Name of Site: Ampersand Site Genre: Social Media Site URL:https://rubyrails.herokuapp.com Type of Review (Full/Quick/Questionnaire): Full would be very helpful! 🙂 Opening Date: August of 2012 Additional Notes: This is designed from scratch in the Ruby programming language. See commits here. It offers everything from user profiles to blogs and even feeds for followed users and friends including secure private messaging (recently added)!
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Site Layout
Your site is very easy to navigate, which is a good thing. Nothing annoys me more than not being able to find my way around a site, whether it be a forum, blog or website. You can probably call it a pet peeve of mine because I find it incredibly frustrating. As your site grows and you add more, make sure that is always something you keep in mind. Not because it bothers me, it's just there are lots of other people that will get frustrated and give up if they can figure out how to get around your site.
Weaknesses:
First Impression & Appearance
When I am directed to the main page of your site, I only get the title of your site and the option to join. There isn't really much to your site, at first glance at least, and that kind of bothers me. There isn't really anything there giving me much information about "Ampersand" or what the site has to offer. It isn't until I click on the 'about' button in the navigation bar at the top that I start to get a little bit of info about "Ampersand". I would like to see a little more added to the 'home' page when you are first directed to the site. Add a little more graphics to the main page to help show off your site rather than just having this big open white page full of open space. Adding that along with more information about your site will help it out tremendously. Also, I noticed that when I went to your 'about me' page and to your blogs, I noticed that the background for both of those pages were the same as the main page. I think you could make a better background or have a background made for them, one that wouldn't take away from the point of your site but add something to it.
Statistics & Activity
You've got quite a few blogs on your site already and several of them are gaining comments already. That's a good start and you want to keep that going. You can help keep that going by writing some blogs yourself and also showing interest in the blogs that other people write. If you are interested then that will make your members what to write more if they think others are enjoying them. You can also have a few friends write a few blogs on your site as well. Then you will do the same thing and show interest/add comments to their blogs. By doing so, it will make your site appear more active. Increasing activity will show guests who view your site for the first time that you actually have a nice site (or give the appearance that you have a nice site).
Final Remarks:
I like your site, I really do. I found some of the articles to be very good. Making some minor touch ups here and there could really go a long way to help your site grow. Don't get frustrated and give up. All your hard work will pay off in the end.
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