

Ask HN: Review my Startup - imVOX - tibbon
http://imvox.com

======
tibbon
I have an apology to make. I submitted this about a month or two ago, and of
course sent it to the people in my company to see the feedback.

Unfortunately, I was still in the process of training them for how to interact
with the community at the time and three of them thought it best to come in
with shill comments and not identifying themselves as with the company-
thinking that this was about promoting the company, not feedback. This was
highly embarrassing to me, because I made the poor assumption that everyone
understood the proper etiquette on social networking sites. But that wasn't
the case.

The thread was (rightfully) locked and removed from the listings, just as I
would have done as a community manager if someone was shilling on my site. I'd
like to try again and not repeat the same mistakes.

I deeply am sorry for this transgression and they will not be posting here
again in such a way.

------
icode
I read every word on your website:

Unlimited FREE Voice Social Networking integration No Subscription Fees
Blazing fast servers & superior sound performance Download and Chat No Fees,
No Cost, No Worries! Supports: Windows XP, Vista,7 Password secured servers
and channels Customizable backgrounds Superior Audio Quality Voice
normalization Easy to use, clean interface

And I still wonder: What is it about? Is it something like skype? Im not a
skype user so even if it is - I would still not be sure what it is.

~~~
geocar
I didn't read every word on the site, and I had similar comprehension
problems.

I think it's some kind of voip conference-room alternative with plans for a
darth vader voice changing button.

Maybe it's like gotomeeting but with an audio quality like google chat, and
for video games.

Also, this:

[http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-8076995-sexy-
headphon...](http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-8076995-sexy-
headphones.php)

threw me off. The headphones are very confusing.

~~~
tonystubblebine
Right, I got the feeling that there were some common use cases, especially
around gaming. I'd like for those to be spelled out explicitly. The copy is
very heavy on features of the product but could use a lot more copy about me,
the potential user. What will I use it for? How will my life be better?

------
Vindexus
I'd change "Unlimited FREE Voice" to "Unlimited FREE Voice Chat". I wasn't
sure what the site did right away.

I'd also add a link to the pricing page. I was on the Features page and wanted
to know what the pro plan offered by I didn't want to click on the Download
link because it said download and had a price on it. I did click it though and
it took me to the download page, which is also the pricing page. Maybe
separate the two or label it some sort of hybrid?

I do like the design overall. The testimonials on the download page are good
for me, because I'm a nerd. If that's your target demographic then awesome,
but if not then I'd try to find some testimonials that will appeal to the
layman.

------
Scott_MacGregor
1\. I like the colors just the way they are, the blues, greens and grays, etc.
I also like the female face with the headphones, I hope you own the image
because it could be a strong brand image for you. She is very unique with the
green eyes, green headphones and tattoos on her fingers and wrists.

2\. I wonder, and probably others will wonder what those tattoos say or are,
so maybe you could play it up a little and put something about it in your
FAQ’s as a marketing angle to set your business off from the competition as
hip, cool and unique. Think about what your target market would find memorable
about this.

3\. Some say they think the site is ugly, interestingly I do not think it is
ugly, in fact I like it a lot. The fonts, colors, pics, etc., really seem to
work for me. If you are shooting for a big time corporate look like some of
Version’s or Sprints pages I think you have come pretty close, an 8.5 out of
10. I agree with some of the suggestions about having a designer look at it
and suggest improvements, but if it were my site I would limit those changes
to small customer tested iterations in layout vs. color and content.

4\. My test of your site was if I were looking for a product of your type,
based on this website would I personally trust the download enough to give it
a try. My answer based on your website is 98% yes. Meaning if I were a
potential customer I would download, set it up and give it a try, yes without
a doubt I would. Then providing the product was a better than the competition
I would keep it--sale made. So as far as the site goes you could change it,
pretty it up with different colors ect., but that might change my personal
decision to download, but I am only one person and the site needs to be tested
in live commerce still, so do iterate and test.

