Landing page concept for research paper library

Hey Jens, I think you have the graphical ability and userbase to make this site really good, you just need some marketing direction and content analysis. So here we go!

So let's first off set some assumptions about the site and its viewers: A1: The only reason people are viewing the site is because they have an essay assignment and are looking for content/inspiration inside other essays. A2: The viewers are mostly high school/college and generally impulsive (especially if they are viewing your site). A3: They already have an assignment and are looking for information on a specific topic. A4: Viewers are most likely on a laptop (as much students use them) A5: Your site is somewhat successful if the use views multiple essays. Not every essay will be the "killer" essay that the user wants, but a user who views multiple essays is willing to pay, they are just finding the content worth paying, so help them! There are many more, but less important.

So now that we've established the assumptions, the rest of this review is just gonna be a bunch of tips/observations that might help point you in the direction you need to increase you click-throughs and reduce your bounce rate :-)

(1) Searching is like the #1 thing your site needs to be worried about. You need to give the viewers as much "guided" searching functions as possible. Don't overload them with a bunch of useless links they'll have to weed through, but definitely find some observations about the page they've landed on and generate your content based on those observations to help them out even more!

(2) I'd suggest completely refocusing your search section to include some suggestions. For example, you know they're looking at a business essay on globalization (keyword), so why not offer them a globalization search link? Don't make them "restart" their search when you know information to help them along the searching process.

(3) The stats section is completely promotional and doesn't really do anything when it comes to finding the content the user is looking for. So definitely get rid of it on the main pages and leave it for the sign up page to encourage them that they are making the right decision by buying your product/service.

(4) Completely revamp the new essays section. This is almost completely useless...unfortunately. Great idea though, but really, what are the chances that the first two words of completely unrelated essays are going to be the exact match the user is looking for? Instead replace this section with a more directed section. Split it up into the top essays for the most popular keywords of the essay you are currently looking at. So pick like the top 3 or 4 keywords of this essay and then display the top 5 essays in each of those keywords to the user.

(5) Change the "Browse Essays" into sections, so like "tags", "level", "subjects" or something like that. Also add the "top10" list up there

(6) Your logo guy looks a little cheesy, too nerdy unfortunately. It's not the nerds you're going after, they already have the grades lol. Make it more jocky, or "cool"

(7) Remove "Where's CheatHouse" and put it at the bottom. It's more "about" the site than content of the site and it's in some of the best real estate space!

(8) I'd consider adding a section that displays links of recent searches or essays.

(9) I'd definitely make the keywords in the essay details clickable, so users can search by them.

(10) I'd definitely add a suggested essays section somewhere underneath the last essay sample. So if users like this essay, but not enough to buy it, they might be able to find one they are willing to buy that is similar.

In general, learn what information you can assume about the user and then make the content completely focused around that :-) It'll definitely be a great improvement to the site, both for the user as well as your bounce rate!

The brown tones are kind of blah for me but otherwise the design seems polished. Although I don't like the dude in the upper left corner. It's slightly too cartoonish somehow.

Getting into content and bounce rates -- I think it could help a lot to have the categories of essays in a list somehow, like the list of new essays, but higher up on the screen. As a prospective user I couldn't care less about the stats thing. That could go way lower. I see the Browse Essays link is prominent but I think seeing actual topic categories could really help.

I don't know what "Where's CheatHouse" is or why I would want to click on it.

Finally, maybe this is nitpicking, but a sample business essay dated 2004 and talking about how labor is "a seller's market" does not represent your stock of essays well, in my opinion. Some topics may be timeless but the economy is obviously profoundly different now than it was in 2004.

For a website selling content you sure are wasting a ton of real estate on a "2.0" design, large headers, and focus killing blocks of contrast.

Look at it this way - I just landed on your page of a specific essay:

"The ruins of 35 major pyramids still stand near the Nile River in Egypt. Pyramids were built as the home of the everlasting for the king, the pharaoh's Castle of Eternity. The ancient Egyptians believed in life after death."

