Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

Overall I like your content...
But, the front page is way too busy..

And, i for the life of me can not figure out what your mission is...

there are lots of cool things there, i will be checking it out again later...

I agree with Frank - keep your home page much simpler. Put your articles just a click away (perhaps with the abstract as teaser copy).

The RSS feed graphic is too prominent. The tools in the right column aren't important enough to be on the home page. Give them their own "tools" page (with a better description of what they do).

Get rid of your Meta group in first column, and consider converting your blogsite to a two column format, which is (as a rule) easier to scan than a 3 column format.

I too think that there is too much info on the homepage. I would pare it down and move some of the info to subsequent pages.

People need to be able to quickly determine what your site is about. I still am not clear on what service you provide or what benefit I get out of visiting your site. You need to be very obvious about this on the first page that people would get to. This information may be there, but gets lost amongst all of the other information.

It is desirable to have minimal scrolling on the home page. Right know you need to scroll for ever to get to the bottom.

It is not obvious how one would contact you. I suggest that you have a contact us link somewhere. You would like people to give you feedback and get involved.

Hope this helps,
Mike

The color scheme is very hard on the eyes. The white text on teal is hard to read, and having it justified doesn't help.

The "Join Today" banner is hard to read, and looks amateurish. Why do I want to join today? What do I get (besides free e-books that I can get every day, all over the web)?

You really need to work on proportions. Everything in the right-hand column dwarfs everything else on the page. Perhaps you need to put them on a separate page, with a description of how to use each tool.

Yikes. What in God's name is your website about?? It was CONFUSING.

Why don't you post the info on your About page into main page. SIMPLE & ELEGANT is better.

Just my 2 cents. Good luck. ~ Nancy Mehegan