

Please Give Feedback on My Launch - Rswan75
http://www.studyhallnotes.com

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unalone
The font is bland, and changes midparagraph. The format is poor: there is no
visual structure. The links up top are all white and I can't see them. You
have too many categories for too few posts at the moment. The search bar seems
awkward in the center. Ditto the RSS.

There is no organization. No reason why you have games or widgets on your site
if it's a blog. If it's not a blog stop making it look like one.

Your registration page is thin, narrow, and long. Consider multiple columns.
Also consider explaining what you are more concisely, and in a better format
on the site than a mere About page.

Why is the box on the bottom gray? Why is there no space between "notes" and
"is" in that box?

"Student Body" should be "Users," and I don't know why you list a user
directory in the first place. Is this a forum? Then make it look like one. Is
it an isolated network of separate schools? No need for a user directory. In
any case, don't make people guess what the links are. I did that with the
first forum I built, and the lesson I got might help you: if you're trying to
distinguish features with names because they're the same features you can find
anywhere else, it means that you need new features.

You need a lot of formatting. Like, a _lot_. This is ugly. Add breaks between
paragraphs, remove the Share button unless you can customize it to look like
something else.

Am I correct in assuming the Add Schools form is just a disguised Contact
form? And the "Powered by Knowledge" is just a disguised "Powered by
Wordpress?"

It looks like this is one of your first efforts to make a site, if I'm not
mistaken. In that case, could I give you some advice? First off, try
experimenting with other management systems, not Wordpress. Try them all. Look
for "groups" functionality in each of them. That's the best way to implement a
school system. I think Plone and Joomla have them. (Drupal's Organic Groups
module runs far too slowly for a production-level environment.)

I was in the same situation as you, a few years ago, and I was trying
something similarly ambitious. It's easier to start with something small, but
if you want to go for ambitious, you'll need to learn how to code manually.
Get a good FTP editor. Get a good visual CSS editor. Start opening up files in
CMS's and learning how things are done. Look at the hacks you install
(modules, plugins, whatever) and see what their code's doing. Try and get a
visual feel for how it should work, and try tweaking things.

The thing is, PHP is really simple. If you want to code a Groups
implementation by hand, you probably could in about a month even if you know
no PHP at the moment. (Some people will disagree, but take a few good
tutorials and mash them up and you can almost certainly get things exactly how
you want them to be, even when you're starting off.) Styling a web site takes
CSS: if you have a visual editor, it suddenly becomes a matter of just
learning what looks good and then learning how to reproduce it. Smashing
Magazine is a godsend. Avoid A List Apart at first: it'll seem scary and
complicated when you're first starting. Smashing Magazine organizes itself in
ways like "10 CSS Hacks To Make A Nice Registration Form" which is really
nice. And again, this might be unpopular on this site, but keep messing with
CMS's. They don't work for everything, but they handle the simple stuff so you
can add on top and mess around and get a feel for coding.

As for your site concept itself: you need to figure out how to _inform_
teachers and staff about your site, and to _reward_ them for participating. In
planning my site, which will eventually market to teachers, I worked with a
few teachers from my school. And teachers are apathetic. Some barely know what
a computer is. Some don't care about interacting with students. You need to
figure out how to make _them_ want to use your service, and that's
extraordinarily difficult. They're apathetic and hard to reach and will make
any excuse they need to make if it means them not having to learn a new
service. So you'll have to simplify as well.

Hopefully that helps! If you've got any questions either respond to me or drop
an email. Best of luck in the future!

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lincolnq
Phew! Attractive website, obviously somebody put a lot of effort into the
design. I've never seen a site like this. There are seven themes?

I can't find anything I'm interested in actually reading. I browsed the
categories, tag cloud, etc. Most of everything seems to be links and ads.

The page loads very slowly, and something about the theme produces visual
artifacts while scrolling (the body of a content item scrolls one frame before
its header, so while scrolling up it overlaps briefly). This is on Firefox 3
on Linux. So the site feels "sluggish" to use.

What are the buttons at the bottom? "Study Break"? There's no content there.
Do I have to add it myself?

Who is "Dean of Students" and why does this person seem to make up the
majority of posts? If it's you, why don't you use a name?

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Rswan75
What exactly are you considering to be the seven themes and is that good or
bad?

The site is farely new. Traffic has yet to increase and the plan is to
eventually have the posts and comments all be from members on the site.

The slow loading and visual artifacts are being worked on by my partner.

There should be content in the StudyBreak. It's some games people can play
while on the site. I am actually considering removing that.

Dean of Students is also the webmaster.

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pclark
(loads really slow & no favicon)

Interesting UI, are there any case studies on how recreating the desktop
appearance works on the web?

How are you going to monetize this site?

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Rswan75
My partner is working on the slow loading and favicon. As far as monetization,
that will depend on what traffic the site initially attracts. Eventually it
will be advertising and employment listings after website format is converted
to something with a larger database. I handle the marketing, I have a partner
who handles all IT issues.

What is it you find interesting about the User Interface?

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johnrob
The design is a little loud for something that is content driven. I should
notice topics and comments before anything else (my eyes were drawn to the
nice looking background image).

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Rswan75
Thanks for the input. I will definitely take that into consideration.

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dantheman
Is this just a blog, am I missing it?

If it's a blog, I'd recommend changing from the default wordpress theme; at
the very least make a custom banner at the top.

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Rswan75
It's really not just a blog. As people register, the school they wish to post
under can be added to the site as a category if it is not already
available.They can then post info geared toward that school and its students
and it's students. Each category does have a blog format. If you read what the
website is about under "About Us", it explains that.

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joshuarr
that sounds like a blog