5\. The _Features_ page has a display problem on my big monitor with IE
7.0.5730.11. The four boxes on the right are lined up 50% on top of the text
on the left. Also the text in the bottom box is displaying outside the bottom
of the box.

A tip: If you’re using an x-y-z style of coding with layers or something
similar, sometimes the older non-layer style (x-y) will be more cross browser
compatible with less work.

6\. If you are not already using banner ads, personally I think the site is
good enough to spend banner ad promotion money on right now. If it were my
site and ad money I would start a banner ad campaign right now if you think
the product is ready to release to the public. Just iterate the site slowly
with only very minor changes, and then test the changes on actual click
through customers with an A-control site and a B-iterated site setup to see if
the changes make any difference in amount of downloads between the two sites.

7\. I would make the link to Green Ear more prominent and play it up a lot
more. it will add gravitas to the product and possibly increase downloads.

------
hajrice
No offence, but the site is just ugly, you should redesign it ASAP. Seriously!
The product looks pretty interesting though. Doesn't Skype more-less provide
these services?

~~~
tibbon
Skype is rather similar in some ways and we often look at them as a role
model. Skype is much more CPU/memory/bandwidth intensive and lacks some of the
gaming-centric functionality that we're integrating. Also, Skype user
conferences don't scale over 8-users, which is a barrier for many massive
gamers.

I agree on the site. We've got a new 'look' that we have deployed on a landing
page and we're hoping to roll out site-wide soon with some additional
revisions
([http://imvox.com/warcraft_ventrilo_hosting_voice_chat_altern...](http://imvox.com/warcraft_ventrilo_hosting_voice_chat_alternative.php)).
Any parts particularly offensive on the current one (or future) that I can
pass along to our designer?

~~~
samdk
I like the new site better than the current one, but it still needs work. Some
general comments about both:

Width: To accommodate (almost) everything, most designers keep things to a
maximum width of 960px. Your site is 1100px wide. On most sites I'd say this
is an issue, because unless you specifically _want_ horizontal scrolling it's
a bad idea. Since your site is targeted towards gamers, they might all have
monitors that wide--I don't know. I'd take a look at your analytics and make
sure that's a safe width. I'll note that even if it is ok it _feels_ really
wide. Your designer's done a decent job of keeping it under control from what
I can see, but recognize that text that stretches across the whole width is
not at all readable.

Navigation mouseovers: right now when you mouse over your navigation links,
they turn blue and get underlined. The dark blue is hard to see on both sites,
and the effect just seems unrelated to anything else on the page. Do one or
the other. For the color, I'd go with either the same color as the 'current
page' link, or something halfway in between the two. I normally prefer the
latter, but you do have to make sure that the difference is enough to be very
easily noticeable.

Some comments on the new design, specifically: First, I'd like to say that
this is _much_ better in general. It still needs work, but it's much improved.

A few relatively minor about the top section:

The baseline of the text in the logo should probably align with the baseline
of the navigation link text. (I'd cut out some of the shadow or make it fade
more quickly so it fits there.)

The switch to a serif face for your 'sales pitch' is good--it draws attention
to it, and that's what you want. I would recommend getting a little more
creative with font choices than Times New Roman though!

The snowflakes don't make much sense to me--I just don't know why they're
there. It might look better than with a plain or gradient background anyway,
but finding something a little more topical might be a good idea.

I see what you're trying to do with the computer, but right now it's drawing
attention away from your software and putting it on the computer. I think just
a screenshot of your software could be much better.

