

7 Days since Launch. Even Faster Website Reviews. - bilus
http://golbolib.blogspot.com/2012/12/7-days-since-launch-even-faster-website.html

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mokash
I actually used this and got an interesting review. When I signed up though I
didn't set a password, I think it doesn't give that option. I have to access
my account via an email the website sends. Weird.

I just used the forgot password feature so now I can set it, I guess.

Edit: turns out I got a few more reviews, these were a little more vague and
unhelpful though.

~~~
bilus
Thank you very much for your feedback. I'll add a way to up/downvote reviews
soon. This should increase the quality. This is actually surprising how good
most of the reviews are without this feature.

While moderating it's not always obvious _what_ could be useful to the site's
author.

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onli
Happy so far with the amount of users? I liked your site, it has a clear
concept and some of the feedback is indeed helpful (in my case, having my site
not in english seems to be a big hurdle for that helpfulness sometimes though,
which is understandable. Wrong target-group.).

Small suggestion: You already greatly improved the workflow of actually
submitting the review. One thing still bothering me is that the link to the
page is not a normal link. You probably wanted it to open it in its own tab
and therefore made it a javascript-link? Perfect usecase for target=_blank,
which would also work with a middle-mouseclick (currently it just opens the
review-page again).

PS: Are you moderating the reviews by yourself? If you add votes and have a
report-system, it could be interesting whether an algorithm could do that work
for you, maybe combined with the data-corpus of the reviews already in the
system.

~~~
bilus
Thank you so much for the feedback! The traffic really isn't too bad
considering it's only a week old.

I'm thinking about creating localized versions of the site with a way to
choose the preferred review language. Does it sound like a good idea?

About the link... What browser do you use?

Moderating... Yes. I'll add a voting system sometime soon plus a way to flag
reviews as spam. I'm too thinking about using a bayesian filter but for now,
I'll stick to manual work to make sure there are no glitches. :)

~~~
onli
>I'm thinking about creating localized versions of the site with a way to
choose the preferred review language. Does it sound like a good idea?

Indeed, sounds good, it could debunk my wrong-target-group defence ;) Maybe
enough to just give users the option to choose the languages they want to
review in and submitters the (advanced?) option to ask for users who speak one
of the languages existing in the system.

>About the link... What browser do you use?

Chrome 23.0.1271.64 under Ubuntu 12.04.

Will be interesting for me how you design the vote-system and how good it
works, as the current situation is "one review for a review" adding votes to
that could be kind of tricky.

~~~
bilus
Thanks! It would make it easier if it was an 'n for 1' system but would it
would make it more like the various post 10 reviews for 1 review web designer
forums.

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Hawkee
I have been using this for several days and have received quite a few useful
reviews. The main thing that bothers me is the emphasis on a single
screenshot. I always open each site into a new window to test the responsive
design and browse the site a bit.

~~~
bilus
Do you think there's a way to strike a better balance?

I wouldn't want it to turn into usability testing because it would sort of
defeat the purpose (i.e. quick reviews, get first impressions, improve,
repeat).

~~~
Hawkee
Maybe you can leave that up to the site owner. You can give us a few options
pertaining to what we'd like reviewed, ie: first impression, clarity of copy,
design, concept. Then list these on the review page so the reviewer knows what
to pay attention to.

~~~
bilus
Thank you for the suggestion! It sounds great! I'll definitely think about how
this could be done without making the process too complicated.

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BetterLateThan
Signed up, submitted a few reviews, received a few. So far so good.

It would be great if I could:

\- see the history of the reviews I submitted;

\- contact reviewers of my site;

Time spent on a review isn't very helpful. I got distracted by kids at least
twice, which resulted in two of my reviews taking very long. On the other
hand, another two reviews took equally long, but it was actual writing and
editing.

Are you going to let reviewers and submitters communicate directly or are you
going to profit from not letting them do it?

~~~
yRetsyM
Seeing history of reviews would be good - as well as building some kind of
feedback as to whether a review was helpful or not. I think providing some
kind of positive feedback to reviewers is just as important.

~~~
bilus
Absolutely! One of the next things to add.

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yRetsyM
I'm finding a lot of screenshots are generated not capturing the full page, or
in some cases triggering non-desktop stylesheets to apply (ie: tablet ones).
Perhaps more control needs to be made upon submission about screenshot size?
and/or picking mobile vs desktop?

~~~
bilus
Thank you for the suggestion! It uses 1024x1030 if I recall correctly as a
viewport.

What I was thinking about is showing the generated screenshot after "Start"
and then giving an option to upload your own screenshot instead if the current
one doesn't work well. What do you think about it?

~~~
yRetsyM
I like how simple and easy it is, perhaps if you just load the website in an
iFrame below for "desktop" loading, and then show images for the smaller view
ports? IE: I see a lot of value in doing iPhone/mobile based viewports and
providing a qrcode so we can load quickly on our own devices if wanting to
test further.

Also - I've found that in some cases it's hard to tell if they want just an
individual page critiqued or an entire website - perhaps something needs to be
done to clarify this?

~~~
bilus
_Excellent_ suggestions, thank you!

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hayksaakian
It would be cool if this somehow hooked into Amazon's Mechanical Turk and made
it easy to request a larger number of reviews.

Maybe I want 20 to 50 reviews right away, and I don't have time to get
credits? They could also let me buy credits for the same purpose.

~~~
bilus
Thank you for the suggestion! I'm not sure about AMT though. Do you think the
quality would be sufficient?

~~~
hayksaakian
Now that you mention it, AMT is very hit and miss. However, It would be nice
to be able to buy credits instead of having to suit a bunch of reviews.

~~~
bilus
What would you pay for 50 credits? :)

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instakill
I've been using this a lot. I must have gotten over 40 reviews. One thing
someone mentioned is the screenshot. I for one barely look at the screenshot
but always click the link to the website instead. Maybe add focus to the link?

Love the site.

~~~
bilus
Thank you for the positive feedback and for the idea. I think clicking the
image should open it in a new window, do you?

This is what some people do anyway because they think this is the real thing.

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NoPiece
I've found that writing critiques of other people's sites has helped me
clarify my thinking about my own. Coupled with good feedback the site has been
very helpful! A low friction way to get outside feedback.

~~~
bilus
An interesting angle, thank you!

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sethito
I've been using this since it launched, it's invaluable in helping answer the
question of "I wonder what people's knee-jerk reaction is to this change..."

~~~
bilus
Thank you! Can I use this quote? :)

~~~
sethito
Thank you. Yes sir, you may.

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pierrend
This is very useful, many comments that I received are directly actionable.
The website greatly improved during the last week.

~~~
bilus
I'm very very happy you've found it useful!

