4 ms·

No offence, but the site is just ugly, you should redesign it ASAP. Seriously! The product looks pretty interesting though. Doesn't Skype more-less provide thes

by hajrice 17y ago

No offence, but the site is just ugly, you should redesign it ASAP. Seriously! The product looks pretty interesting though. Doesn't Skype more-less provide these services?

e1ven 17y ago
I think it's supposed to be a competitor for Ventrilo, more than Skype. Vent is very popular for online gaming- While the software is free, selling hosting packages for it makes a LOT of money every year.
tibbon 17y ago
Skype is rather similar in some ways and we often look at them as a role model. Skype is much more CPU/memory/bandwidth intensive and lacks some of the gaming-centric functionality that we're integrating. Also, Skype user conferences don't scale over 8-users, which is a barrier for many massive gamers. I agree on the site. We've got a new 'look' that we have deployed on a landing page and we're hoping to roll out site-wide soon with some additional revisions (http://imvox.com/warcraft_ventrilo_hosting_voice_chat_alternative.php http://imvox.com/warcraft_ventrilo_hosting_voice_chat_altern...). Any parts particularly offensive on the current one (or future) that I can pass along to our designer?
- samdk 17y ago
  I like the new site better than the current one, but it still needs work. Some general comments about both: Width: To accommodate (almost) everything, most designers keep things to a maximum width of 960px. Your site is 1100px wide. On most sites I'd say this is an issue, because unless you specifically want horizontal scrolling it's a bad idea. Since your site is targeted towards gamers, they might all have monitors that wide--I don't know. I'd take a look at your analytics and make sure that's a safe width. I'll note that even if it is ok it feels really wide. Your designer's done a decent job of keeping it under control from what I can see, but recognize that text that stretches across the whole width is not at all readable. Navigation mouseovers: right now when you mouse over your navigation links, they turn blue and get underlined. The dark blue is hard to see on both sites, and the effect just seems unrelated to anything else on the page. Do one or the other. For the color, I'd go with either the same color as the 'current page' link, or something halfway in between the two. I normally prefer the latter, but you do have to make sure that the difference is enough to be very easily noticeable. Some comments on the new design, specifically: First, I'd like to say that this is much better in general. It still needs work, but it's much improved. A few relatively minor about the top section: The baseline of the text in the logo should probably align with the baseline of the navigation link text. (I'd cut out some of the shadow or make it fade more quickly so it fits there.) The switch to a serif face for your 'sales pitch' is good--it draws attention to it, and that's what you want. I would recommend getting a little more creative with font choices than Times New Roman though! The snowflakes don't make much sense to me--I just don't know why they're there. It might look better than with a plain or gradient background anyway, but finding something a little more topical might be a good idea. I see what you're trying to do with the computer, but right now it's drawing attention away from your software and putting it on the computer. I think just a screenshot of your software could be much better. The bottom part I think needs some new ideas. It's too same-y (and a bit messy) and my eyes get lost. More visual differentiation would be a good thing.
  - tibbon 17y ago
    Thanks for the feedback. The snowflakes were in there from the holidays and we're pulling those as soon as I get around to it :)
  - tibbon 17y ago
    Thanks for the feedback. The snowflakes were in there from the holidays and we're pulling those as soon as I get around to it :)
truebosko 17y ago
Agreed. Honestly, your typography in general needs some major work. Hire some freelancer to work one hour and he can do some amazing things (assuming he knows what he is doing). The neon green colours are also painful.
tonystubblebine 17y ago
Having no design chops myself and having taken the tact with my own company of launching half-assed and ugly, I want to push back on the ASAP part of this advice. Design matters and once you have competitors it becomes a major factor in decisions. But you can and should put some effort into figuring out product/market fit and positioning before you freak out about design. You're probably going to throw away this current design even if it was already good. We were able to get that product/market fit feedback without good design. And looking back I wish that was the only thing I ever felt ASAP pressure about.

by hajrice 17y ago

No offence, but the site is just ugly, you should redesign it ASAP. Seriously! The product looks pretty interesting though. Doesn't Skype more-less provide these services?

e1ven 17y ago

I think it's supposed to be a competitor for Ventrilo, more than Skype. Vent is very popular for online gaming- While the software is free, selling hosting packages for it makes a LOT of money every year.

tibbon 17y ago

Skype is rather similar in some ways and we often look at them as a role model. Skype is much more CPU/memory/bandwidth intensive and lacks some of the gaming-centric functionality that we're integrating. Also, Skype user conferences don't scale over 8-users, which is a barrier for many massive gamers. I agree on the site. We've got a new 'look' that we have deployed on a landing page and we're hoping to roll out site-wide soon with some additional revisions (http://imvox.com/warcraft_ventrilo_hosting_voice_chat_alternative.php http://imvox.com/warcraft_ventrilo_hosting_voice_chat_altern...). Any parts particularly offensive on the current one (or future) that I can pass along to our designer?

samdk 17y ago
I like the new site better than the current one, but it still needs work. Some general comments about both: Width: To accommodate (almost) everything, most designers keep things to a maximum width of 960px. Your site is 1100px wide. On most sites I'd say this is an issue, because unless you specifically want horizontal scrolling it's a bad idea. Since your site is targeted towards gamers, they might all have monitors that wide--I don't know. I'd take a look at your analytics and make sure that's a safe width. I'll note that even if it is ok it feels really wide. Your designer's done a decent job of keeping it under control from what I can see, but recognize that text that stretches across the whole width is not at all readable. Navigation mouseovers: right now when you mouse over your navigation links, they turn blue and get underlined. The dark blue is hard to see on both sites, and the effect just seems unrelated to anything else on the page. Do one or the other. For the color, I'd go with either the same color as the 'current page' link, or something halfway in between the two. I normally prefer the latter, but you do have to make sure that the difference is enough to be very easily noticeable. Some comments on the new design, specifically: First, I'd like to say that this is much better in general. It still needs work, but it's much improved. A few relatively minor about the top section: The baseline of the text in the logo should probably align with the baseline of the navigation link text. (I'd cut out some of the shadow or make it fade more quickly so it fits there.) The switch to a serif face for your 'sales pitch' is good--it draws attention to it, and that's what you want. I would recommend getting a little more creative with font choices than Times New Roman though! The snowflakes don't make much sense to me--I just don't know why they're there. It might look better than with a plain or gradient background anyway, but finding something a little more topical might be a good idea. I see what you're trying to do with the computer, but right now it's drawing attention away from your software and putting it on the computer. I think just a screenshot of your software could be much better. The bottom part I think needs some new ideas. It's too same-y (and a bit messy) and my eyes get lost. More visual differentiation would be a good thing.
- tibbon 17y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. The snowflakes were in there from the holidays and we're pulling those as soon as I get around to it :)
- tibbon 17y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. The snowflakes were in there from the holidays and we're pulling those as soon as I get around to it :)

truebosko 17y ago

Agreed. Honestly, your typography in general needs some major work. Hire some freelancer to work one hour and he can do some amazing things (assuming he knows what he is doing). The neon green colours are also painful.

tonystubblebine 17y ago

Having no design chops myself and having taken the tact with my own company of launching half-assed and ugly, I want to push back on the ASAP part of this advice. Design matters and once you have competitors it becomes a major factor in decisions. But you can and should put some effort into figuring out product/market fit and positioning before you freak out about design. You're probably going to throw away this current design even if it was already good. We were able to get that product/market fit feedback without good design. And looking back I wish that was the only thing I ever felt ASAP pressure about.