The bottom part I think needs some new ideas. It's too same-y (and a bit
messy) and my eyes get lost. More visual differentiation would be a good
thing.

~~~
tibbon
Thanks for the feedback. The snowflakes were in there from the holidays and
we're pulling those as soon as I get around to it :)

------
dstorrs
Ok, I disagree with most of what you see below.

1) I had no problem understanding what the site is for. It's clearly VOIP for
social networking, and the colorscheme and design indicates it's aimed at
gamers. Further reading supports that.

2) I'd put this in the category of "attractive, professional looking". You've
met the minimum required "attractiveness quotient", now it's time to focus on
your core business value and customer acquisition / support.

That said, here are a couple design tweaks I did notice (OSX 10.5.8, FF3.5.7,
btw):

1) The footer height is standard on all pages except the home page, where it
is substantially taller.

2) On the home page, the "Unlimited free voice" is very visible, but the
"Social networking integration" blends in. I would suggest making the latter
more dramatic, and possibly changing it to "gaming" or something like that if
that really is your primary market.

3) On the FAQ page, the hover color and the selected color for the question
links is the same, which is confusing.

And a structure issue:

1) Right now, the FAQ page requires actively clicking on a question to make
its text appear. Much better is to have the links jump you down the page; this
makes it much more likely that people will read all the FAQs, which gives you
better educated customers and fewer customer support issues.

Good luck with it!

------
ashishk
From a design perspective, I would suggest the use of softer colors. The
current blues and greens used look like (cheap) neon lights.

------
bgriggs1
I agree about clarity. The headphones image makes me initially think music
service with social features, and I felt like I had to interpret all the
bullet points just to figure out what it was.

The logo is a little distracting. Am I missing the connection of what the
orange circle/triangle mark is supposed to suggest? Plus your eye tends to
follow triangles (arrows), and this one is leading to left into nothing.

The screen shot is nice, and the colors and the design of the UI look like
much better choices than the dated blues and greens.

FAQ is your best page- clear and focused. The features is too distracted by
the right column. Does download need a testimonials column that looks so
similar to the two download packages?

I know this has nothing to do with the product itself, but we all know
marketing is just as (more?) critical.

------
akamaka
The look and feel of the landing page, the woman's photo, and the GUI
screenshot give me the first impression that this is some type of professional
audio software (like Audition).

Keep in mind, though, that I'm not in your target audience, which appears to
be gamers.

------
warp
I have no idea what imVOX is from visiting the landing page. Looking at the
menu, I don't see any menu option which will explain this to me, so I try FAQ.
Based on the first question answered there, I still don't know what imVOX as
except that it's like Ventrilo and TeamSpeak. I don't know what those are
either, so I'm probably not your target audience.

I think you could be a lot better at telling a story, at guiding people like
me through your website in such a way that I leave thinking "wow, that is cool
-- but I don't need it", instead of what happens now, where I have no clue
what you're doing, will not be telling anyone about your service/product even
though I may have friends who would find it useful.

------
nixarn
Agree with most other guys here. What is it? I have no clue what this
program/service is and I'm not gonna download it and figure it out. Some
clarity on the front page is needed without doubt. I think the site looks cool
so I don't think a change of color is needed.

------
sztanpet
The client has a few but very important shortcomings like being unable to set
what to alert for via text-to-speech, also one cannot set the volume neither
of said text nor for anything else. The user-interface seems a bit off to me,
with that annoying background and other elements, but I'm a minimalist kind of
guy but I do find it usable. Also the feature to "mask" your voice is not at
all highly regarded by me, especially if it cannot be disabled globally on my
side as it is usually more annoying than funny. The website serves it's
purpose but yes, what the others said about instant clarity what the site is
about would help.

------
lssndrdn
The website probably needs a redesign for various reasons, but in the meantime
you should know that in IE7, the text in the features page is partially hidden
by the blocks on the right. It's a serious flaw that severely impairs the
respectability of your website (makes it look cheap).

------
ajcronk
I am skeptical of using products when it's not clear how they make money.

If you give everything away for free, when will it stop being free? When will
the bait and switch occur?

If everything truly is free, how long will you be around?

~~~
mattwdelong
They have a pro version, which costs money.

<http://imvox.com/download.php>

------
jswinghammer
The photo you chose for the home page gives the impression that this site is
for something other than what it is. I figured this was a music service of
some sort and then I realized it was for communications after reading more.

