Feedback greatly appreciated of my muse website!

[kamakiri]

Okay. I am fresh off watching Seth Godin rant about broken stuff, so you get the full benefit of my attention to detail where broken shit is concerned. Sit down, take a drink, and mentally prepare before reading.


First off: Go back to the drawing board, your executive summary, or business plan and re-read/study who your target market is. My assumption is that you are targeting photographers (I know, huge leap in logic there, right?). Well, what impresses these guys? A pic of the top of a palm tree? NO, one pic of palm trees isn't going to do it, and 3 pics of the same two palm trees stuck together certainly isn't going to do it! Especially with no blending there, it looks amateur. You know you aren't a pro, but they don't have to.

2. Look at all the white space. Either go all white and minimalist, or find some nice photography. Look at the question marks. There is no reason you can't have a cool image at 50% opacity. Something that tactfully fills the white space without taking away from the page.

3. Get rid of that line at the top. From here, I can see two buttons that do the same thing, and 4 meaningless links. I mean really, you have ONE product. Who in their right mind would buy a gift certificate? So they could buy it, give it to the recipient, then the recipient could use it to order your product? BROKEN! If someone wanted to give this as a present, they would buy it and gift it.

4. Press Releases are great at getting press. For a top page? Not so much. Make a PR page, and put this overly verbose stuff there. I shouldn't have to scroll past the fold anyway, but making me do it to read a press release that isn't even related to the purpose of the site is broken. (If you are wondering what I mean about the purpose of the site, I mean its purpose is to sell your product, not educate people that it is a product).

5. If you are going to post camera porn, then post camera porn. The aspect ratio of the lens on the loft looks screwed up. Photographers are interested in cool stuff, but you aren't selling cool stuff. Post some before and after pics. "I used to take pictures like this, now every shot is like this!"

6. Move that navi bar from the middle of the page to the bottom. When you get rid of the PR, it will sit at the bottom of the screen nicely. Also, what does interviewees mean? People who bought your product who you bugged about to make a story about your stuff? Nope, but the meaning is not clear. Why not just say what you mean: People who are in this book, or people we talked to, or contributors, or something that more clearly describes what I will see when I click the link.

7. That shop button is also broken. I see 2012 HD Camera then $67.00. What is a camera companion? Call it a book. People aren't fooled when you call an ebook a technical reference (grammatically, that doesn't even work).

8. Finally, an updated pic:

[jackson]

Kamakiri I sincerely THANK you for taking your time to make all these suggestions and look at my site. I'll go through and digest all this, thank you.

It's not a book, but is a CD, so from the webpage it's clear that people don't even know it's a CD! Thanks for bringing this up.

I have dozens and dozens of pictures or could put them as a collage, or a panoramic image across the top, and you're right, I need to fill in the white space and change the geography. It seems hard actually to figure out where on the page images will go within the layout.

It is hard to figure out if the top of the page needs an image of the CD (my product), people would go right to the home page and see this right away? Someone else made that suggestion to, to have the CD right there on the front page. Something like this? Here's a crude version, it wouldn't be this boring font.

http://tinypic.com/r/2aiyd3/6

Film people like adventure, and exotic places... I thought the top images would be more like mood setting. I have dozens of pictures of cameras and cinematographers. I thought the palms just looked cool. The tiled pictures were just as a placeholder until I could find the right photo in a panoramic size.

thanks again!

[kamakiri]

Strange. I checked Seth Godins blog post again (the one I linked to), and it worked fine. Google Seth Godin and read his shirt blog post from today titled 'This is (still) broken'. Then go here and read that lens. Then watch this movie.

You know, I have actually read most of your site, and didn't have a clue you were selling a CD. That is a huge sign. You pretty much want someone to know what you are selling in about 3 seconds of your page loading.

It sounds like you are on the right track. In this process, you need to find people who will tell you what you are doing wrong. The vast majority of people will pretend and give complements, but the reality is that that kind of plastic praise gets you nowhere.

Every time someone tears your stuff apart, it is the process of getting up and doing it again that will make your muse a success. Just look at Tim's first muse. All it got him was a box of tapes he couldn't sell that his mom finally threw away. If someone had told him how bad his stuff actually was, he might have tossed the idea (saving money in the process) or he might have re-designed it into a sell-able product.

I like the new idea, but if you are a photographer, then put up some cool work of yours. Put that CD on a new page that you go to from a bright red or orange BUY NOW button in the upper right hand corner.

[jackson]

Thanks so much Kamakiri.

[kamakiri]

Got another update?

[jackson]

Not right today. I wish.
Thank you.

[kamakiri]

Get to work!