brady.k — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 07:14:15 +0000

Ok, we made a few changes from when I last showed you guys, and made it live:

The only thing that I'm thinking of changing is the logo: remove the background, and change the shadow from black to white...

Thoughts appreciated. And feel free to signup for the site if you're interested... it's live!

ap1106 — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 21:22:34 +0000

I think those gradients will be fine, just need toning down, a lot, like instead of going from that light blue to black, go to a very slightly darker shade of blue,
the grey bits, go from that light colour at the top to white... maybe
(although the gradient on the inactive tabs at the top looks good!)

I think when gradients are done well you hardly notice them, and are just enough to give it a subtle 3d look

logo looks great now, as does the layout

brady.k — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 03:41:54 +0000

Yeah I actually agree with you on a few of those points, and that's why this is a "work in progress"... we'll see what comes out next...

mscreashuns — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 19:35:39 +0000

Still like the colors, but hate the gradients. They are severely overused here and make my eyes jump all over. I think you could stand to use a gradient on the large menu buttons (Main, Login, FAQ, etc) and the background of the entire content section (the light to dark orange), but everywhere else is probably better off as a solid color. Definitely where there will be a lot of text I believe should be a solid color to allow for easy reading, and the navigation (blue to black) is a bit harsh.

Just my two cents.

brady.k — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:19:26 +0000

New design...

It's not done yet (and that 'radio' thing is definitely going away), but any thoughts? Comments?

http://test.myshoutoutloud.com

brady.k — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:20:46 +0000

Thanks, Rob.

We're actually going to push a new UI design live hopefully within the next week... same base colors, but things are moved around to be a little brighter and easier to read. Once that's done, we're going to have a huge PR/marketing push to hopefully get this going...

Thanks for the comments... I expect great things too!

X_X_ROB_X_X — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:10:54 +0000

1) nice idea and would expect great things from a site like this
2) bottom text is hard to read. too small
3) colors work and seems to be a nice layout

robfenn — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:50:34 +0000

I really hate that phrase but i see where you're coming from: clear design, big text and general 'simplicity.' I think you've taken this a bit literally though.

If we're going down the road of 'Web 2.0' style then maybe you want to look at the CSS sites which have a whole library of practically identicale stuff.

For example, one i like is arty papers. It hasn't got loads of text, but the layout is intuitive and the text that is there is carefully chosen useful. The basic imagery/icons really brighton it up too.

Take a look:
http://artypapers.com/

brady.k — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:06:43 +0000

Thanks, but I'd have to say that while it isn't a new idea in it's entirety, it is a new idea in the sense that the systems in place trying to do this are broken, don't work, or people don't use/know about them.

As for the design... 10 years old? I would argue that the sites YOU linked to look 10 years old to me. Boring. Bland. Cookie-cutter.

Like I mentioned, this is "Web 2.0" and the design is along those lines. On purpose.

robfenn — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:24:48 +0000

I'm really not keen on the design i'm afraid. It already looks about 10 years old. This is by no means a new idea so you have to consider what is your USP? I know it's the beta site but the homepage is my first impression... what actual useful information is there? There's not even an incentive to help you out by testing the system.

I've done a quick search on Google for competition, maybe it's worth giving them a look.

http://www.which.co.uk/
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/index.htm
http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/
http://www0.epinions.com/
http://www.planetfeedback.com/