| Overall: | 11 | 16 |
| Design: | 2 | 10 |
| Navigation: | ||
| Usefulness: | 1 | 10 |
11
16
Your Photos - Simple Digital Photo Sharing, Online Photo Albums, Digital Photo Printing and Storage. Create online photo albums, photo gifts, develop digital photos into prints, create personalized photo books and photo gifts to share with friends and family.
Is the look of the site appealing?
Do you like the layout of the site?
Is the navigation of the site easy to use?
What features should I add/delete to the site.
Is the photo sharing feature of the site easy to understand and use?
Going to the site...I kind of get the vibe that it is a landing page...like when godaddy parks a domain or something. I don't really have that vibe that I 'trust' this site.
I'm not too big of a fan of the layout. The left panel has a lot of white space...and I feel like it could be used better. I do like that the pictures change each time I go to the page though.
If I'm not logged in and I click on a bar at the top, it redirects me to a page that I didn't actually click on (ex. click on 'Explore' when not logged in). The links should not be available if I am not able to click them.
Not to sound too critical...but what are the compelling features of this over facebook or myspace? They are socially integrated services that allow me to upload an unlimited number of photos for free. I need a compelling feature for me to even sign up for your free service...much less the pro one that requires you to pay for something that facebook gives me for free....
I agree with what the previous commentators have said. The design is very poor and does look alot like a the landing page for a parked domain.
There is lots to critique here but I think the others have done a pretty good job thus far. The most pertinent observation I would have would be that this is not a viable business. There are so many sites in this space that do everything this site does and more 10x better and all for free. I see no meaningful unique angle that would be compelling for consumers.
This kind of a project could be a great way to learn about web dev, designs, online marketing, community building etc. but I would not spend another moment on this project if it is costing you alot of money or you are counting on this to provide you with income.
I realize that may sound harsh but I think its the best advice you are going to get. Regardless of weather or not you do continue to pursue this I would recommend becoming more familiar with the lean start-up methodology. You can read more about here:
http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/lean-startup.html
Updated Review:
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The landing page is pretty weak (as others have mentioned). It true that it looks like a parking page. Also the link on the main page to Pro Account should go to a comparison & pricing page. Also you should let people explore photos without signing up.
I like the idea of sharing photos online, but what's different from your site and flickr or photobucket? It's not clear to me why I would use yours instead of the most popular ones out there.
I don't know if you're still on Beta, but I'm going to be brutally honest with you here. Your design leaves me thinking that your site is 1) on beta or 2) very unorganized and not well thought out.
You have navigation options that are not available until you are signed in, don't offer what is not available until it becomes available. Your "upload" page seems too clutter and the font is not consistent on the site.
What is the gift tab? It's making me choose my profile pic...I'm totally confused why this is a gift instead of like "edit profile pic" tab. Oh, I see...you have free gifts and need to add a pic to the item selected. Are they really free? Are you trying to provide a way for the pics the user uploads to be available to print on gifts? That's kind of a neat idea, but it's NOT obvious if that's what you're trying to do.
You really need to spend sometime working on the design, organization, color palette, and your most important features - then tell us what they are.
Why would I choose this over photobucket or flickr with established credibility? What is your unique selling proposition? Should definitely at least offer front page upload without requiring registration? Maybe offer some type of 'image editing' online which would eliminate need for any type of photo editing software to be installed.
I like the idea, the site has a good way of concept realisation. Though I do not like the design nor the way the images are presented. It is way too basic, as I read your code, it has a lot of potential- mainly based on your way of using Google JavaScript API.
This site should focus on presentation and maybe address why an user should register for premium. I think the 200 photo ul is quite high in order to motivate me to pay for the content.
First impressions: Bah. What's your niche? I already upload photos to flickr, twitpic, and natuba for different reasons.
The site mentions photo sharing, but you don't offer any way to see shared photos. Maybe I need to log in, but why would I want to force that on my friends?
