| Overall: | 12 | 7 |
| Design: | 4 | 2 |
| Navigation: | ||
| Usefulness: | 2 | 4 |
12
7
Everyone has at least one thing they hate. Something that annoys them, offends them, incites anger or gets on their last nerve. It could be the traffic, the kids, the job, the weather, politics, the state of the world. Mostly, we just go about our daily routine, carrying with us the burden of the things that eat at us and drain us of our energies.
Sometimes, you’ve just gotta vent.
This is the idea behind VentNation, a site for anyone who just wants to Vent Out Loud! Users can post whatever 's on their mind whether it affects only them, their community or the world. Their vents will be voted on by other users who share their pain, and their vent can get bumped up in the process. Furthermore, users can also submit articles from other blogs or websites for other users to comment on.
VentNation is a way to let off some steam without having a restraining order taken out against you.
-Would like to get feedback on user experience.
-Was the site easy to understand.
-style of the site.
-Concept of the site.
-What can be done different.
What was the best and worst feature on the site.
I really like the colors and layout of the site. The navigation is simple and intuitive. One of the first problems I noticed was that the "Ventnation" header image wasn't clickable to return home. It should be.
I immediately grasped the concept of the site although I'll mention the same thing that I did on YouSTFU (another site recently launched here that is similar in concept to this)... Why would someone go to your site specifically when there are so many other venues for complaining already? I personally would post my rant on either Twitter or FB.
I love the name you chose for the site and the logo work is excellent.
You've implemented an interesting take on a rating system. I personally like it but I would caution you about going against the norm (stars) for a rating widget because some people may not get how it works. Especially if it's already rated at Wow! for example it may not be obvious that they can use that to rate the vent still. Also in the rating widget the lowest rating says "Just wasted 5 sec of my life reading this" but this vent in particular is a video which was longer than 5 seconds and did not require reading. It's minor but you may want to tailor what it says based on the type of vent.
The category navigation did not highlight what section I was in which is strange because the way you have it setup it looks like a tabbed interface. See the screenshot below to see what I mean. Also the main navigation just above that does not highlight based on section either. Home is always highlighted no matter where you are.
The community mood widget looks neat but I fail to see its usefulness.
When I went to post a test vent I was a bit surprised that the category selection, which looks like a select list, wasn't a select list at all! It appears to require javascript and I'm not sure it's worth barring people w/JS turned off for that effect. Consider making it an actual form select list instead.
After trying to submit my anonymous vent, I got a rails-esque error page. Check out the second screenshot.
Last comment is on business model. Apparently you plan on relying on advertising. Do you have any other revenue streams because as you probably know, it's tough to make money on advertising. It will be even harder given the overall lack of meaningful contextual data for AdWords to serve truly relevant ads.
Thank you Brian for you Valuable input for the site. We are actually implementing some of the points you brought up.
As for why would anyone want to come on Vnation to vent, opposed to fb or twitter. I believe fb is great at alloying you to stay connected with friend you wouldn't normally stay in contact with, and twitter is great at communicating real time. I don't think people want to hear other people whine and complain one those services. Where here your on the site for that very reason. You can vent on the bad day you have or you can put in your 2 cents on what you just saw on the news. Also there is a search feature on the site were you can find out what people or upset about weather it be products or services.
The community mood widget, we are still tweaking that function its gonna be a little bit different, once its done you should be able to see the usefulness, I hope..lol
As of business model we are starting off as ad based, but we are tossing a few ideas around for other streams of revenue.
-Alex
First off, I love this idea. I have a lot of venting to do at times. My husband even said to me once "You should create a blog to put all this rage in" but I never did, so this is a great fit for me! One concern I have is that you have to be sure to keep this site somewhat civil, such as filter threats, personal attacks, or online bullying. This is the only reason why I wouldn't support or use this site. I wouldn't want to use a site that leads to online violence. I just want a place to vent and have my voice heard without ending in some sort of violent circle.
Now, about the site...at first glance I thought it was difficult to separate the ads from the site. I don't know if it's the colors or what, but it just seemed difficult to separate. The navigation is odd...when I click on something it takes me there but the nav isn't highlighted so I don't know if it really took me there.
I tried to rate a vent and it told me to login, but I didn't see the link to signup. I found it in the footer as "signup" and then in the header as "Register"...you should try to stick to one terminology. The confirmation email didn't take me to a login account, I had to login, seems kind of unnecessary.
First I would like to thank you for your input, its has been very useful. We are in fact making some of the changes you pointed out, I have been so consumed with this site i didn't even notice the two terminology sign up/ register, lol.
As for the violence, and abuse we are working on filtering that, also we do have an report abuse tab under each post on the separate vent pages.
-Alex
Best part of this site is that I knew what to do when I first got there. I hate spending a long time trying to figure out what a site is about. You hooked me in quickly.
After I vented for the first time, I was shown a log-in screen. The registration screen was too small.
I'm not sure why you need my birthday to let me vent. Can you shorten your registration page by eliminating it?
One last note on registration, can you let me use Facebook or Twitter to register? You can still ask me for my email address if you want to reach me directly.
Finally, is there a way to let me vent via video and photos without leaving the site? Can I add my video and photos on your site?
Initial Thoughts: You have a nice looking site. Easy navigation. Understood your concept immediately. I like your slider-bar for voting. What's the difference in a comments and advice?
Videos: Why do I need to click on a video three times to get it to play? First I'm on the home page and see a video I want. (Click one). This sends me to the "vent" page but it is not playing... Ok (click two). This opens up a "lightbox" style window with the player, but once again still not playing. (click three) starts the video.
More Video: I hate the way the video player acts like a pop out player, jumps to the middle of the pages, but is not movable. I like to multi-task while watching questionable videos and the way you move the player means I have to move my browser after the video start. None of the large video sites (you-tube) do this.
404: Change your 404 error page. It's still the rails default. At a minimum, you need your normal site header and footer. It needs to have links back to your site.
Site maps: I was unable to find a sitemap for your site. You should create one. If you have, then either put a link to it in your robots.txt file or use a standard name so all the search engines can find it.
Service Links: Your service links take up too much real estate. The number and size highlights to me there is not much meat (content) on a page.
Styles: Your logo is good. Overall styling of the site is good. There is a bit too much red on the page in my mind, especially in the footer.
Right Side Bar: Too static. It the exact same on every page. Once I've seen it, I have no reason to look at it again, but I can't get away from it.
SEO: Get your site name in your title bar. Place it as the last item.
Good luck!
Thank you for your feedback. It has been very helpful, we are still tweaking the site and we will be implementing some of your suggestion.
The difference between comments and advice is we wanted to have a place were people can share past experiences or maybe even personal ones with someone on a one on one Ala advice, advice are private so the sender and the receiver can view them kinda like an in box. Comments are public.
-Alex