Hi, guys! I am done redesigning my website. What are your thoughts about it? How are colors, animation, navigation, etc?
Please give me your suggestions. I really appreciate your opinion.
https://under-the-open-sky.com
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Web design is a relatively young field. It’s youthful, growing and made up of people from all kinds of backgrounds, many of whom lack formal design training. We have learned, and still are learning, as you go. Theme color should be attractive and slimier to your site category.
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Hi there,
Welcome to UXMastery! I just wanted to let you know that, while some of our members may have a background in web development, you may not get much of a response here because this community is focused on user experience design.
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Hi! I think in branding, marketing and design and all that stuff, so I could give some perspectives from a variety of angles.
First, the animation is amazing. I like the choice of imagery as well, and the font.
What I would say overall, is that there is a sense that the site doesn’t have a “voice”. It “sits there,” if you will, without shouting to the world what it intends to be. —Who is your target customer? Is it mostly men (being sporting, right?), or is it mixed? Or, even skewed towards women? What are their psychographics, attitudes, etc.? You could write up a persona to embody these things.
Based on who that is, you can have a tagline that really tells people what it is, and who it’s for. Is it for… thoughtful sportsmen? Enviornmentally sensitive sportsmen? Frugal sportsmen? … Etc. Use big letters, and shout it to the world.
I would say that the hero image forces me to take too long to get to the meat of what I am searching for (although cool). What are the jobs I (as the core user of the site) am trying to accomplish? List them out, design the site to help them accomplish those jobs.
My initial reaction to the font is that it feels a little bit “designer-y”, and though it’s very nice, I would look for something a little more “masculine” i.e., straighforward.
Along with adding a tagline, I would suggest speaking to the visitor more in other ways. It wants to have a voice—maybe a few sentences at the top of each page. I don’t know what, but a voice. E.g., on the fishing page — “We know how hard it is to find good fishing tackle that’s both well made, and affordable. That’s why we’ve assembled this collection of fine…” Whatever — i.e., I know nothing about this domain. But it would speak to purpose and intentionality that would motivate the core visitor to dig deeper.
I hope these were helpful!
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My first thought was that it’s an ecommerce store. But looking through the site, I can see it’s an affiliate site with links to amazon.
Where is your traffic coming from? Who would likely use your site to buy gear? What info would they find useful?
Some ideas to consider…
- A side-by-side comparison table so users can see which one is best
- Some reviews pulled in from amazon so people can see what other people are saying about the product
- Product ratings pulled in from amazon, as people are more likely to buy items that are rated highly by others
- Personal recommendations -e.g. this product is good for amateur hikers… this product is great if you fish every week in lakes etc
You need to understand your target audience (conduct interviews, surveys, focus groups etc), find out what they are looking for and how your site can help them, then market directly to them. Like christopherburbridge has mentioned, currently it’s a bit generic and non-targeted.
The design is nice. A good foundation to build from
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Thank you for your feedback! We will solve this problem
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Thank you for your recommendations! They are really useful for us, and we definitely use them to improve our site.
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- I’d like to say a word about the font. It seems good for titles but makes difficult to read through a paragraph.
- Text selection is not working. Is it blocked intentionally?
- I like the top menu items selected state (with the sun). But I would expect hover state to be somehow different.
P.S. Images and photos are cool!
Oh, and I have a question. Do users come to these review articles from googling? Is there anyone who will ever see the home page with that amazing animated picture? I am not a marketing expert, this is not sarcasm, I am just curious how such review sites are working.
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Nice website!!! A bit buggy, for example, product images are not visible in particular articles - Best Solar Power Banks 2019 – Reviews And Top Picks
But, it’s still a great website!
Beautiful artwork, animations and colour scheme. As @jdebari mentioned though, the main thing I’m missing is a value proposition on the homepage, introducing the website and answering users’ questions like: Why should I be here? Have I come to the right place? And perhaps a few introductory lines on the category pages, explaining what I can find and do in those sections. Try to explain the purpose of the website so that the users understand how its useful to them. It might seem obvious to you (it’s clear that you’ve put a lot of work into this site, and spent a lot of time on it) but for new users, it never is.