Wanted: Website Review New Site

[Aaron Clifford]

Hi,

I'm working on a new project and would appreciate some feedback on the first draft of the design.

http://www.domainbeans.co.uk/room.png

Any comments appreciated.

 

[orchardapple]

like that, looks very clean and professional

Only observation i'd make to to have a search panel on the page,

 

[wb]

Great domain choice

Homepage layout looks fine to me, not quite sure about that font for the logo though... I think the main feature will be having a good quality search function and results page, so would be more interested to see how well that works once developed further.

 

[Aaron Clifford]

Cool, Don't even know why I'm designing anything yet, got a few months of coding ahead of me yet! Just opened up photoshop and did that, need to crack on with code development first, creating it all from scratch, custom backend, custom forum.

Thanks for the comments! (and yes, a very nice domain matt!)

 

[Retired_member41]

Bit early for an appraisal isn't it?

As for the name roomfriends, its awful, not even one for adwords imo

 

[Aaron Clifford]

Was after comments on the design, seemed the most suitable place to put it, What do you mean "one for adwords"?

 

[Retired_member41]

Lol the design is lovely.

Just trying to stop you in your tracks on domain before you optimise it.

Adwords. Sometimes URL's that don't do it at as standalone names work well on adwords.

 

[Aaron Clifford]

I quite like the name, it's brandable, rememberable. Will keep it in mind though caz, thanks for the comments on the design

 

[retired_member13]

I'm not a fan of the domain name at all myself.

Re the design, well that's fine and looks nice.

Seems like a similar idea to whitelabelflatshare (or whatever the URL is for it - the one that James is using on Rooms.co.uk, but obviously they've got the advantage of being on multiple domains in terms of traction and they already have a good database of flatshare rooms.

Also, re the specific "concept" (ie the "revolutionary new way of finding a room mate" via reviews), I think that the issue is going to be that the people with "high ratings" are only ever going to be the ones with the highest turnover or very short term rentals (or the ones with faked reviews) - and let's be honest - if you rented a room from or with someone - lived there happily for a year or two - would you then report back to the website that you found it on to write a review of the fact that you enjoyed living there for X years? I doubt it myself.

If I were you I'd ditch the domain (cancel it if you can get your money back) and refocus on a name / concept with more potential of success before you put weeks or months of work into it.

 

[Aaron Clifford]

I see what your saying ty, I wanted to make this standalone, not using a whitelabel or affiliate feeds. I've got a few months of development ahead of me yet, so the name isn't that important at the moment, Will do a bit of market research, will hoepfully pick up a decent generic over the next few months that may fit the site better, thanks for the feedback.

 

[ralhar35]

Hello,

The design looks ok to me, i'm not keen on the name but I don't think its a problem...

How do you get something like this off the ground? I cant see people contributing to an empty database... do you have a way of collecting entries before going live?

Not saying it can't be done I just wonder how?

thanks

 

[kimarie]

I would swap the featured rooms and latest news boxes over.

 

[peacock]

Have you looked at moveflat.co.uk ?
Not text book design that one, but really does a great job.

 

[richrf]

The design is fine but I think that it might attract more attention if it had a more fun-like color scheme and graphics. Right now, it seems good for selling furniture but if you want to encourage more social building some fun-oriented graphics might help.

 

[Marcoose]

I really like it mate - clean and easy to read. The graphic in the logo is awesome although I would have a look at different fonts - that's just my opinion though.

 

[retired_member32]

If i could just give my opinion:

Like the look of the site ,but needs more going on ,either adjust the width or add another column left+body+right ,especially the login is huge....

i would also use a dropline menu or accordion style menu within the main body,and add GEO, flatshare + Location (flatshareLondon.html) all popular locations i:e ....London ,Birmingham ,Manchester

good luck with your project

Mark