1. Advertising
    y u no do it?

    Advertising (learn more)

    Advertise virtually anything here, with CPM banner ads, CPM email ads and CPC contextual links. You can target relevant areas of the site and show ads based on geographical location of the user if you wish.

    Starts at just $1 per CPM or $0.10 per CPC.

FunFactz.com Design Update - Need Feedback

Discussion in 'Design' started by Galaxian, Jan 23, 2015.

  1. #1
    I've just updated Fun Factz to include pictures with the facts on the non-article pages. I'm interested in your feedback about the overall layout of the website now.

    What do you think? Any suggestions?
     
    Galaxian, Jan 23, 2015 IP
  2. suraj kumavat

    suraj kumavat Active Member

    Messages:
    99
    Likes Received:
    9
    Best Answers:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    78
    #2
    https://www.facebook.com/FunFactz

    is this your page?

    Use automated tool so whatever you update on website goes to page.
     
    suraj kumavat, Jan 24, 2015 IP
  3. Galaxian

    Galaxian Active Member

    Messages:
    246
    Likes Received:
    4
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    80
    #3
    Yes, it is.
    I don't want to use an automated tool. I used to automate the posting of content to the page years ago, but that's not quality.
    The best social marketing strategy for this kind of page, I've found, is by posting quality, custom, viral images that people like to share - what you see on there now, plus the odd link to a blog post. The viral image strategy is working very well, you can see how the viral images compare to the links by the sheer difference in likes and shares.
    Also, I appreciate your feedback regarding that, but I'd appreciate more feedback on the website design as originally intended.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2015
    Galaxian, Jan 24, 2015 IP
  4. suraj kumavat

    suraj kumavat Active Member

    Messages:
    99
    Likes Received:
    9
    Best Answers:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    78
    #4
    Over all Design is Good.
     
    suraj kumavat, Jan 24, 2015 IP
    Galaxian likes this.
  5. Galaxian

    Galaxian Active Member

    Messages:
    246
    Likes Received:
    4
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    80
    #5
    Galaxian, Jan 28, 2015 IP
  6. Galaxian

    Galaxian Active Member

    Messages:
    246
    Likes Received:
    4
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    80
    #6
    Could I get any more feedback on this? :)
     
    Galaxian, Feb 26, 2015 IP
  7. MyPcGadget.com

    MyPcGadget.com Active Member

    Messages:
    35
    Likes Received:
    2
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    93
    #7
    Hi, I like your site.
    BUT, for me it is a little dark, brighten it up a little...


    cheers....
     
    MyPcGadget.com, Feb 26, 2015 IP
  8. Galaxian

    Galaxian Active Member

    Messages:
    246
    Likes Received:
    4
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    80
    #8
    Thanks, I've taken that on board.

    Unfortunately, brightening it up would mean significant design changes, seeing as it's really tailored for the dark look now.
     
    Galaxian, Feb 26, 2015 IP
  9. deathshadow

    deathshadow Acclaimed Member

    Messages:
    9,732
    Likes Received:
    1,998
    Best Answers:
    253
    Trophy Points:
    515
    #9
    Illegible colour contrasts, illegible absurdly undersized fixed metric fonts, broken attempt at responsive layout with the stupid malfing garbage scriptard "hide the menu" BS that's not even usable on a mobile screen (much less the uselessly vague icon), design concepts that really have no place in a modern layout (fixed equal size elements) -- it's got a lot of problems before I even do a real check of the page... which is when we find the gibberish use of numbered headings (h2 preceding the h1?), lack of headings on items that likely should have them, improper menu markup resulting in the menus being treated as run-on sentences, endless pointless div for nothing, made up fairy-tale tags that don't even EXIST like "MAIN", DIV doing paragraphs job, inline-level tags wrapping block level (even if HTML 5 bullshit tries to say it's ok, it isn't and is NOT reliable), DIV doing paragraph's job, DIV doing H2's job, idiotic inlining of images as encoded embeds in the markup (where they aren't cached and waste bandwidth being sent over and over and over again in the code)...

    Just another laundry list of how not to build a website, from both a design and a code perspective.
     
    deathshadow, Mar 2, 2015 IP
  10. Galaxian

    Galaxian Active Member

    Messages:
    246
    Likes Received:
    4
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    80
    #10
    I'm going to ignore most of your counter-productive drivel. Perhaps be less rude next time.

    Btw, many of the things that you're pointing out are the responsibility of Google PageSpeed Service. However, I disagree with most, if not all of what you said.