I can tell you've done a lot of work. I'm sure you have learned a lot! Parlay this experience into something spectacular!
Some SEO things to fix:
* missing robots.txt
* missing sitemap.xml files
* title-text should have the page description first, "Your Photos" last.
* terms and conditions has no title-tag
* privacy has no title-tag
Note: Your site map shows your explore area as open to the public. In reality, it is locked behind registration.
Good luck!
The site's home page ain't very visually appealing and many users may leave the site even without knowing what's it all about. You can definitely visually improve the main navigation bar of the site. You included a list of features in a table in the pricing page. It just makes it look more appealing and professional. You can use some icons to visually improve the quality of the content headers too :)
The points which describe the site:
"Share Your Photos Privately.
Store Your Photos Safely.
Create Unique Photo Gifts Simply"
should definitely be more visually appealing and bigger than the rest of the text. Its the only thing which would convey your site's message to the users when they first see the site. If that is what they want, they will give more time to your site. But if its not even catching their eyes, they won't waste any time on the site
The landing page needs some work. When I got there I was unsure why I would want to use your service. It was fairly obvious what you were offering in general but what specifically sets you apart. You need to tell me that in an obvious way in < 10 seconds or I would normally move on. Perhaps a tagline of some kind would help. You may also want to expand upon the three bullet points you have on this page (Share Your Photos Privately, Store Your Photos Safely, Create Unique Photo Gifts Simply).
Also, your tabs do not seem to look right to me on FF 3.5 on OSX. See how the black border on the right side of the Home tab seems to bleed down too far in the first attached screenshot?
The footer also doesn't look right although this may be intentional. Check out the second screenshot.
Perhaps the worst part about it is that apparently without signing up the index page is really about all I get to see. I can't see a demo or a feature tour or anything. You also do not seem to have an "about" page which I would also typically look for on a site I'm unfamiliar with. Might want to think about adding one.
You are not specific enough in what your plans include. You say the standard plan allows you to "upload 200 photos." Is that per month like Flickr or is that the total number of photos I can store on your service at any one time? It's not clear at all.
In reality, honestly, there is no way I would have signed up but I did anyways to provide better feedback. The sign up process was annoying because it didn't immediately log me in and instead I had to confirm my email address. Why? Why do you even need my email address to be correct? My guess is you really do not NEED it so why are you making me confirm it? That's soo last year! :-) Most newer sites (try Twitter for example) will ask for an email, sign you in right away, and then possibly send a confirmation email just to verify your email address but your account still fully works w/out every verifying it (they just won't email you stuff).
The confirmation email I received was completely unpersonalized and boring. You could at least address me by name. Add a bit of personality here so it doesn't sound so "form-letter". Check out Vimeo.com's registration/welcome letters for examples.
Ugh... ok, I finally confirmed my email and even at that point you didn't sign me in automatically! Ahhh hehe. Sorry, stuff like that just bugs me to no end. So now I STILL have to sign in after jumping through all those hoops.
Finally in... The navigation was fairly straight-forward but I did find some of the options placed oddly. For example Contacts and Profile are under "Your Photos". That seems a bit strange to me.
Creating an album was easy so that was nice. I actually found uploading images a bit confusing. I kept trying to find where to go in an album to upload images to that album. It took me awhile to figure out that I had to go to the separate upload tab and pick the album over there to upload photos. It would be nice if I could do that while looking at an album. It was also odd to me that you used what look like links for the file browse button and the upload button. I liked the multiple upload and the progress bar though.
The other thing I wonder is "Why?". Why do we need another photo sharing site? What is it about yours that sets you apart from Flickr, Picasso, or even Photobucket? The gift idea is neat and I guess I'm not sure if the others have that or not but I'm not sure if that will be enough.
You have a killer domain name here so congrats on that! Good luck with the site and don't forget to relaunch after you make your changes!
Screenshots