| Overall: | 9 | 2 |
| Design: | 2 | 0 |
| Navigation: | ||
| Usefulness: | 1 | 1 |
9
2
We provide articles,quick tips, and tools for grooms and groomsmen. The most important aspect of our site allows guys to share their wedding experiences and submit/rate vendors they used. They can share experiences on their proposal,bachelor party,groomsmen,wedding,honeymoon. This real life information is valuable to guys starting down the road to marriage.
Do you understand the concept of the site?
Do you like the design?
Is there a feature/tool that you would like to see added?
Would you use the site or recommend it to a friend?
Other suggestions for improvement?
Thanks
I definitely like your layout. I think that you've got a great set of icons that really flow well together.
I noticed the 'MYDUDE' option, which looks like something that you can log in and track your own wedding. I like the idea, but I hate having another account. Could you make it use my facebook account or something? Or even better - most brides use 'theknot.com' - could you integrate into their services??? That way you don't have to persist your wedding information across multiple services. And, to be honest, theknot.com has a lot of good stuff - even for us guys (but it is tailored to the bride for sure). Integration with them would help in my opinion...but I don't know if they have an SDK...
As far as your articles - I feel you use the word 'Dude' way too much. I know that's your thing - and I like the logo and all...but I really think you're overusing it. I went to the site, thought it was well done, started reading the articles and then had to give up. The writing wasn't bad - but the use of Dude so much makes me feel (for lack of better word) dumb dude. It feels similar to when a person says 'ummmmm' too often.
For the articles - I personally need pictures or tables to keep my interest. You've got some great icons as I said before...but the content itself is all text. I'd recommend going to iStockPhoto and grabbing some generic shots. Shouldn't cost more than $10 for a set - but it would keep (at least my) interest more.
I think that the Vendor Activity stuff is really interesting... I like that you have the metro area and the type associated with it. However, I think it would be better if you used my IP address to get a rough idea of where I am and target the ads to me. You'll get more click throughs that way.
I'd also promote the vendor stuff more. Vendors are a huge part of the wedding process...and lets face it - when you get married you typically spend a lot of money. People like looking through all sorts of vendors - even us dudes (so that we know we're not getting ripped off). Its a textual link on your main page - but I'd probably make it bigger. In fact - I'd make all those textual links bigger (icons).
On your main page, you have a picture gallery in the bottom right. I feel like that is wasted space at the moment.
On the 'Dudenation and more' section, you have 'Articles ... Browse' Two separate links - why not just have it say 'Articles'. I don't particularly care for the '... Browse's you have there for all three links.
Browse on a vendor definitely has to have some sort of geographic search added.
Overall, the site is well done. Main complaints are the multiple 'dudes'. However, I might just not be your target demographic for a groom.
As far as navigation goes, nothing was hard to find. The vibe I get from the site is that the 'MYDUDE' function is going to be a big part of it...so I'd probably make its presence bigger on the top bar (another icon - possibly animation of some sort).
Overall, well put together. Very fast. Very good work.
Wow great feedback Drew, I appreciate it.
Regarding your create an account issue I agree 100% and implementing OpenID is already in our plans for phase 2. I love being able to use an existing twitter,FB,google account on new sites.
Your feedback about using Dude too much and adding more images is in tune with other feedback we have received. We are def going to be editing our articles and looking to add additional photos to spice things up.
We are spending a good amount of time "figuring out" our vendor solution. We also think it is an important feature to our site. Updates will be coming soon regarding vendors.
You also made a good point about the image on the bottom right of our landing page, we wanted to add more images as you mentioned above but we need to continue to tweak it.
I also hear ya on the footer links, we probably need to shorten the amount of links we include.
Thanks again!
1) Yes, I understand the concept
2) I think the design is done well. Colors are chosen wisely. However, when I clicked on each category, such as Bachelor Party or Rehearsal Dinner, I was confused on the layout. Not sure why. You have a really long description as to what each thing is and then beneath is you have the vendor activity and recent experiences sections, at first I thought those were ads and then I thought it was just people chiming in. Something about the layouts is clunky but I can't put my finger on it.
3) Not sure
4) Probably not honestly, I don't think men really get into the whole wedding thing like females do so I'm not sure you'll see a lot of interest.
5) Just curious, how many users do you have? I'm really wondering if this is interesting/useful for "Dudes"
Oh also, I should mention, I don't know how involved I wanted my "dude" to be in our wedding...planning a wedding is crazy and having to hear my husband's strong opinions about certain things can drive a woman even crazier so this might be a turn off for some woman. My husband was involved enough, kinda scary if he's too involved...just sayin'
I understand the concept but it was tainted by reading your intro here on launchly. I think the Main copy could use some work. "Let dude guide you through" - this contains no content. The following text does not actually contain a reference to the main subject. "articles and tips, keep me in line, dude experiences, and vendor reviews ... " - regarding WHAT!? "Real advice from real guys" - regarding what!?
Now I don't have all the answers but I just think that a completely uninitiated user will need to have the main benefit and point clearly stated and found in 5 seconds. "Dude I'm getting married is a social network aimed at helping dudes make sense of everything Wedding" - Yeah this clearly needs work but my point is to explain your entire purpose and benefit in one sentence and then drill down into specific ways you accomplish the main goal.
I think your website's purpose is about social interactions and you should market it as such. You should free up all of your content and then encourage sign ups only as a means to interact with the site. Right now your main action is "join dudenation". I think your main action should be more content oriented such as viewing user profiles or funniest stories or whatever, get the user engaged gradually first.
I think the design is very nice. Everything is polished and even though there is a lot of content it is organized.
As for features, in going with what I said above, I think you need to be a user oriented site. So your user profiles should be a lot more robust. Even if users merely want to consume content, it is still quite important to attach a face to the creator of said content.
I would mention it to a friend if they were getting married but my first impression is that it takes too much effort to judge the quality of the site "at face value". That is to say nothing is making me want to sign up to have a peek inside. I do like how there are categories but me being a guy, I have no idea what a wedding consists of so a nice directed introduction or primer or checklist would encourage engagement I think.
That's it for now, feel free to follow up - HTH
Well my first impressions of your landing page are very favorable. I really like the color scheme you've used and the layout is very appealing. Nice job.
I'm a bit concerned about whether you're possibly overdoing the "dudes" in the text of the site. I get the concept and it's moderately humorous but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
I don't like how the blog link looks like a tab but is not.
You seem to have a favicon for the blog but not for the main site.
I like the location of the search box but the drop down for what you are searching for has only one option (articles) and thus does not actually... drop down.
Other than that I can see this being potentially useful for some groom-to-bes but honestly I didn't have any need for a site like this when I got married. Maybe I just got lucky!
The only other thing I can say is that wedding sites are a dime a dozen and will be very competitive as far as SEO. I'm not sure how you plan to get around that but good luck!
Thanks for the great feedback Brian. You have a good point about overusing "dude", I'll review this tonight.
I hear you on the blog, with our header we had a really hard time finding a good spot for the blog. We want it to be at the top.
Good find on the search box, we didn't notice that it stopped working after our last push. We have a fix and will push it out tonight.
I agree there are plenty of guys whose wives will take over the entire wedding process but we are hoping our social aspect will give those guys ideas for proposing,where to go for your bachelor party or honeymoon.
The wedding industry does have serious SEO competition but the grooms side does not appear to be anywhere close to the bride's competition. It will be a work in progress.
Thanks again.