    By the way, I checked out your sites in your signature. Do you even have any authority judging by that trash?
     
    Galaxian, Mar 2, 2015 IP
  11. deathshadow

    deathshadow Acclaimed Member

    Messages:
    9,732
    Likes Received:
    1,998
    Best Answers:
    253
    Trophy Points:
    515
    #11
    Pointing out that your colour contrasts are illegible to much of the population (supported by things like the WCAG, you have at least HEARD of the web content accessibility guidelines, right?), that your fonts don't scale and that using images for text is an inaccessible mess even using the (somewhat broken) image replacement technique you have there is "counter-productive drivel"? Wow, have fun with that.

    Take your menu, #AAAAAA on top of #262626 is 130/255, barely the 50% minimum but thanks to the thin font and font smoothing tech on anything other than Apple rendering you are looking at needing more like 75% to have it legible without eyestrain. Hence some of the bars rendering at as little as 120 luma -- aka 80/255 and far short of the 50% minumum suggested by things like the WCAG, EGA/VGA specifications, Apple, IBM and M$ joint interface guidelines...

    Your fonts do not scale, they're declared in pixels and as such many users (like myself) are sent diving for the zoom. As the WCAG says, use % or EM for font sizes, and if you were designing like a good little doobie that would mean that your widths and media queries would ALSO be declared in EM's.

    Of course, blaming pageSpeed for things that make your site slower and consume more bandwidth seems a bit... off. 60k of markup to deliver 4.3k of plaintext and 9 media elements is somewhere around four times the code that should have been used; 350k of the 700k of bloat being JS alone on a page that shouldn't even need scripting? Trash. (unless that scripting isn't functioning here, which is possible too, I'm just not seeing it.)

    Though ever Google started offering PageSpeed as a "service" it's gone from a cute analysis tool to a total scam designed to try and trick you into using one of their CDN's. You basically seem to be using 700k or more in 28 files to do the job of ~400k or less in roughly a dozen files. Not ONE bit of their advice seems to have a blasted thing to do with making websites faster, and pisses all over accessibility from orbit.

    The HTML also makes NO sense -- you've got sections, why aren't they starting with headings and instead using <div class="fact_caption"><div class="fact_caption2"> (double wrapper for nothing too.... Does it make ANY sense for a H2 to preceed the H1 since the H1 is the heading under which the entire page is a subsection, and a H2 indicates a start of a subsection of the H1?

    Have you even noticed that the links in your footer for upvote/downvote or reference don't even work thanks to that outer wrapping anchor? (and yes, anchors inside anchors are invalid, EVEN in the disaster of redundancies and pointlessness known as HTML 5!)

    Accessible colour contrasts, semi-fluid elastic responsive layout that gracefully degrades; sure it's no prize on the graphical front -- but people do not visit websites for goofy layout tricks, gee ain't it neat scripttardery or the images the PSD jockey hangs on a layout, they visit for the CONTENT.

    ... and honestly you've got some good content there, it's just getting at it / using it that's a PITA.

    There's a reason major successful sites like Google, Amazon, E-Bay, FaceBook or Twitter aren't a visual tour-de-force even when they are bloated down with scripttardery. They emphasize the content first leaving text as text... Just look at Craigslist -- the paragon of doing everything so right, it makes most "designers" cringe in horror at the mere THOUGHT of building a site that way.

    Learn some HTML and CSS (because to be frank, that's not it), and take the time to learn about accessibility in terms of fonts and colours.

    ... and sorry if you find my comments rude or harsh, it's called the truth. The harsh light of reality can often seem that way. You don't want to hear that your fonts are illegible, your colours lack sufficient contrasts, that your attempt at being responsive is broken, or that you have no graceful degradation and gibberish markup? Well, that's your problem then; if nobody has pointed this out to you before the blame lies with them. Accessibility isn't rocket science -- don't replace areas of content text with images, (image replacement should be used with an eyedropper, not a high pressure spraygun), run your colours through the luminance conversion formula, use %/EM for font sizes as much as possible, and base any element widths in EM's not pixels. Use semantic markup with logical document order via using headings and rules (as in horizontal rule) properly, with paragraphs for your actual content paragraphs.

