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Just launched our new website and would appreciate critique

almost 8 years ago from , Founder at Awerest

Drumroll please.

Yes, we've felt digitally underdressed for a while, but no more. All hail the new site!

Visit site and leave your comment: awerest.com

EDITEDITEDIT

First of all I didn't expect such a good response. Thank you all!

List of things that people report as issue, bad UX or something else for now looks like this:

  1. Intro - Add "who / what / why".
  2. Intro - Remove animation after "Visit Lab" is clicked.
  3. Faster animations speed.
  4. Opened (always visible) navigation on desktop with active states.
  5. Scrolljacking - Smoothscroll script removed.
  6. Lab - Add number of items in carousel.
  7. Lab - Show that Demo and Details are links.
  8. Lab - Add what is that page about - Templates and Themes.
  9. Navigation - there is no link for page that you are on at the moment. Put that back.
  10. Coming soon links - Remove pointer hover states.
  11. Fix - leave external links as such; leave it to the user to decide whether they want to open them in a new tab or not.
  12. Click on logo on intro page should not lead to same page.
  13. Add yours in comments ;)

Design of Lab page is for now as is, this will be changed when Case Studies pages jump in. Also Intro page will be reorganised so all pages that lead to our works, Clients - Case Studies and Templates - Lab, will be "equal" in some sort to choose. For now from your comments some small adjustments can be made so navigating from intro is much clearer.

Thanks again for awesome DN community.

Visit site and leave your comment: awerest.com

17 comments

  • Nathan HueningNathan Huening, almost 8 years ago

    How on earth does this constitute "news" that makes the front page?

    5 points
  • Matthew R. MillerMatthew R. Miller, almost 8 years ago

    Why hamburger?

    1 point
  • Rick LanceeRick Lancee, almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

    I seriously got a nervous feeling in my belly -you know when you're on in a rollercoaster just before falling- when waiting on the transition from homepage to lab. So, great that you are going to make it faster!

    The page i like best: the about page, since it actually gave me a feeling of personality; you could really use some info from there on the homepage.

    Imho you should not mess with text highlighting, you can somewhat safely change the color, but now it's completely unusable; way to subtle. I though selection was broken at first.

    http://i.imgur.com/ExRUG4k.png

    Maybe something like the below to fit your brand...? http://i.imgur.com/6ccdS8H.png

    1 point
  • Ollie BarkerOllie Barker, almost 8 years ago

    Initial impressions, visually gorgeous but I didn't know what the site was from the homepage. When I click around, the animations take a little to long for my liking. It ended up just making me wait for content. Also scroll hijacking is a big no-no if possible.

    So visual style is beautiful, but I think some of the UX could be improved.

    1 point
    • Aleksandar Macanovic, almost 8 years ago

      Thanks, scroll will be removed in few seconds since this is reported as issue by almost everybody. Other things require a little bit more time to develop. Thanks again

      1 point
  • Devin HuntDevin Hunt, almost 8 years ago

    It's a great looking site. I'm a sucker for minimal lines and whitespace. But, this site could benefit from simplification.

    You have an intro animation. It's cute, but it doesn't tell me anything. I'm assuming you're an agency and my first few seconds on your site should clarify that. Answer "who / what / why." Give your audience something to anchor on. This is further exasperated when I click you're logo. It returns me to this animation and, effectively, a dead end.

    The typography is nice, but feels manic. I'm looking specifically at your about page. It looks like you're using the serif for subheadings (h5) and then use a larger sans-serif (Montserrat?) for your h3. What makes this confusing is the h5 feel more important due to contrast. Further down the page the an h3 pops up and introduce a whole new hierarchy. Meaning gets lost. I would workshop you're about page, play around with it some more.

    Also, are you using a scroll-jacking library to control scrolling on some pages? It feels either sluggish or very fast.

    1 point
    • Aleksandar Macanovic, almost 8 years ago

      Hi, smoothscroll is making scroll issues, I am not getting them on machines around me but from past experience I have noticed that issues were mouse scroll wheel itself, browser and Mac pad. Probably it will be removed, thanks for reporting. Putting this on +1 list for intro page redesign with some "who / what / why" text. Maybe a logo on home page to navigate to about or nowhere, I will think about. I am "I like to click on logo rather than home link in nav" guy but never do that on home page. Thanks for you detailed comment, appreciated.

      0 points
  • Eugene Zaycev, almost 8 years ago

    As guy who interested to find some usefull information about awerest your site navigation make the user to suffer a bit, why so many clicks when it's possible to put menu always visible not in burger button because is only 4 section it's not a huge navigation. Intro page, why? it's steal time of user - not ok. Home page - you show some of works with details and demo text but how i need to know is that links or simple text? Make it underline or try to make more impact not only text, navigation also it's only waste time, you have only 3 works make it bolder without navigation something like this: http://dragone.com/en/jobs but only with 3 columns, it's much better, no? And you forgot about the footer on lab page :/

    1 point
    • Aleksandar Macanovic, almost 8 years ago

      Hi, layout like Dragone jobs page, but horizontal, will be used for Case Studies page. One more suggestion (few friends did also) to put Lab page, a sort of, as home page but since there will be more pages I will only redesign intro/home so you can navigate better to all our works pages. Will consider opened navigation on desktop. Thanks

      0 points
  • Mark Laughery, almost 8 years ago

    Overall too cutesy for my taste.. The whimsical animations are way over the top and communicate to me that your priorities are not user-centric. Speed is a primary benefit of simple -- it shouldn't take 7 seconds to go the the "lab" (?) from the home page.

    Maybe speed up or limit the animations and fix the wonky scrolling.

    Sorry if this is too harsh. :/

    1 point
    • Aleksandar Macanovic, almost 8 years ago

      Nope, not too harsh, I was also thinking to remove that animation from intro page after you navigate to Lab page but it's just on that one link and I am still thinking about it. Suggestion noted and will be considered for the final version/update. Thanks

      1 point
  • NAMBIRAJAN VANAMAMALAI, almost 8 years ago

    Looks neat and cool. But didn't know the works are all website themes/ templates until i clicked the links and went to another site. May be you can set that context by saying it's a collection of templates in the beginning? Also do you really want to lead them to another web page?

    1 point
    • Aleksandar Macanovic, almost 8 years ago

      Thanks for comment, yeah, few people already suggested that intro is lacking "what is this site about?" in few words. I will definitely do that. I have a different plan for pages when I add them more soon, would like both template and client works to be equal on home and navigation, thanks for suggestion.

      0 points