Re:Ask HN: Please review my new website www.favilous.com
by alilja on Monday January 18, 2010 @12:47PM
(#1060368)
It's a good start, but it feels like it's a bunch of unconnected ideas at this point. I think you need some better copy, but you also need to refine your layout.
Overall, it feels too busy. Items are shunted together in a confusing way, and they don't feel like they related to each other. Look at sites like http://www.pixelmator.com/ and http://feedafever.com/ -- their sites are brilliantly executed.
Focus on what you want your site to do:
1. Explain what you're offering
2. Convince people that they need it (especially as opposed to other, similar, services)
3. Make it easy to sign up and use
As it stands now, I feel like you have the rough beginnings of this, but it's not a finished, polished version.
More technically, here's what I recommend. First, you need to snap things down to a grid. This will make the page flow and FEEL better overall, and allow you to control how the user views it.
Second, you need to make everything more cohesive. It looks like you have seven different fonts now (the "favilous" name, "Bookmark Tools," the default body text, the sign-in button, the rotating text in the main box, the navigation links, and the "Follow Us" link), and a huge amount of colors. You should come up with a simple color scheme of maybe three main colors and a few shades of each, and cut the number of fonts you're using down to one or two. Yes, one or two -- the Fever page uses just one.
There seems to be a lot of empty space. Not white space, which a good design needs, but EMPTY space. Your main box looks like it's three times as big as it needs to be for the content it holds. Fix that, because it distracts the eye and looks unprofessional.
I would also recommend a color scheme that's black-on-white, instead of white-on-black you have now. It's much harder to read white text on a black background, especially for long periods of time, and since you're expecting people to be reading and browsing, you should probably focus on making it easy to read.
Finally, there are some instances on your site where you have an extra space before the punctuation ends. This looks unprofessional, and to grammar-obsessed reader, it's distracting.
Re:Ask HN: Please review my new website www.favilous.com
by bennyt on Monday January 18, 2010 @01:06PM
(#1060427)
This is great feedback, thanks. I think you are right that the homepage needs to explain who we are and what we are doing in a better fashion. We need to show people that we are different to Delicious.
We are aimed at bookmarking rather than some other sites where it seems a bit of an after thought.
I also think we need to highlight the bookmark tools more as 'favitlater' is a really bug feature but one that doesn't seemed to have been picked up here.
You are right about the fonts and we will revisit this. With regard to black on white - once registered a user can select from a range of different backgrounds (including white ones) and you can also upload your own.
Thanks very much for your feedback. We will discuss it and keep you updated as to any changes that we make! Much appreciated...as are all these comments!
Re:Ask HN: Please review my new website www.favilous.com
by evlapix on Monday January 18, 2010 @11:58AM
(#1060223)
It took me a moment to find the "Sign Up" button/link. I checked in some of the usual places.. At the top of the page near the "Sign In/Have an account?" link, the main navigation, and in the actual slide show to no avail. I eventually found it and felt stupid for not seeing it earlier.
Re:Ask HN: Please review my new website www.favilous.com
by samdk on Monday January 18, 2010 @12:43PM
(#1060354)
This was the first thing I noticed, too. I'd recommend having a 'sign up' link at the top right where the 'sign in' link is--that's where people expect it to be, and that's where they'll look for it.
Re:Ask HN: Please review my new website www.favilous.com
by tdupree on Monday January 18, 2010 @01:06PM
(#1060428)
Congrats, delicious needs more competition in this space. I started working on something like this with a couple buddies of mine about two years ago with the read sites later stuff, syncing across browsers, etc. Our project, favtopia.com, ended up getting put on a semi-permanent hold as we had other things we needed to work on. I think you guys are on to something really useful, with a lot of great features other offerings lack. Just keep refining your landing page (and the rest of your site), making what you do really clear to your visitors, and I think you guys will do well.
Re:Ask HN: Please review my new website www.favilous.com
by sw1205 on Monday January 18, 2010 @01:12PM
(#1060453)
This is great thanks. You are right - we certainly need to make the homepage clearer in message. It seems to be getting lost at the moment but we are really pleased you have found the bookmarking tools and find them useful!
Re:Ask HN: Please review my new website www.favilous.com
by Vindexus on Monday January 18, 2010 @12:57PM
(#1060405)
I'd move the "Take a Tour" link to a more prominent location and make it a button. It took me a while to find it. The tour was good at showing me what this was all about though.
Re:Ask HN: Please review my new website www.favilous.com
by zzzmarcus on Monday January 18, 2010 @12:32PM
(#1060328)
Guided tour didn't work for me. It loaded but never started playing. I didn't immediately notice any other way to find out what exactly the site is or does. Clicking the links in the bottom columns just took me to other sites.
Re:Ask HN: Please review my new website www.favilous.com
by sw1205 on Monday January 18, 2010 @12:11PM
(#1060268)
Hi, we see it as being a simpler more stylish alternative which appeals to technical and non-technical people alike. We also distinguish between the sites you might traditionally store in your browser favourites versus the articles and blog posts you might view and store via delicious. So somewhere in between the facilities you get with a browser and an application like delicious. We also provide the facility to bookmark pages for viewing later or to tweet a link straight from a bookmarklet.
"Favilous is supported on all major browsers excluding Internet Explorer 6. Upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer."
I don't think I need to see this as I'm on Safari.
Overall, it feels too busy. Items are shunted together in a confusing way, and they don't feel like they related to each other. Look at sites like http://www.pixelmator.com/ and http://feedafever.com/ -- their sites are brilliantly executed.
Focus on what you want your site to do: 1. Explain what you're offering 2. Convince people that they need it (especially as opposed to other, similar, services) 3. Make it easy to sign up and use
As it stands now, I feel like you have the rough beginnings of this, but it's not a finished, polished version.
More technically, here's what I recommend. First, you need to snap things down to a grid. This will make the page flow and FEEL better overall, and allow you to control how the user views it.
Second, you need to make everything more cohesive. It looks like you have seven different fonts now (the "favilous" name, "Bookmark Tools," the default body text, the sign-in button, the rotating text in the main box, the navigation links, and the "Follow Us" link), and a huge amount of colors. You should come up with a simple color scheme of maybe three main colors and a few shades of each, and cut the number of fonts you're using down to one or two. Yes, one or two -- the Fever page uses just one.
There seems to be a lot of empty space. Not white space, which a good design needs, but EMPTY space. Your main box looks like it's three times as big as it needs to be for the content it holds. Fix that, because it distracts the eye and looks unprofessional.
I would also recommend a color scheme that's black-on-white, instead of white-on-black you have now. It's much harder to read white text on a black background, especially for long periods of time, and since you're expecting people to be reading and browsing, you should probably focus on making it easy to read.
Finally, there are some instances on your site where you have an extra space before the punctuation ends. This looks unprofessional, and to grammar-obsessed reader, it's distracting.
We are aimed at bookmarking rather than some other sites where it seems a bit of an after thought.
I also think we need to highlight the bookmark tools more as 'favitlater' is a really bug feature but one that doesn't seemed to have been picked up here.
You are right about the fonts and we will revisit this. With regard to black on white - once registered a user can select from a range of different backgrounds (including white ones) and you can also upload your own.
Thanks very much for your feedback. We will discuss it and keep you updated as to any changes that we make! Much appreciated...as are all these comments!
Sell me! On the front page, above the fold.
http://pinboard.in
Negative: I found the color a little dark but this might just be me. Nice website keep the good work.