New homepage, need feedback
Launched a new product recently, and want to get it in front of you all for some feedback. Don't go easy on us, we need to learn as much as we can.
When you see our page, do you know what we do? Is the value proposition up-front enough? Am I making any major mistakes?
Here is my feedback:
Pros:
Cons:
Question:
Is there a tool where I can comment on the web page and send you a link to make feedback easier?
@MakerGari THANK YOU so much for the extensive feedback. I appreciate the time you took to look over the website and give us so much to chew on. I haven't yet integrated a tool to collect feedback. Do you have any reasonably-priced recommendations? We'd like to integrate something like that into the core app.
I want to think a bit more on what you shared about the inconsistencies in the messaging. That's actually an expert find, and one I didn't really realize we had messed up until I saw your bullet points.
The fact is, we've changed our USP a bit. Not in a big way, but we've tweaked and evolved it based on some different conversations we've had. I think we need to make another pass the entirety of the copy.
You actually made me realize something else: the entire page is WAY too wordy. We need to trim about 20-30% of the copy down and simplify it. I also agree with a "How It Works" section. I wrote one for one of our landing pages but we're not promoting it. I need to move it to the homepage.
Your idea about the video demo is awesome. This is something we're working on now!
@docupguy Glad to know the feedback was helpful. We are just learning from each other here :) I haven't found the right tool to collect feedback yet, but let me know if you come across something. I am looking for something where I can just comment and annotate any web page and send a feedback link without needing to create an account. I found this so far https://usepastel.com, but it requires all parties to create an account, and I think it's a little on the expensive side. Also, let me know if it helps you if I record my screen and share qualitative video feedback on your website? (this is much easier than typing, and something I enjoy doing)
@MakerGari That's a really cool offer. I would like to take you up on a video of you going over the site, but only if you enjoy doing it.
Is there a business idea here? (Startup website feedback) Or at least a consulting opportunity for you? You could take before & after screenshots. I've already checked out a branch and started experimenting with your feedback. It was valuable!
Regarding Pastel, I think that would be a really useful tool for us if we were a bigger team. I can see that working well for agencies. Maybe something else exists there, a similar tool to Pastel. I sign up for it and post a link on IndieHackers, and everyone can submit feedback to me via a hosted tool that I paid for? I'm getting way too creative here.
I haven't ever looked for a tool like that before, so sadly, I haven't seen anything. But I can imagine in these circles something a bit more open and less pricey would get used a lot.
@docupguy Here are unlisted video review links for docup: [1] Landing page review: https://youtu.be/XjshoZ5ebK8 [2] Signup review: https://youtu.be/5r0u3CjvM5o
Let me know if this is valuable.
@docupguy Didn't think of it as a business idea or as a consulting opportunity :) I can now see a possibility of that in the future. But for now, I just enjoy reviewing startup products, learning, and providing value to my fellow makers.
I am happy to do a video review, and send it to you via youtube. I will make the video unlisted so that it doesn't show up in search results, and lowers chances of public access to the video. Unless you prefer it to be public. Let me know either way.
That is super cool. I will look around if something exists, if not, I will sleep over it a few days, see if there is real value for people, and maybe build a quick prototype.
Thank you - sorry for the late reply. Just received your videos. Unlisted Youtube is absolutely fine! Watching now!
@docupguy Found this one: http://annotatorjs.org/, and this one: https://web.hypothes.is/ to collect annotated feedback on websites.
Hi Ray, happy to run through it (especially from a customer acquisition/sales perspective as that's my drift).
Good
Bad
Ugly
Overall it's not a bad landing page and I suspect users within the niche will know what you're talking about, but it's a little obtuse and I think some more transparency will help you out.
@gilgildner Thank you for the feedback.
Good catch. I didn't realize how nasty this was. I actually was able to configure it to be a little smaller and less intrusive. I think there's value in a chat tool, but we shouldn't be spamming the users.
I agree. I've been tinkering with some other ideas, but I might end up going to an agency if I can't find some inspiration.
This has now come up a few times with the feedback that I've seen. I think this is an artifact of the audience here. Everyone in the car business will know what a "stip" is, but I agree that it's jargon. Interestingly, anytime we refer to a "stip" on a customer-facing page, we refer to it as a "document".
I think we could maybe do more, but I didn't want to water down the value proposition too much. I still want to talk to dealers in their language, but using "stipulation" feels like a good middle ground.
It is, but it needs more explanation. The reports are downloadable in CSV format. Right now we don't have an interface to view reports. I intend to add one, but not for a while, so this was the only photo I could get.
A few other thoughts: I'm only as of late realizing that the header font (Dosis) is a little too whimsical. About a week ago I pushed a change that capitalizes the font when it's used in a header. It looks better, but marginally. I think your assessment is correct. Regarding the responsive padding, you're absolutely right. Some of this is my fault. I'm not super good at that yet, so I've been learning as I go. It's getting better, but I think it's going to take me a few more iterations to really get the mobile view cleaned up.
Glad the feedback was helpful. You said to be harsh, so I was probably overly so - in general I think the landing page is pretty decent, looks very good overall, so just keep on improving!
@gilgildner I learned more from you being harsh! We've put a lot into this, so we want to get it right. Everything you said I took constructively. Thank you!
Hi Ray,
Here some feedback that might help. I am definitely not your target customer so had a very difficult time understanding what it is you do (no idea what a stip is) but that is probably because of that.
Alright, hope that helps in some way.
Good luck with the project and take care!
Valentijn
@vvdhout Thank you for the feedback! I appreciate the font suggestion. I just looked it up. It's gorgeous.
I've made some adjustments to the chat. It should be a bit less intrusive. I think I can dial it down even more, so I'll continue to test that.
I appreciate that suggestion. Gil mentioned that above. You're both right - it's not super inspired. We definitely need to give it a makeover.
Thank you. That's a great recommendation. I think we need to tweak the box shadows a bit.
It's funny you mention that. I was looking at the contact section yesterday morning and going, "I know we have straight edges everywhere, but inputs with a small radius in the contact area would look good."
I think we probably both agree on a lot of this. We adapted a template for this website a while back and I felt like it was "good enough" for a while. As I've gone to modify it, I've realized that maybe we should have just built something of our own from the ground up. I'm finding having inherited someone else's style is hard, I don't know what the intent or context was around certain CSS classes/rules. I think this is on the horizon for us too.
Hi Ray,
Thanks for the big response. Always nice to see feedback be appreciated as well, so cheers to that.
No worries! Love to help if I can. Think in general the website looks clean and you are on a great track. Just considering a few of the pointers that the people make in here and you should be off to the races.
One last thing you might want to look at, although it definitely is not that big of a deal and I am sure SEO wise it can be great regarding TTFB and pageload time, but your website tends to show the naked HTML code with css applied in the first 0.3s or so.
Alright, have a good one and all the best with the project!
Thanks @vvdhout for the encouraging words and happy fourth!
That naked HTML is another thing that bothers me. I've not spent the time to research ways to mitigate that. I believe it's because we bundle our CSS with our JS via Webpack, and the JS is loaded at the end, but I think Webpack might have some ways to optimize that. Thank you!
Anytime Ray!
Everything seems well except the shadow of buttons :)
I would reduce the shadow.
Thank you! Good eye. I'd have to agree. We need to go through and standardize our buttons and the shadows need some work. You'll also notice that the color of the shadow doesn't always match the color of the button, which looks kind of weird.