Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

it took me just a while to figure what it was. This could be an issue. All of the movement on the page when i first opened it was distracting.

I think the service is cool.. I have bookmarket the page

Let me start with generally I like the site and its approach to explaining the product. However, when I clicked on "Explore" I was taken a little aback by all of the references to sex. (not that I'm a prude, I just wasn't expected to be confronted with explicit lyrics in this site)

Even if that's what people are using the page for, do you really want your product associated with it?

From the general site design, I would expect you are positioning yourself as a general Web tool, with business applications, but having the typical user be into "boobs" seems to belay that analysis... Oh wait, it's a tool to appeal to programmers, right?

Nevermind - keep the boobs ;>

Well, geek or not it still took me about 30 minutes to work out what the site was about. That’s about 29minutes and 30 seconds longer than most in the 16-30 age group will give you and about 29 minutes longer than any “Executive” like me who is lying and says that he / she is too time poor to work things out. We’re not; we’re just impatient and cantankerous! Thankfully it’s easy to cure this by changing the way you headline the home page. The video only becomes meaningful when you know what the site is about which is a bit arse over tip – as we say in the north of England!

That apart, once you are past the initial hurdle the site explains the concept very well.

I downloaded the software and loaded it, but at the moment, it gives me an error of “Object doesn’t support this property or method” when I click on the TrailFire annotation toolbar button. No doubt when I’ve had the time to explore your FAQ’s or looked at the Windows Explorer settings; I’ll discover the reason why. I acknowledge that it’s a beta version and having been a beta test partner for Maximizer, I’d expect there to be glitches – what’s the point of beta testing if the thing’s perfect!

One minor point about the download - the software was uncertificated, which doesn't bother me too much, but for the sake of user security confidence, It would be a plus point to add decent certification.

Conceptually, I like the idea and I can already see a number of uses for TrailFire in collaboration and for letting others see your train of thought via the web pages which inspired it. It would be useful here, especially where we want to refer readers to websites where there is content which we can’t easily explain in the forum’s text only pages.

It’s a great product and as far as I can see, truly novel. Good luck with your continuing development – I’ve signed on and once I’ve overcome the technical issues I’ll start to use it to see where it takes me. That last comment is at the hub of your challenge, which to my mind really boils down to explaining to potential users how they can benefit from TrailFire within an few seconds of them arriving on the site.

Best wishes

Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions

Hi, did write an epic response entitled "war and peace II: The reckoning" but crashed out. So am writing a shorter version.

I am new so, I don't expect to be treated like yoda, so I am talking purely subjectively. I liked the web site as a whole, but as a user (and someone with a 3 second attention span) could not quickly figure this out.

My reason for this is, is the flash animation. I am a great fan of flash, but think that unless you are designing concept work, then it should be used sparingly. Your flash animation (I like it by the way) takes too long to impart its message and obscures the user from seeing the rest of the content. Don't forget, like me, some users have small attention spans and will not bother to scroll down unless they know exactly what they are looking at.

hope that helps

nesh

I think the text you now have on the "About" page should actually be on the homepage, and probably even on top of the flash movie. Also, on that homepage, you've got way too much white space to the left of "most active users today", perhaps you should condiser a second "Spotlight". Finally, I would give your users more icons to choose from for their profiles. The day I went on, 8 out of 10 had the orange flaming head guy... Good luck.