Just some feedback: I didn't see an easy link to your main page on the blog (not in the header, sidebar, or footer). There were plenty in the body text, but I didn't look there first for a link.
In signing up, I also had to re-enter my email address after the first username I tried was taken. You could repopulate the email address field based on the prior submission in the event that a username is unavailable.
As others have said, the background images on the splash page are huge. Even on my 15Mb connection I had to wait a moment for them to load.
I like it! Just one thing: a more prominent (header?) link to your main site from your blog and a sign up link within the blog post (since it talks about accounts) would probably help convert HN/Twitter viewers into customers. Maybe I'm just blind, but I had to navigate manually to your homepage and again to see plans, and the only links I saw in the blog post were to individual maps.
I noticed that the "pricing" screenshot links to the pricing page, but there's nothing there to indicate the screenshot is a link.
Looks great! Can't tell anything about the content really... but for the site itself:
- I like the merged signup/in
- The "try customizing this page" is a bit technical and it's far enough from the following text that I didn't think they were related
- I find the constantly changing faces distracting... maybe a smoother and/or longer transition could help?
- After clicking on one of the guides, I got the top bar and a white page - the main image took so long to load that I thought the page broke. This may just happen on slow connections. (I could scroll down already, but wouldn't know that without looking at the scroll bar)
- The footer with about / story / blog / legal links is not available on the front page - on purpose?
It looks great, but as stated earlier, the about pages would do well with a signup button/link at the bottom.
Another random thing: the logo for the homepage seems to be wider than the rest of the pages - I'm guessing there's some CSS stretching going on.
I'd drop the initial splash page and just let users get right to the landing page.
Some nit-picky things:
1. Height of your submit button doesn't match your search input
2. Button styles don't match, not a huge fan of either
3. Links along the bottom are confusing. Why does Users, Bands and Advertisers work but not Contact Us?
Overall I like it. The Watch -> Answer -> Download section is really nice.
Thank you for the great feedback, much appreciated. I see where you are coming from with a lot of your points and we definitely have some improvement to make on the design/user sign up.
Keep wording consistent: change "Complete our simple registration" to "Complete our simple sign-up form". On the registration page, change the "register" button to "Sign Up!"
Keep your logo in the top left corner of all your pages. It's nice that it gets out of the user's way after moving off of the homepage, but it's confusing.
Use a feedback form like the one on slacker.com (i.e. omnipresent) -- you'll be much more likely to get good feedback that way.
I really like the homepage design, but the content in the center of the page should be simpler and draw in users' attention (e.g. http://pixtures.s3.amazonaws.com/misc/mingle-process.jpg). You can offer a detailed explanation of your service after the user signs up -- or on the "see how it works" page... Or even just a little lower on the homepage.
Your homepage actually convinced me to sign up, but the "On your way to the MingleWeek" page is just plain daunting. So much text. No images. No simple instructions. Too much work before I'm able to see a reward. After I confirm my email address I should be taken to a page titled "Upload Your Photo" (i.e. no "Create Some Portraits") and there should be a big "upload" button in the center of my field of vision. While the homepage is really inviting, the pages after sign-up are less than inspiring.
The "Make a First Impression" page is cool. Make it easier to submit content. Don't even bother having multiple fields under the "Music" tab (i.e. Song, Musician, Album). Keep it simple: "Song Name" is enough. People will write "Song Name - Artist Name" in a single text field if they're so inclined. I would also suggest making all of the tabs omnipresent (e.g. http://pixtures.s3.amazonaws.com/misc/getting-to-know-you.jp...).
"Terms and Conditions, coming soon!" heh :)
P.S. Try to find a way to encourage a friendly atmosphere and community. That's why people visit social websites: the community. I would invite some of my friends to your service if there was a more compelling reason than "As the FlowMingle community grows, so do the number of people you can choose from." It seems like what you're trying to do is make a site geared more towards friends casually hanging out, having fun, and getting to know each other -- and I think that's great. Formal dating is overrated.
Your blog still has the starter Wordpress post in it. I understand if it isn't finished yet, but you should remove the link to it until it is.
It wasn't immediately apparent to me that this site's hook was getting entire groups of people together. The tagline sort of hinted at it ("Have your people meet my people") but I still didn't know if this was a standard one on one matchmaking site. It'd get the point across better if you showed entire circles of people on the landing page, not just one member.
I think it's fantastic! Like others said, describe more about why a user should sign up and what the site is about.
I one problem that is annoying me is the little picture of yourself on the left hand side of the site. It is the only icon on the site, but it links to my profile, which I don't want to see. You should at least add a non-intruding top bar with a logo to find the main feed. I see now that there are buttons in the top right corner for 'everybody' and 'following', but those are difficult to find are not located conveniently, especially since there are not enough people on the site to make use of the following feature.
