Site feels like it's 95% complete.. Feedback?

16-05-2014 3:48pm #1

Hey all, in the middle of a creative spurt and put a lot of hours in in the last few weeks.. Started about 6 months ago with a google search "how to make a website" and went with drupal.

http://eslplan.com

Any ideas?

Squeeonline · 16-05-2014 4:50pm

Looks good.

Are you sure you're not breaking any copyright laws by posting scans online?

Maybe have the page numbers at the top of the documents too. Little annoying to scroll all the way every time.

16-05-2014 5:34pm

Squeeonline wrote: »

Looks good.

Are you sure you're not breaking any copyright laws by posting scans online?

Maybe have the page numbers at the top of the documents too. Little annoying to scroll all the way every time.

I've been in contact with a lot of the publishers and it looks promising as you can't get the full book and there are amazon links for each page.. Also, that content is meant to be a building block to gain an audience but a site made solely from user submissions would be great in the future if copyright didn't work out.

I'll look into the pager at the top.. But ideally, the search result will be different every time so they will have to scroll down. How bad was the load time in Ireland?

tricky D · 16-05-2014 6:26pm

I've no idea what's this is about, who it's aimed at, who's behind it, how it works... you get the gist of what I reckon you need to address.

Register form needs work to simplify it, cut down on the need for so much explanation and provide the input validation catered for by html5 or other validation if and where html5 doesn't do the trick.

17-05-2014 3:37am

tricky D wrote: »

I've no idea what's this is about, who it's aimed at, who's behind it, how it works... you get the gist of what I reckon you need to address.

Register form needs work to simplify it, cut down on the need for so much explanation and provide the input validation catered for by html5 or other validation if and where html5 doesn't do the trick.

Good point, will cut down the registration form later.. But what do you mean by html5 validation?

The site is resources for teachers.

tricky D · 17-05-2014 1:42pm

html5 provides for an input type email which will only accept valid email addresses in browsers that support the method.

eg.

<label>Email address</label><input type="email" name="email1" />

However older versions of some browsers, IE in particular might not support this and other input type methods so you'd need to use a javascript fallback to cater for that. Webforms2.js does this. So you'd need to grab a copy to put on your own server from somewhere like https://raw.githubusercontent.com/westonruter/webforms2/master/webforms2.js. Other versions: https://github.com/westonruter/webforms2

Iirc html5Forms.js also does this.

There's a load of other nifty stuff html5 does in relation to many other input types including:

color
date
datetime
datetime-local
email
month
number
range
search
tel
time
url
week

17-05-2014 3:16pm

So you just filled next week with stuff for me to read.. Thanks.

rusnakova · 19-05-2014 9:01pm

Yes, it definitely needs some more content, especially on the home page to explain what it's all about. I would also add some contact information - but that might be the 5% you're going to add...

Blackjack · 19-05-2014 9:04pm

tricky D wrote: »

I've no idea what's this is about, who it's aimed at, who's behind it, how it works... you get the gist of what I reckon you need to address.

Register form needs work to simplify it, cut down on the need for so much explanation and provide the input validation catered for by html5 or other validation if and where html5 doesn't do the trick.

Agree with the above. I can figure out what its about, but a "what this page is and how to use it" would not go amiss.

20-05-2014 3:41am

rusnakova wrote: »

Yes, it definitely needs some more content, especially on the home page to explain what it's all about. I would also add some contact information - but that might be the 5% you're going to add...

Blackjack wrote: »

Agree with the above. I can figure out what its about, but a "what this page is and how to use it" would not go amiss.

I guess it makes sense for esl teachers... Like what do I want to teach today? Teens+Speaking+Present Perfect.

I added some instructions but I was hoping to leave the page as basic as possible.

Banta · 28-05-2014 1:10pm

I like the site - so please take that on board

You've posted looking for some feedback, so I thought I'd add a couple of design related thoughts of my own.

As the site is for searching for resources, for me, I wouldn't start listing them on the home page. Just go with the search fields, in the same place that they're at. It's what the site is for, so no need to begin to clutter the home page with other content. It's for searching, so just show users that. (You can have a "View All" button that will start listing all the resources next to the search if users aren't sure what they're searching for or just want to see what's available).
Having just the search fields will also help with page loading.
If you like, you could also write up a little "what the site's for" spiel that others have mentioned and put this on the home page perhaps?

The site appears to be responsive, however, the images of the resources are not responsive. Viewing on a mobile, for example still has the images at full size, displayed in two columns - so users have to scroll across to view the images. The site's 'container' however resizes to the size of the screen it's being viewed on, so basically the images start appearing 'outside' the website. Removing the inline height and width of the images, and making some amendments to the stylesheets can sort this out quick enough so that results are also viewable on smaller screens and mobile devices.

