Feedback for my maths e-learning website please

TheMathsTutor

I created a website using Weebly, as I don't have time right now to master Drupal or WordPress.

www.themathstutor.ie

Feedback would be much appreciated, if anyone would like to have a look, thank you.

mathepac

You already have testimonials from satisfied customers? Well done that is truly amazing, I am utterly astonished, but somewhat shamefacedly skeptical; after all it's the interweb and it must be true, musn't it?

Am I wrong or are you already touting for registrations from testers?

TheMathsTutor

Thanks for your response Mathepac. I am happy to clear up your concerns.

Re: testimonials. As it says at the top of the page

http://www.themathstutor.ie/testimonials.html

"Below are some of the comments we received for one-to-one tuition.

We are now taking our maths tuition online so that more students can benefit.

Try it out for yourself!"

We don't have testimonials for the online version yet as it is not commercially launched.

Every one of those testimonials is 100% genuine. I know they may seem very flattering but they are verbatim, and anyone with a genuine reason for checking the references can contact me to be put in touch with the referees.

Re: touting for registrations
I am sorry, but I don't know why you think that. Can you tell me where in my post that is implied?

I understood that the purpose of this forum is to ask people to review websites. That is why I included my website address. Isn't this the normal procedure?

If I have done something wrong, please let me know and I will do my best to rectify the mistake. Thank you.

TheMathsTutor

I have a couple of particular concerns about this website, but I don't want to pre-empt or influence anyone's feedback, so I will just wait and see what other people think about it.

Feel free to give any feedback, good or bad.

Chet Zar

TheMathsTutor wrote: »

I have a couple of particular concerns about this website, but I don't want to pre-empt or influence anyone's feedback, so I will just wait and see what other people think about it.

Feel free to give any feedback, good or bad.

Overall a nice looking, clean, simple website.

It does need some work though. Here are some tips:

-Tagline is weak

Too generic, not punchy and not descriptive. 'We can work it out' doesn't really tell me what you're about or what I stand to gain. The best taglines or slogan are short and to the point, and sum up what you are offering or what your service is about in, ideally, three words.

How about 'Making Maths Simple'? or 'Simplifying Maths'? You need to have 'maths' in the tagline there for various reasons. 'TheMathsTutor' is a very good name, and so you need to maximise its value and impact on your target audience with an equally strong tagline.

-H2/Header could also be a lot better

'Online Learning Support for Secondary School Students in Ireland' - too generic and again doesn't have any impact on me or describe what you are about. You need 'maths' in the header here. You need to sum up in one succinct sentence what I stand to gain from visiting your site and engaging your services. I would choose something like:

'Interactive Online Support To Help You Excel At Maths'

or something similar.

A common error and a natural tendency is for people launching a site to talk about themselves and what they are about rather than what they can offer the visitor to the site. I don't really want to know what you're about as much as I want to know how what you are about can benefit me

So, your home page shows this - it's peppered with 'we' and 'our' rather than 'are you looking for...' 'we can help you...' etc.

And finally, in line with the above, I should be able to get within two seconds what your service is all about. Instead I had to scroll down a bit and the 'video lessons' section, which is beneath the fold, told me in an instant what it is you offer.

Hope that helps for a start

TheMathsTutor

Thanks Chet Zar! Lot's to think about there. I'll get back with my responses when I have thought through all your comments. Much appreciated!

Cianos

Some harsh words on the way!

For me, the site looks much too basic and appears as if the person who designed it isn't actually a designer. I can't see any evidence of original design or creativity to show that the company is investing much in to the venture.

The site looks pieced together on a purely functional basis without much thought in to how it should look, how it should engage the user, how it should position the service and so on.

The overuse of stock images always looks disconcerting and users can spot them a mile away. They just look like space-fillers and those pictured in them obviously have absolutely nothing to do with you or your business.

I know many people who are savvy with computers and the internet prefer to build sites themselves rather than pay someone else to do it. This is fine for saving on initial investment, but most of the time it results in a site that may tick all the boxes in terms of functionality, but really lacks that quality of design you could have, to properly represent your service and get people excited about what you have to offer.

Some things to think about;

Students are all about image and what brands they associate themselves with. You have close to zero brand identity, you should address this.

How can you communicate the benefit of using your service, in less than 5 seconds? More than 5 seconds and boredom and frustration set in.

