaging to the user.
-The articles themselves mash together and a visitor's first reaction will most likely be, "Whoa, I'm not reading all of that". I would suggest breaking it up with images for each article and perhaps breaking up the articles a bit more graphically. Light background shading on every other item might help.
-I also agree with the concept of having some featured articles at the top... perhaps the first two.
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Kyle Hawke commented:
Josh - thanks for the input.
Great point on the light background shading on every other item. That may break it up, but need to figure out how to do it in a way that doesn't disrupt the rest of the theme as Marcio suggested.
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You have a great idea for a website but the design is faltering. It simply needs to be more engaging.
Perhaps you need to dig up some more imagery and ideas from the Roman/Athenian era. I suggest playing more on the "Socratic News" title. Yes, the pillars work with the title but they're a little to "clip art" for most audiences.
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Kyle Hawke commented:
Jami - I hate clip art as much as the next guy. The columns leave much to be desired :) Thanks for your comments.
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The users are not engaged at all. I bet the bounce rate of this website is over 80%. I feel like this is completely setup for Adsense and Adsense only. Consider giving more personality and life to the design with imagery and better typography.
Abhishek - thanks for the comments... You're right on the search bar. It's too small now. If we move that up higher in the header, we can drop the angular design on the top navigation. While we aren't sure what exactly to do about the columns yet, it's clear from this group something has to be done. We'll also find a new place for the ads. Great final point on keeping the rating system more simple. Thanks for the comments. If you have other ideas, we'd love to hear them.