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Problems with visual design
I just came across your site, and I think it's a great idea (I am actually considering using your site for my company), but IMO your visual design has a lot of issues. It's not clear what's important. Stuff is scattered around and it's hard to parse out the important information. For example:
1) The forum page should clearly emphasize the forum content (posts),.e.g by a colored background that draws focus to it. Right now I don't know whwre to look at. It seems the list of members on the right is more important than the posts on the left!
2) The '-' (collapse) button should be way bigger! It's ridiculously small right now.
3) The link bar ("# All Topics(902) Questions(654) Ideas(47) Problems(174) Talk(27)") should be way more obvious! It is the central widget on the page and is dwarfed by all sort sof colorful, big, unimportant icons on the page!!
4) The button for post creation should be right there, in the post area, NOT underneath the search bar!! Took me a while to find it there.
5) In general I think your icons are too big - they take too much room so less useful information fits on the page.
Just my two cents.
Thanks!
Markus
1) The forum page should clearly emphasize the forum content (posts),.e.g by a colored background that draws focus to it. Right now I don't know whwre to look at. It seems the list of members on the right is more important than the posts on the left!
2) The '-' (collapse) button should be way bigger! It's ridiculously small right now.
3) The link bar ("# All Topics(902) Questions(654) Ideas(47) Problems(174) Talk(27)") should be way more obvious! It is the central widget on the page and is dwarfed by all sort sof colorful, big, unimportant icons on the page!!
4) The button for post creation should be right there, in the post area, NOT underneath the search bar!! Took me a while to find it there.
5) In general I think your icons are too big - they take too much room so less useful information fits on the page.
Just my two cents.
Thanks!
Markus
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Hi Markus,
Thanks for your Os. I have to say, you have good timing with these, I'm working right now on redoing the design for the company home page (that's what you're referring to with 'forum page'). I do have to point out first that we're not a forum, even though we borrow heavily from the forum form factor. But most forums are bad...bad forum, bad. That is, they don't provide the kind of flexibility that puts a community in control, they are top down systems set up by a ruling class of admin. Which is great in some cases, but not what Get Satisfaction is going for.
Ok, mini-rant over. 1 2 and 3 are great points, and hopefully what I've been working on will address them. 4 is a new idea that I really like! I'll play around with it. With #5, I'm not sure which icons you are referring to. If you mean the product images we've noticed that they outweigh more important content and that's being addressed in the next round of design as well. Is that what you're referring to?
So beyond that I've got some news that you are really going to dig. By late April we're going to release a little application that uses our API and gives you full control over the look and feel, and hell... even functions... of Get Satisfaction. It's a php app that is completely hackable and style-able to your hearts content. You can make it the spitting image of your own brand, or build something completely new.
Any more thoughts and opinions I can address? Just let me know. Also, if you're interested in the API and the php app (called 'Help Center') send amy@getsatisfaction.com an email and she'll get you on the mailing list.
Thanks,
Leslie
I’m glad I went through art school critiques...yummy feedback.
The company says
this solves the problem
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Inappropriate?Hi Markus,
Thanks for your Os. I have to say, you have good timing with these, I'm working right now on redoing the design for the company home page (that's what you're referring to with 'forum page'). I do have to point out first that we're not a forum, even though we borrow heavily from the forum form factor. But most forums are bad...bad forum, bad. That is, they don't provide the kind of flexibility that puts a community in control, they are top down systems set up by a ruling class of admin. Which is great in some cases, but not what Get Satisfaction is going for.
Ok, mini-rant over. 1 2 and 3 are great points, and hopefully what I've been working on will address them. 4 is a new idea that I really like! I'll play around with it. With #5, I'm not sure which icons you are referring to. If you mean the product images we've noticed that they outweigh more important content and that's being addressed in the next round of design as well. Is that what you're referring to?
So beyond that I've got some news that you are really going to dig. By late April we're going to release a little application that uses our API and gives you full control over the look and feel, and hell... even functions... of Get Satisfaction. It's a php app that is completely hackable and style-able to your hearts content. You can make it the spitting image of your own brand, or build something completely new.
Any more thoughts and opinions I can address? Just let me know. Also, if you're interested in the API and the php app (called 'Help Center') send amy@getsatisfaction.com an email and she'll get you on the mailing list.
Thanks,
Leslie
I’m glad I went through art school critiques...yummy feedback.
The company says
this solves the problem
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Inappropriate?I love the concept of this and kudos for developing such a solution (I found this topic as I was typing this text - great!), but the company page design immediately struck me as too crowded... Seems like there's too many items, especially in the right column that aren't always necessary. I don't know, I realize many sites have designs like yours but I wanted to let you know it struck me as being too heavy in information, thus distracting a bit, in case you have more complains like this you may consider doing something about it. Wish I could have given you more specific suggestions.
Now, after seeing Markus' suggestions and your response Leslie (I wrote the above prior to seeing it) which was a year ago, I guess what I have trouble with is, like Markus says, stuff that's "scattered around and it's hard to parse out the important information". I think that's still a problem.
And let me give you an example actually. I first got to this website following a link to a topic of another company's product. And I was pretty much confused. At first, I thought Get Satisfaction is the company behind this product, which only later I found out, isn't the case. You see, as a customer of another company, all that information (including prominent links to other companies) was not needed to be shown to me, at least not as if it's more important that the other company's product (drawing more attention than the other company's product stuff).
And I suppose you've implemented the API you're talking about which is great - for when I get to use your services. ;)
I’m glad there's a service like this ;)
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Inappropriate?Thanks for all this feedback. Good stuff. Look for a new header, too, in the coming days. Hopefully, it will appear a little more clean and less busy.
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Inappropriate?Hi Dom!
We've released the new header. It gives prominence to the company, instead of Get Satisfaction, which should prevent the confusion you explained in your example. Thanks for the feedback!
1 person says
this solves the problem
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Inappropriate?Hi Eric and Leslie!
You're welcome. Now, that was fast. :) And it feels a lot better now.
I’m satisfied
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