SleekUpload.com Critique

It doesn't matter if you do all the error checking in the world, or if you have the most beautiful graphics, if your site or application design isn't usable, it's not going to do well. Get input and advice on usability and user interface issues here.

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JustinMs66
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SleekUpload.com Critique

Post by JustinMs66 »

i have been avidly working on an uploads website, called sleekupload
i would appreciate any feedback or suggestions on how to make it better or any features you think would improve it!

www.sleekupload.com
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guitarlvr
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Post by guitarlvr »

The black text on blue background is kind of hard to read. I would recommend using lighter colors.

Wayne
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pickle
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Post by pickle »

  • I agree - the text is hard to read. You could probably get away with white text there.
  • The username & password fields not being perfectly lined up bugs me. Might be my OCD though.
  • If I were the developer of this site, I might think that the scrolling text was neat too. Since I'm not the developer though, I can tell you it's a bad idea. It's annoying (I'm trying to think of a less harsh word, but in this sense it is very accurate. It annoys me), and looks amateurish.
  • Give your links some special formatting. They look exactly like regular text which violates quite a few usability guidelines I'm sure. Give them some different styling when they're hovered over as well.
  • There's no obvious way to get back to the home page if I'm on a sub-page. At the very least make the header graphic a link to go home - that's an unspoken standard (from what I've seen & heard). More importantly there should be a link back to the home page in your navigation & it should be right near the very top.
  • I know there's an about page, but a few sentences on the front page describing what the site is probably wouldn't hurt.
  • "Ads" is the only section header in the menu that has lowercase letters
  • Privileged is spelled wrong on the info page
  • Prepare to get lots of spam at that email address. At the very least break it out to: JustinMs66 [at] hotmail [dot] com. Preferably (from a SPAM reduction standpoint) would be to create an online contact form.
Despite the long list of changes, the site looks pretty decent. There aren't any glaring issues & it looks pretty well thought out.

Good job.
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
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JustinMs66
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Post by JustinMs66 »

pickle wrote:
  • I agree - the text is hard to read. You could probably get away with white text there.
  • The username & password fields not being perfectly lined up bugs me. Might be my OCD though.
  • If I were the developer of this site, I might think that the scrolling text was neat too. Since I'm not the developer though, I can tell you it's a bad idea. It's annoying (I'm trying to think of a less harsh word, but in this sense it is very accurate. It annoys me), and looks amateurish.
  • Give your links some special formatting. They look exactly like regular text which violates quite a few usability guidelines I'm sure. Give them some different styling when they're hovered over as well.
  • There's no obvious way to get back to the home page if I'm on a sub-page. At the very least make the header graphic a link to go home - that's an unspoken standard (from what I've seen & heard). More importantly there should be a link back to the home page in your navigation & it should be right near the very top.
  • I know there's an about page, but a few sentences on the front page describing what the site is probably wouldn't hurt.
  • "Ads" is the only section header in the menu that has lowercase letters
  • Privileged is spelled wrong on the info page
  • Prepare to get lots of spam at that email address. At the very least break it out to: JustinMs66 [at] hotmail [dot] com. Preferably (from a SPAM reduction standpoint) would be to create an online contact form.
Despite the long list of changes, the site looks pretty decent. There aren't any glaring issues & it looks pretty well thought out.
Good job.
Thank you for your feedback, it is greatly appreciated!
a few responses:
1) what scrolling text?
2) i have an online contact form as well as a full manage/reply contacts system :-) (http://sleekupload.com/contact)
3) the homepage is the "Upload File" page, which you can access from the sidemenu (1st item)

thanks again for those suggestions!
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pickle
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Post by pickle »

1) I saw it in two places. The first was when I was viewing an empty profile, the number of uploads would scroll from right to left. I don't see that link anymore though - must have fixed that. I'm not sure where I saw it the second time.

2) Changing the email address works too

3) I don't see that "Upload File" link. Does it show up if I'm not logged in? Regardless, people always look for a 'Home' link - I think it'd be a good idea to at the very least change the link to say "Home/Upload File".
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

I don't have a lot of time, but just upon first glance, get rid of that ugly gray. That range of gray is terrible 8O
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

My opinion (based on the home page, though I did view the entire site):

Bads:
- There is a lot of blue, and the only other color used to offset the blue if black (and white for form elements).
- Username and password field don't line up. To me that looks wonky.
- There is a lot of dead space in the body of the page.
- The varying depths of color saturation in the slanted background images throws the eyes a bit.
- The page layout does not scale when viewed at 800X600.
- The header image (sleek3.png) is 65K. That is way too big.
- There is a Javascript error on page load
document.getElementById(bc) has no properties
http://sleekupload.com/js/ajax.js
Line 145
- The HTML is all a big table (What about CSS???)
- Markup validation failed with 37 errors
- CSS validation failed with 2 errors and 31 warnings.

Goods:
- It is a fairly clean site.
- It looks like it will be very easy to use.

Overall:
- Navigation needs to be improved. Try to get home after moving three pages into the site.
- I recommend a few splashes of light color to soften things up a bit.
- Clean up the markup and CSS so they validate.

Not bad for a first release. Keep working on it. It will be smoking hot one day.
foobarph
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Joined: Thu May 24, 2007 10:32 pm

Post by foobarph »

Color Theme:
- it doesn't matter if you like blue or something but your color scheme doesn't fit well with your site.
- try http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html for more details

Layouting
- i like the way you presented your HTML codes when I looked at your source code but this is not enough. try to properly adjust your cellpadding or cellspacing so it will look better (or neat) when your visitors looked at your website

Ads
- Advertisement is well placed but who needs them when you're only starting? Place those ads "after" gathering enough members/users.

Etc
- i like your courage in creating a site like this but your effort is not enough.

lastly... keep it up.
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JustinMs66
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Posts: 127
Joined: Sun Sep 03, 2006 4:18 pm

Post by JustinMs66 »

Everah wrote:My opinion (based on the home page, though I did view the entire site):

Bads:
- There is a lot of blue, and the only other color used to offset the blue if black (and white for form elements).
- Username and password field don't line up. To me that looks wonky.
- There is a lot of dead space in the body of the page.
- The varying depths of color saturation in the slanted background images throws the eyes a bit.
- The page layout does not scale when viewed at 800X600.
- The header image (sleek3.png) is 65K. That is way too big.
- There is a Javascript error on page load
document.getElementById(bc) has no properties
http://sleekupload.com/js/ajax.js
Line 145
- The HTML is all a big table (What about CSS???)
- Markup validation failed with 37 errors
- CSS validation failed with 2 errors and 31 warnings.

Goods:
- It is a fairly clean site.
- It looks like it will be very easy to use.

Overall:
- Navigation needs to be improved. Try to get home after moving three pages into the site.
- I recommend a few splashes of light color to soften things up a bit.
- Clean up the markup and CSS so they validate.

Not bad for a first release. Keep working on it. It will be smoking hot one day.
wow amazing advice, thank you so much!
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superdezign
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Posts: 4135
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 11:06 pm

Post by superdezign »

Oh, bleh. It's a table.
A nice looking table, but a table.
Ugly HTML. Ugly, ugly.

Beyond that though, fairly impressive.
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