Review Ja Kel Daily Blog and Forum

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Oct 2006

Please review my Blog and Forum site. Ja Kel Daily is a Fashion + Celebrity + Media news and gossip blog. We have been blogging for nine months now and just recently added a forum to our site. The forum software was available with my go daddy hosting. The forum software is SMF, please advice what you think about that forum software (good/bad) what you've heard about bugs or if I should just use something else. Our blog is up to around 15000 to 20000 page views a month and obliviously we inspire to be better. So help us out with a good or bad review.

From a user's perspective:

• Is the site attractive to you?
• Is it easy to use?
• Would you advertise?
• If you were interested in this site's content, would you come back? Why/why not?
• Is the content good? Do you understand what the text is saying? Do you notice any spelling/grammar mistakes?
• If the site has a forum community, would you sign up and post? Why/why not?

From a designer/developer's persepective
• colour scheme
• common design principles
• common design mistakes
• usability
• appropriateness of design & contenet
• branding & marketing
• graphics quality
• browser compatibility
• resolution
• function of widgets/dhtml/forms, et cetera
• image compression
• information architecture
• consistency
• coding/validation
• use of technologies

Thank you,
Jason

www.jakeldaily.com

PopeCuervoLime's picture

He has: 34 posts

Joined: Oct 2006

My visceral reactions:

  • The color scheme is gray and dull, needs a little more adrenaline pumped into it. It seems the only source of color are the pictures you post.
  • I like the way you mingle you AdSense ads with local links, very clever and well placed.
  • That said, I have FireFox rigged up with AdBlock and when all the ads are gone I still see a good page structure. That is very cool.
  • I tested your site with a 1024x780 resolution and with Opera, IE7 and FireFox and I saw no layout problems.
  • The site loads fast in all three of my browsers; image compression has been done nicely.
  • Forums seem okay, I didn't see any problems.
  • Overall, nice website, just needs a hint of color.
Busy's picture

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

From a user's perspective:
Very slow to load on dialup (but most blogs are)
Very blah visually (but is still loading so colour may come yet) 9:34
doesn't fit my screen size (800x600) or bigger screen size with window minimised a bit
hard to work out the website - have to learn how to use it, ie: what is text what is links (only google ads are underlined) and on crt screen links and text are very similar colour. 9:38
I wouldn't advertise or be back (the fact i hate blogs has nothing to do with it lol), advertising would get lost, there is just so much on there a little ad wouldn't be seen, similar reason for not coming back. Forums at least you can choose last posts etc, with blogs you have to hunt for posts by date. I know what day it is today but without looking at my calendar have no idea what the date is.
9:39 the site finally stopped loading (thats 5 mins and yeah am a slow typer lol)
What is the site about? from your logo and first links I would say womans fashion, that has a store (even though the links go to another website - bizrate). The first "article" is about youtube I didn't read it but can't see a connection.

From a designer/developer's persepective
you need a design, you need flow, you need colour, you need an identity ...
I think one of your biggest problems is your outlook, are you wanting money or promotion? I see you are wanting money with all the ads and advertising requests (one of the reasons I hate blogs)
You need to seperate your links and text more (use different colours and maybe even underline them)

I think the keyword, which is on your title tag, but not your logo is "gossip", I actually thought your site was about fashion and stuff, it's not.
crap cat just brought a mouse inside so cutting this short (ya you say lol)
In short, Add some colour, loose the ads, especially at the top of the site, make people want to scroll down, make them want to click an ad ... at the moment it's click a ad or nothing

They have: 4 posts

Joined: Oct 2006

good design. also like the sites functionality!

JoseffB's picture

He has: 52 posts

Joined: Oct 2006

Funny content. I agree with Buzy on design and layout.

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