Now maybe I'm flawed, but that's horrific writing from someone who can hardly formulate a sentence longer than 5 words. I know it's a 10th grade paper, but another paper i found was written by a 9th grader and sounded much much better. Maybe one of the reasons the bounce rate is so high is that you don't have quality content or content filtering for quality? Or perhaps you need better ways to "level" the essays so that I could get to my tier of "quality" in an easier way.

But let's assume that that isn't the issue for the sake of this review.

Unrelated - where is your meta description of the page?

So, anyway, I'm on this content page and I'm looking at what's being presented. Your header eats up a third of the screen of my small laptop. Students use small laptops, you are wasting precious real estate.

Whats with the focus stealing left column? I'm trying to read my content that I found and i'm being harassed by the stats and the cheathouse. :)

The links on all pages are inconsistent - somewhere they're blue, in other places = orange. Why not use dark gray for the title instead of orange, and stick to orange or blue for the links? in fact, use blue - it's a very common color for links, users will be less confused.

I really like some other aspects of the site such as the signup process, etc. Really clean, simple, easy to understand - well done.

I hope this helps.

Hi Jens,

You seem to already have a viable idea with extensive data set and decent amount of users. This allows to be quite optimistic regarding future of your project.

Unfortunately you mentioned that you suffer from high bounce rate which is usually a good indication that there is something not working the way it should.

You got already a few very in-depth reviews (Ryan, Aurimas and others) so I will repeat their remarks which are very accurate.

1. My first impression is that something is not right. The site's design does not look like a typical user would expect a paper repository site to look like :)

2. Design is too similar to web 2.0 applications. Everything is candy looking which is hurting credibility of the content. The content should look serious but is ridiculed by the design. I think this confuses fist time users a lot and it shouldn't as the first impression is crucial.

3. On average homepage has only few seconds to grab new users attention, explain what it is about, show the value and convince to perform next action. Quite a lot for a few seconds. On your homepage most of this time is wasted.

4. Your site tells at once what it is but should rather explain how it could help and why is it so great - so called 'why WOW?'.

5. There are two calls to action (browsing & searching) and the funny thing is that 'the browsing button' takes user to the page with the same Library content which is on the homepage.

6. This topic catalogue on the homepage is too extensive. I think you should redesign it to get info from users and serve them customised categories and search results as soon as possible. Let users tell you what they are interested in first and than give it to them.

7. Sign up asking for money first looks like conversion killer to me. I would suggest splitting the process and get registration first and than offer payment options.

8. On the business model side I would suggest giving free access option (article for article) and paid option when time is of an essence for a user and he can't wait for his articles to be reviewed (which will be the majority anyway)

9. Stats & new essays are totally out of context and waste your valuable real-estate. This place should offer results relevant to the users needs.

I drew a quick simplified version of your homepage which is addressing some of the mentioned issues.

Hope this helps.

Michael

(user experience designer & strategist)

im sure a lot has already been written about this design- may be i will repeat:

• kill the cartoon guy and put something else there.. or just keep the logo.

• there could be something like 'related essays' section..

• Stats section looked like it had stats about this specific essay- may be change the title.

  • zoom font feature could be used here.

The first thing I thought when looking at this page is what is it's purpose??

You have written 'Essays and Papers by students' - but I don't know why you are posting them online? Are they just provided as samples, or do you want people to review them, etc?? I don't get any idea of the purpose of the site until I see the 'Read the rest of this essay' block which is halfway down the page. Could you rethink your tagline 'Essays and Papers by students' so that the site's purpose is clear.

Secondly, there is a lot of brown on the page. Could you perhaps use more of the green or burgundy to mix the colour scheme up a bit?

Thirdly, the NEW ESSAYS column on the left is a bit narrow, as you see very little of the essay's title. Could you make the column wider, or perhaps run the essay's heading across two lines so that you can see more of the title?

Lastly, I do like you have sectioned things off - it makes the design very clean.

I hope my feedback helps.