However, I love the idea and I'll be checking up on it to look for new ideas :) It reminds me of http://www.thefancy.com/ but more useful because you can get something out of looking at the posts.
Hopefully you can get more users, because I'd love to see this fill up with things browse through!
With minimal use, the first issue I had was that the tags to the left of the post (Link, Article, etc.) drew my eye and I found myself only skimming through those instead of the titles.
Second, clicking on the title of a LINK post takes me to the comment page where the only way to get to the link itself is the small link button next to the name. Seems like it should link directly to the article or at least the comment page should have a summary and/or link that is easier to find.
It's not clear as a first-time visitor what this site does. Why not have a simple header like: "Have a drink with ________ at ___________?" Suggest something I want to do that will justify giving you my email address?
More pedantic notes on design:
(1) There is far too much text in general and the font is too small.
(2) Profile spacing is really bad. Top/bottom whitespace is not symmetrical and photos don't have equal padding on all sides. Profile content also crowds far-left, leaving a huge swathe of whitespace in the center of your webpage.
(3) Remove the text telling people they can't signup unless they're in New York. You will need all of your visitors to test the attractiveness of your splash page and iterate towards something that is more viral.
(4) There are too many signup boxes. Your signup box is your notification box. And you should remove it until someone asks to signup. Let a single button trigger a lightbox that asks for no more than someone's email address and location. Mail them their password.
(5) Telling people to go through the work of creating an account, filling out their profile, inviting friends, and browsing stranger profiles is not telling them how the service works. It is telling them to go away and never come back.
(6) The color red really jumps off the page. Using it for the signup button is smart. Using it more than once is less smart, especially since the first red profile button overshadows your signup button in visual hierarchy, and then the remaining buttons undermine the signup button by pulling my attention downwards and away.
(7) There is a lack of design consistency in user profiles. Some have signatures and some don't. Quite seriously, why don't you just put a number of photos there so you maximize the chance of me seeing someone I find attractive?
(8) If you want me to invite my friends, there has to be a non-weird reason for why I would do this.
A few random thoughts, as I write them. Disclaimer: after looking it over, I'm not really interested in using the product (right now, at least), I'm talking about the process up to that realization.
* The design of the front page itself is nice and pretty in general. Having said that, there are a few problems.
* The initial pitch is clear (make pretty graphs), the first two questions I had were "so what does this software look like" and "what would I use this for".
* To answer the second question, I clicked on the big "Blogger" button. For some reason, the text above it was updated, totally not what I was expecting (and I was close to missing it completely). I'd change that.
* The text "Click on the red button to sign up for a free beta account." is kind of superfluous. I'd remove it, the button is pretty self-explanatory).
* At this point I would normally just close the tab, since the three points you made for bloggers didn't seem too interesting. But I kept looking, and:
* Apparently, you can click on "Learn More". This page has most of the stuff I was looking for on the front page, like a video showing the software, and larger explanations on what it's good for.
* I would either make the Learn More button stand out much more, or (even better) put its content on the home page. Also, I'd put a "home" button next to the "Learn More" button and have it highlighted, to make it clearer that it's a "tabbing interface" and not just background noise.
* If you're putting the video on the front page, I would tweak it a little to make it more focused on showcasing the actual software (skip the whole login process, just get to where data becomes graphs).
Anyways, those are my quick first thoughts. Definitely looks interesting, but I'm guessing your hardest challenge will be to convince people they should use your software instead of Excel, all the more reason to put a video showcasing why your software is better smack-dab on the front page.
- On the landing page, your signup form is far too long. You also seem to have a FB login option on the top nav bar, but it's not there for the main CTA on the page. It's also easy to bypass the signup by simply clicking on the links in the list to the left of the signup form.
- "Local Events" looks like it's just stuff taken off of public Facebook events. Stuff like "Johns Wedding" and "I have a phone now" aren't particularly interesting to me.
- The "Deals" section could use some work: Most of the deals which show up above the fold are nationwide product-based deals which don't really get me excited (a Dyson-knockoff fan, collapsible water bottles, a subscription to OK! magazine) - try to focus on local deals if you can.
- "Local News": It's just a list of text links. Try and spice it up a bit with some styling, images, or at least stating the subject matter (sports, fashion, business, etc)
It's a neat idea, but a lot of people are working on the content-recommendation idea now. Good luck!
In signing up, I also had to re-enter my email address after the first username I tried was taken. You could repopulate the email address field based on the prior submission in the event that a username is unavailable.
As others have said, the background images on the splash page are huge. Even on my 15Mb connection I had to wait a moment for them to load.
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