Usability design and header help needed

My website code has recently been certified and opened to the public, but there are many details about the design that can be changed after the fact that should help.

• The biggest improvements may be to the general content and design when compared to the typical successful business landing pages in other words, where's the picture of the happy customer using the product / service??.
• Next would be improvements to the usability of the "Ad customizer" form.
• The last area for improvement would be the header area (obviously). It just doesn't fit since there's no established logo IMHO.

I have way too much going on with this project and some others to worry so much about the design -- it is functional and that was quite a job. There are plenty of features about the ads themselves that should increase CTR. I also posted a similar thread in the Advertising section here, since that seemed more appropriate, but I'd like to get some design feedback.

Anyway, I'd gladly take your advices and critiques into consideration. I'd be glad to answer any questions about my service here - since I'm going to keep an eye on this thread for design advice.

Thanks in advance. I've just been too close to the monitor and mostly looking at php / HTML code. There's just been way too many hours spent starting at numbers, letters, special characters and occasional spaces.

Please review:
general design review: http://auctionreporting.com
usability review: Ad customizer
consider banners for header: AuctionReporting affiliate links / banners

 

http://auctionreporting.com/

1. First glance, very busy & too much text.

2. First glance, a bunch of characters that are randomly sized.

3. Second glance, most obvious button says, "Make new advertisement," but I don't even know where I am yet, or what this is all about.

4. Third glance, I see a positioning statement, but it's too long for me to read. The positioning statement should be more prominent with graphics and the "Make New Advertisement" button should be secondary, yet cohesive with the positioning statement of the site. It should provide a natural funnel flow.

5. Positioning statement should be boiled down to 5 words or less.

6. Positioning statement should be near the logo and site title. You've got 30 seconds to tell me where I am and what you can do for me--otherwise--I'm gone (along with your prospects).

There is more, but these are the first logical steps to improvement.

Thanks for submitting your critique request.

 

Thanks Jenna, I am obliged! Your points are all absolutely spot on!!

I've already made a few tweaks based on your suggestions. It is still kind of word-y, but organized in a better way. At least I have reduced the number of font sizes and colors (thanks!!).

Based on my site's service, what do you think my positioning statement should be? I think in my case it is currently "Let us help you make more money with your web sites", but I don't know what you would say.

Also, what would you do with the header portion? I need a logo... maybe I can look for volunteers in another section of these forums.

 

I can't figure out what to do on the ads page. Like, there's some frame html, which I never myself use, and cannot tell where my ad text goes... am I supposed to replace "src= httpblah blah blah" with a link to where my ad is?
(And I make banner ads and stick them in my own html, so if I can't figure this out, I must not be young enough.)

The example result isn't clear.

In the html section, I'd say "put the path to your ad here", and have the result be clearly different from the page. Maybe with a border around it, showing the same text "put path to your ad here".


I like the top of the page where the logo is. I wouldn't change that at all. No need for a traditional picture of a white 20-something model in office clothes typing at a laptop or computer.

Edit, I would also check your HTML and CSS through a validator. You've got quite a few errors.

 

Just a couple of things that stood out to me at first glance on the layout:

1) The search & login fields look a bit odd to me as they don't line up. Perhaps making them more obviously separated visually, or moving one or both to another location would solve this.

2) The red text in the navigation just doesn't look 'right' to me. I also would expect to see the navigation higher up the left sidebar, where the search & login stuff currently is. Maybe if the search was at the top right below 'account settings', and the login was either more compact or switched places with the navigation?

3) Perhaps some kind of divider might look nice between each section on the left sidebar if you keep it the way it is. A faint line or similar might help visually break up each section.

4) minor point here - the bullet point graphics in the navigation don't line up perfectly with the center of the text at the default size. They appear a few pixels lower than vertically centered (at least on my system).

Visual flow: I found my focus first drawn to the banner, then to the ebay logo, then the make new advertisment, and lastly the join now & demo account buttons. I found I skipped over the 'welcome to' paragraph because it doesn't have any elements which grab your attention. That may or may not be relevant, depending on how important each section is in relation to each other.

I like the overall look of the page, the color scheme works well & the banner area with overlap, transparency effect & shadows looks nice and polished. Perhaps a different color text for the headings (Home, Let us help you make more money.. etc) would again help with visually separating the content into sections.

Hope that didn't sound too negative.. When critiquing my own work it seems so easy to say "I don't like that part" without being able to put my finger on exactly why, or have any suggestions on how to improve something.

 

Thanks for the valuable feedback Stomme poes.

Since your feedback, I have added a bit of text below that HTML block that should explain the ad customizer page better. That section is really the resulting HTML code for the advertisement that gets created below... Perhaps it is something that I need to move lower down the page since you can't really do step 2 before step 1 sort-of.

I will also do the HTML and CSS validation process again. That's strange that there's a lot of errors again. I was satisfied with the few that I had, but that was weeks ago. Something must be broken slightly - eek!

About the age issue --- perhaps that's what I can start to blame for my run-on sentences and code-like commands here and there.

Thanks again!

 

I never caught this one. It would make a big difference if it lined up perfectly. I'll see what I can do.

I have changed the color for the links to a much more soothing blue. I must have been aggressive the day I set my CSS colors.

I agree - the navigation bar has some trimming scheduled pretty soon. I have enough links to a few of these pages where the links really need to be and they will be removed sometime soon.

I know what you mean - it is slight and it is because I scaled down the font size of that part too much perhaps. I might increase the size a bit to see if it helps.

Thanks for every word and every detail. You know that it helps tremendously - and for that I am obliged. Don't feel like you shredded it apart, I've seen worse - and you didn't say anything that doesn't constructively help, eh.

I have also added a pricing section to the front page with some graphics to draw some focus. I am not 100% behind the idea - and it needs work now too. Any advices for that section?