Website Review and Suggestions

**vultren** · 11:30 PM

It took 3 different site iterations to come to a conclusion on this one. I'm just looking for some feedback on the design.

It was coded using CakePHP. I think it turned out great, but what do you guys think?

http://unitedissues.com

Thanks.

**vultren** · 02-14-2009, 07:47 PM

Anything guys?

**Pacific Pub** · 02-15-2009, 03:36 AM

Great domain name. The gray/black background is kind of dull. I would try to remove the extra space above the logo and add a Home link in the horizontal menu. You're off to a good start and the site has potential.

**FabryDesign** · 02-15-2009, 10:18 AM

I'm the site developer, I'll join in on this thread. I've gone ahead and reduced the empty space above the logo. That was something I was worried about, since we want content to be visible without scrolling on smaller screens.

A "home" link on the menu would not make sense, since when a user logs in, that becomes a "userbar", and that link that would have appeared to be static would no longer be there.

**vultren** · 02-18-2009, 02:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pacific Pub

Great domain name. The gray/black background is kind of dull. I would try to remove the extra space above the logo and add a Home link in the horizontal menu. You're off to a good start and the site has potential.

Thank you for the feedback!

The more I can get, the better! Please, anyone else?

**OLIVER1978** · 02-18-2009, 02:13 PM

I love the domain name, easy to remember and spell well done on that. Nice favicon as well. Also about the website, i like the black and white background, the website is nicely spaced out and has a good interface, Id say to increase the navigation links at the top navigation bar as currently there are only 3.

Besides that, the website looks good.

Good luck in developing your website.

**vultren** · 02-22-2009, 02:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OLIVER1978

I love the domain name, easy to remember and spell well done on that. Nice favicon as well. Also about the website, i like the black and white background, the website is nicely spaced out and has a good interface, Id say to increase the navigation links at the top navigation bar as currently there are only 3.

Besides that, the website looks good.

Good luck in developing your website.

I agree, the domain name is perfect. It took a LONG time to find the right one and find an available one. But I'm glad you guys think I picked a good one.

Thank you for the complements! As for the nav. bar, we will add more. What we tried to do was move the stuff to the bottem of the page (like contact etc.) so it looks a little cleaner.

Thank you for taking the time and writing a review. I've talked to Fabry Design, and we've already changed some different things. So keep the critiques coming! The more the better!

**Corey** · 06:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Twirp54

It took 3 different site iterations to come to a conclusion on this one. I'm just looking for some feedback on the design.

It was coded using CakePHP. I think it turned out great, but what do you guys think?

http://unitedissues.com

Thanks.

Very nice design. It's simple and easy to navigate. The colors go well with each other.

One thing I noticed was people cannot view the contact page and contact you unless they are logged in... what if they cannot login for some reason? There doesn't appear to be a forgot password page either.

Also, have you tried to center the footer text to see what that looks like?

**vultren** · 02-25-2009, 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corey

Very nice design. It's simple and easy to navigate. The colors go well with each other.

One thing I noticed was people cannot view the contact page and contact you unless they are logged in... what if they cannot login for some reason? There doesn't appear to be a forgot password page either.

Also, have you tried to center the footer text to see what that looks like?

Thank you!

We will be fixing that tomorrow or sometime this week, thanks for pointing it out! The password and the contact problem will be fixed.

I have a question for anyone who would like to help out, does anyone have anything they'd like to see added to the site? Like a page filled out more or another feature?

**bthompson** · 02-25-2009, 04:45 PM

Nice design, very clean and neat. I like it.

**vultren** · 02-25-2009, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bthompson

Nice design, very clean and neat. I like it.

Thank you!

**Freelansir** · 02-28-2009, 10:17 PM

The site looks clean, well put together, very simple, and the adds are not intrusive. Two main concerns, more conceptual than design:

1) How are you going to get past the chicken and the egg problem. The value of your site is having large amounts of contributors, yet how will you get those contributors or debtors to stay without having lots of them to start with?

2) Secondly, perhaps there is some type of value added service that can offer people to stimulate conversation - whether this is news broadcasts, resources, video links - something that offers value to visitors who look at your very pretty site, become very interested in the concept, and then - like me - feel like they're going to waste their time debating with 3 or 4 people and bookmark your site in the 'nice concept, cool site, would use it sometime, but not today' category.

Put in some type of engagement mechanism that doesn't required being logged in!!!

Cheers mate

**fdansv** · 02-28-2009, 10:23 PM

The site looks veery cook dude, but only one observation: Don't you think it's too "Obama-like"?

**SiteBetter** · 03-01-2009, 02:17 PM

A good start but you have a lot of work to do.

I agree that the colors seem to be a bit dull and muted. The “issues” part of the logo gets lost on the background. I was confused about the flags being Avatars. Seeing that there are a finite number of good colors you can use to distinguish one avatar from another, I would suggest not using those as your avatars. I would suggest allowing people to use their own images.

You should also flesh out your site before you start to monetize it. You want to appear that you are creating the site for the good of mankind rather than some quick business venture.

When you start getting hundreds of hits a day, then you should start rolling out the Google Ads. When you have more ads than content, it looks like you are trying some get rich quick scheme. The major sites that have made millions of dollars never had ads until they were well on their way to success.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

SiteBetter