    Sorry to say, you don't have that.
     
    deathshadow, Mar 2, 2015 IP
    malky66 likes this.
  12. deathshadow

    deathshadow Acclaimed Member

    Messages:
    9,732
    Likes Received:
    1,998
    Best Answers:
    253
    Trophy Points:
    515
    #12
    OH BTW, LOVED the mature comment left through the contact form on my site. Yes, I know that was you. Nothing like bitching about meaningful formatting in the code as "unnecessary white-pace" when it has a CtC ratio under 2:1 -- what's the CtC ratio on your home page again? 12:1 or more? Let's see.... 50k of markup for 4k of plaintext and nine content objects? (8 images + 1 video)... <noah>RIGHT</noah>...

    Whitespace stripping / minificiation is just sweeping crappy coding practices under the rug, anyone telling you otherwise is so full of it, they're the tail end of the human centipede.

    BTW, you really might want to fix "I can haz intarnets" code like this:
    <body><noscript><meta HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" content="0;url='http://www.funfactz.com/?PageSpeed=noscript'" /><style><!--table,div,span,font,p{display:none} --></style>
    Code (markup):
    Since both STYLE and META are invalid inside BODY and HTML comments are ignored inside STYLE... You REALLY want to turn this into a pissing contest, we can go.
     
    deathshadow, Mar 4, 2015 IP
  13. Galaxian

    Galaxian Active Member

    Messages:
    246
    Likes Received:
    4
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    80
    #13
    I have no idea what you're talking about.

    By the way, in your last post, you are aware that is Google PageSpeed Service's automatically-inserted code? If you're so concerned with what is IMO a fantastic solution, then take it up with Google. However, the evident performance gains will not lead me to remove it. Move on.

    Please can you stop posting on this thread as I want more productive (not to mention politer) feedback.
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2015
    Galaxian, Mar 7, 2015 IP
  14. Hostwinds_Tech

    Hostwinds_Tech Greenhorn

    Messages:
    13
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    23
    #14
    I'm in agreement that it's a little dark. Perhaps layer in some lighter color in the background? It has a very masculine feel to it, and you definitely don't want to exclude the female viral photo/story addicts. :) The content all looks interesting and it's well organized! Best of luck with your site!
     
    Hostwinds_Tech, Mar 12, 2015 IP
  15. robby1995

    robby1995 Member

    Messages:
    80
    Likes Received:
    4
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    43
    #15
    The design looks good. Its responsive, the colors match nicely and it looks and feels modern.

    Also i like the extra effort you put into the facebook posts it makes a difference.
    Your gplus page look popular enough (3.5 mil views is good for a g plus page).
    I think you should focus on getting some extra twitter followers by following more people. If your twitter account had 200k followers it would draw a lot of traffic to the site and its not very hard to get when you follow 1k a day and say 200 follow back each day (just a recommendation).
     
    robby1995, Mar 12, 2015 IP
  16. Galaxian

    Galaxian Active Member

    Messages:
    246
    Likes Received:
    4
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    80
    #16
    Thank you.

    I know what you mean regarding the contrast and I've taken steps to lighten up certain parts. It's still a dark design, but at least the contrast has been alleviated *slightly*. I'm working on it all the time and I'll continue to improve it in that respect. Even today, I just updated the header.

    In the future, I may learn towards a white background, black text design. However, seeing as I've updated this design quite a bit lately, I'll keep it this way for a while.

    Thanks for being so observant. I do prioritise the social media side of this project. I notice there are many pages that post facts that are false, so I try to make sure that I post quality, but entertaining/interesting information on my own.

    I haven't really bothered with Twitter much. The current account drags new content automatically. Do you have any advice for harnessing Twitter better than I currently am? Follow people you say? 1k a day?
     
    Galaxian, Mar 13, 2015 IP
  17. robby1995

    robby1995 Member

    Messages:
    80
    Likes Received:
    4
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    43
    #17
    Twitter has great potential. look at accounts like https://twitter.com/UberFacts https://twitter.com/WhatTheFFacts https://twitter.com/OMGFacts https://twitter.com/Fact and https://twitter.com/neverknownfacts they start out by following users and receiving follow backs then unfollow the users who don't follow them back. (obviously now they have unfollowed everyone to make their accounts look more modest). e.g. of a facts twitter account with 17k followers from doing it https://twitter.com/them_facts_tho

    You can use a service such as tweetadder and simply follow the users who follow those facts twitter accounts to get a high followback rate and trageted audience. I recommend you first start following around 100 a day until your account grows enough to the point were you can follow the max of 1k a day. It will only take upto an extra 5 mins of your day if you use something like tweetadder or manageflitter (tweetadder is a 1 time fee and the cheapest) and makes a difference on your traffic.
     
    robby1995, Mar 13, 2015 IP