As above, how can you communicate what your service IS, in less than 10 seconds? I gather it's something to do with video based tutorials and online tutoring but I'm still not 100% confident on that and I've probably spent about 20 seconds total on the site so far while writing this reply.

Good luck

TheMathsTutor

another really useful post, thanks very much Cianos.

More to chew over.

I know I won't be able to address all of these issues, as I have pretty much zero budget for this (at the moment), but I will try to address the big items mentioned so far.

Thanks again for your time and expertise.

TheMathsTutor

Chet Zar wrote: »

Overall a nice looking, clean, simple website.

It does need some work though. Here are some tips:

-Tagline is weak

Too generic, not punchy and not descriptive. 'We can work it out' doesn't really tell me what you're about or what I stand to gain. The best taglines or slogan are short and to the point, and sum up what you are offering or what your service is about in, ideally, three words.

How about 'Making Maths Simple'? or 'Simplifying Maths'? You need to have 'maths' in the tagline there for various reasons. 'TheMathsTutor' is a very good name, and so you need to maximise its value and impact on your target audience with an equally strong tagline.

-H2/Header could also be a lot better

'Online Learning Support for Secondary School Students in Ireland' - too generic and again doesn't have any impact on me or describe what you are about. You need 'maths' in the header here. You need to sum up in one succinct sentence what I stand to gain from visiting your site and engaging your services. I would choose something like:

'Interactive Online Support To Help You Excel At Maths'

or something similar.

A common error and a natural tendency is for people launching a site to talk about themselves and what they are about rather than what they can offer the visitor to the site. I don't really want to know what you're about as much as I want to know how what you are about can benefit me

So, your home page shows this - it's peppered with 'we' and 'our' rather than 'are you looking for...' 'we can help you...' etc.

And finally, in line with the above, I should be able to get within two seconds what your service is all about. Instead I had to scroll down a bit and the 'video lessons' section, which is beneath the fold, told me in an instant what it is you offer.

Hope that helps for a start

I've implemented some of your ideas now, thanks. I think as regards the 'blurb' in general, I may have been guilty of trying to second guess google by putting in the various keywords. But I think it's more important for now at least to have the right message rather than second guessing google too much.

We can't easily change the tagline just now, as it is part of the logo, and I haven't time to go back to the graphic designer at the moment. I suppose the reason we didn't put the word maths in the tagline was because it's in our name already. But am not disagreeing, we came up with a huge list of possible straplines, and in the end we liked this one best, but there were several other options we could have gone for. We might change it yet, but I still quite like what we have.

Thanks again for the useful comments, some of them we have already used, some possibly for later.

TheMathsTutor

Cianos wrote: »

For me, the site looks much too basic and appears as if the person who designed it isn't actually a designer. I can't see any evidence of original design or creativity to show that the company is investing much in to the venture.

Very fair comment as regards the website itself.
But we can't have a champagne website on a lemonade budget. Our budget has been mostly targeted at the learning system itself, and while I would love to outsource the website, we can't do that yet.

Cianos wrote: »

The overuse of stock images always looks disconcerting and users can spot them a mile away. They just look like space-fillers and those pictured in them obviously have absolutely nothing to do with you or your business.

Fair comment again, but what is the alternative? Taking on board what you say, I think we should cut down on them, but not cut them out.

I will probably replace the lower 3 images in the home page with 3 self-produced videos which will give a brief overview of each of the 3 core parts of the product. Would that work better do you think?

Cianos wrote: »

I know many people who are savvy with computers and the internet prefer to build sites themselves rather than pay someone else to do it. This is fine for saving on initial investment, but most of the time it results in a site that may tick all the boxes in terms of functionality, but really lacks that quality of design you could have, to properly represent your service and get people excited about what you have to offer.

I agree, but as per the comments above, we have to start somewhere, and we have to be smart about where we allocate the budget. It's a judgement call. We hope to be moving to an outsourced Drupal based system by September.

Cianos wrote: »

Students are all about image and what brands they associate themselves with. You have close to zero brand identity, you should address this.

I'm a bit disappointed to hear this. IMO, we have a decent logo with an original and eye catching graphic, a nice logotype, and a good colour scheme. But I am prejudiced Would you be able to suggest some ways to improve on our brand identity? That would be really appreciated, as I realise how important it is.