I would also take off the automatic filtering on the search fields and add a "Search" or "Filter Results" button, or something along those lines. It's not a nice experience to have to wait for each click to load and filter the results.
I understand that you need may need to filter some of the search fields based on something that's been selected, but this can be done without refreshing the results themselves.
For example, if I want to search for:

Age and Use: Teens
Skill: Writing - All
Resource Type: Grammar Book

I have to click and wait for the results to filter after selecting each one. Where as if I know that's exactly what I'm looking for (as perhaps I've been on the site before), it's not a nice experience to have to wait for things to refresh after each click.
Having the searching / filtering done on a button response will also save on bandwidth and site speed as well.

Well, there's my thoughts on things, based on my experience using it. I like how it's done. It's clean, looks well, easy to understand (having landed on the site knowing what it's about), and I think it'll be a great resource for teachers.

Hope it all goes well for you!

Mrs OBumble · 28-05-2014 4:19pm

Deleted User wrote: »

The site is resources for teachers.

Ya .. but Google isn't going to know that unless you say so on your "About" page at a minimum.

And neither will some teachers who just see search fields but don't understand why they would want to search there.

Their questions will include the cultural base that the resources come from: what is a good resource in the USA might have some cultural assumptions that don't work so well in Ireland, etc.

06-06-2014 11:00am

Banta wrote: »

I like the site - so please take that on board

You've posted looking for some feedback, so I thought I'd add a couple of design related thoughts of my own.

As the site is for searching for resources, for me, I wouldn't start listing them on the home page. Just go with the search fields, in the same place that they're at. It's what the site is for, so no need to begin to clutter the home page with other content. It's for searching, so just show users that. (You can have a "View All" button that will start listing all the resources next to the search if users aren't sure what they're searching for or just want to see what's available).
Having just the search fields will also help with page loading.
If you like, you could also write up a little "what the site's for" spiel that others have mentioned and put this on the home page perhaps?

The site appears to be responsive, however, the images of the resources are not responsive. Viewing on a mobile, for example still has the images at full size, displayed in two columns - so users have to scroll across to view the images. The site's 'container' however resizes to the size of the screen it's being viewed on, so basically the images start appearing 'outside' the website. Removing the inline height and width of the images, and making some amendments to the stylesheets can sort this out quick enough so that results are also viewable on smaller screens and mobile devices.

I would also take off the automatic filtering on the search fields and add a "Search" or "Filter Results" button, or something along those lines. It's not a nice experience to have to wait for each click to load and filter the results.
I understand that you need may need to filter some of the search fields based on something that's been selected, but this can be done without refreshing the results themselves.
For example, if I want to search for:

Age and Use: Teens
Skill: Writing - All
Resource Type: Grammar Book

I have to click and wait for the results to filter after selecting each one. Where as if I know that's exactly what I'm looking for (as perhaps I've been on the site before), it's not a nice experience to have to wait for things to refresh after each click.
Having the searching / filtering done on a button response will also save on bandwidth and site speed as well.

Well, there's my thoughts on things, based on my experience using it. I like how it's done. It's clean, looks well, easy to understand (having landed on the site knowing what it's about), and I think it'll be a great resource for teachers.

Hope it all goes well for you!

Hey, thanks for this! I'm just very busy with relatives so haven't had a chance to work on it.

PartnerSeeds · 22-06-2014 1:23pm

Site looks good, really like the drop shadow against the white background

It might be better to use thumbnails, say divide the page into two columns. Have the thumbnails on the left and then on hover show the full image on the right. Scrolling through them all is a bit annoying.

Overall looks good, well done!

housamz · 07-07-2014 12:05pm

You need to put some random pages below the form when landing to the website, I mean before the visitor uses the search form.

Because the homepage looks like if there is some part missing until you use the search form.

Overheal · 13-07-2014 8:04am

You need an About Page, and some summary of what is going on, on the homepage

oneofakind32 · 05-08-2014 5:10pm

Header.
Looks good. You should try using font awesome vector based icons for the social link. The are vector based so they will look good on retina displays. I would space them out a little more also.

Nav
You have 2 different drop down styles going on here. You only need one. I would go with dark grey one, it looks a little cleaner.

Dropdown menu boxes need to be aligned and centred on the page. They should all be the same width.

You have this big image in the middle of the page which you should mark up so that the text and images can be aligned made responsive. Aslo, when you use an image like this and google crawls the site it misses out on the text in there, this is a lost opportunity for an SEO boost.

Footer
You're languages should be indented and aligned with the heading above. You should also consider adding a copyright string at the bottom. It makes it look a bit more legit and its good for you SEO.

Site feels like it's 95% complete.. Feedback?

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