Cianos wrote: »

How can you communicate the benefit of using your service, in less than 5 seconds? More than 5 seconds and boredom and frustration set in.

As above, how can you communicate what your service IS, in less than 10 seconds? I gather it's something to do with video based tutorials and online tutoring but I'm still not 100% confident on that and I've probably spent about 20 seconds total on the site so far while writing this reply.

Good luck

I've tried to address this, hope it is better now?

I am also working on adding FAQs for a deeper level of understanding for those who get beyond the first 5, 10, 20 seconds.

Thanks again Cianos!

Blikes

The header is very low resolution and has stray pixels.

TheMathsTutor

Thanks Blikes.

I need to talk to the graphic designer on that, he gave me a hi-res file but I cut it down using MS Paint, quick and dirty, to make it smaller size to save on screen loading time.

Must revisit this, cheers.

dahamsta

Never, ever use Paint. For anything. Ever.

There's loads of free image editors out there if you don't have the budget for something commercial; even some excellent ones available through your web browser. Most are better than Paint. Toddlers with crayons are better than Paint. The only exception to this rule are uber-nerds with an artistic streak. And too much time on their hands. And OCD.

Seriously. No. Paint Bad.

I disagree on the stock imagery by the way, it's twee and grinds on designers, but nearly all the majors do it so there's nothing stopping you doing it. Save your budget for later. Get that logo right, get that copy right.

I disagree on WordPress. If you can do Weebly, you can do WordPress. Just make sure you keep it up to date, or get someone to keep it up to date for you. (Disclaimer: I'm a WordPress guy. I'm not telling you this as pimpage, but to save my fellow WordPress guys from having to clean up another WordPress install. It's good money, but I'd prefer to be developing, not cleaning up. )

Blikes

TheMathsTutor wrote: »

Thanks Blikes.

I need to talk to the graphic designer on that, he gave me a hi-res file but I cut it down using MS Paint, quick and dirty, to make it smaller size to save on screen loading time.

Must revisit this, cheers.

No bother, gimme a shout if you want it 'shopped!

Cianos

TheMathsTutor wrote: »

Very fair comment as regards the website itself.
But we can't have a champagne website on a lemonade budget. Our budget has been mostly targeted at the learning system itself, and while I would love to outsource the website, we can't do that yet.

It may not be as expensive as you think. PM me for a chat if you wish.

Fair comment again, but what is the alternative? Taking on board what you say, I think we should cut down on them, but not cut them out.

I'd love to see some original graphics that reflect and reinforce the branding. I understand that resources may not allow for this at the moment, but maybe even something like these done correctly might give the website a more personalised look.

I will probably replace the lower 3 images in the home page with 3 self-produced videos which will give a brief overview of each of the 3 core parts of the product. Would that work better do you think?

Not 3 videos. If the product takes 3 videos to explain, you've already lost me One video around 1min in length would be ideal. If the video is good enough I'd move it to the top of the page. Again it's about showing that you've gone to enough effort to produce your own original content and that the website wasn't just thrown up in a few mins by anyone. A video is evidence of this.

I'm a bit disappointed to hear this. IMO, we have a decent logo with an original and eye catching graphic, a nice logotype, and a good colour scheme. But I am prejudiced Would you be able to suggest some ways to improve on our brand identity? That would be really appreciated, as I realise how important it is.

The answer to this is only really determined by the creative process itself. But I'd start by looking at other elearning platforms and how they brand themselves. The logo elements should represent the service. If you showed a stranger your triangular graphic, they could guess all day and still not guess it's for a maths learning website.

Maths is so rich in symbolism, I don't think achieving a clever, highly communicative logo would be too hard.

Check out websites like logopond.com to see how powerful good logos can be

I've tried to address this, hope it is better now?

Yes definitely an improvement there. Bring more focus to the primary call to action though. At the moment it's way down the page.

TheMathsTutor

Quick reply, but will respond more fully later.

Just to say I have updated the logo - Blikes, what fantastic eyesight you have to spot those stray pixels ;-)

And dahamsta, I promise never to use Paint again :-) It's crayons from now on, much sharper

Joking aside, does it look better now?

Thanks guys!

Blikes

Logo looks sharp and clean! good job

TheMathsTutor

I have made lots of changes since my first posting, many based on feedback from everyone here, so thanks again for your help.

Even though we have launched, comments still welcome for ongoing improvements.

Thanks!