Lemonoid
Review by Migi
First Impressions
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Lemonoid. That sounds interesting as a name of the website. I was wondering what kind of website I would encounter when I clicked on the link. It was fun to see a lemon is actually integrated somewhere inside the website, especially the header and the logo (including favicon). Honestly, though, I can't find the connection of using the word 'lemon' with this kind of website, but I still like it! The quirkiness matches the 'weird' content the website offers and it made a memorable feeling. The tagline also serves its job well to pique my curiosity: "News you didn't need!". I think it connects well with the content I see below the title. There are some great titles which made me clicked on them and what I found was generally worthy of my clicks. The lack of content variety is one point that makes me want to leave rather quick. Also because most of the topics are not familiar or not very interesting for me, due to my field of interest. The simplistic design helps visitors to focus on the content, though it will not hurt to have more colorful combinations.
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Good
Design Quality
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Lemonoid's design is very simple and therefore easy on the eyes. It works well with the type of website which allow visitors to focus on the content more without worrying about complicated details. There are not too many colors used but the combination works together. I feel it may be more beneficial for the theme to have more yellow around, especially given the title and icon used in the logo. For example, you can paint the home icon at navigation bar yellow. Or the search bar button. Those little details may be able to build a bigger overall impression about the humor of the website. The logo is simple and nice, straight to the point. It does feel rather empty with only title of the website; adding a tagline to it with smaller text size, customized font, and yet another lemon twists may add more awesomeness to the banner. There is this weird, empty gray space between the body of the page where the articles are and the black footer. Since it doesn't seem like the space is used for anything significant for the website, looks like it will be better to remove it. In return you can show more articles at a time or simply remove it to save visitors from scrolling down too much. The footer is also simple and straight to the find. I believe the back-to-top button will be more useful if placed at the middle. After all, it will be closer to the main content of the page where our cursor is usually located. You can also make the button accessible whenever the cursor scrolls for even easier access.
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Good
Site Statistics
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Lemonoid has only been around for 5 days, so I can understand that the statistics are not yet anywhere far. Since the website was made, there is a total of 30 posts made. I like the steady trend of daily posting, which is around 5-7 articles daily. Hopefully you can keep this up for a long time. It may not be necessary to post a lot of content on a day, but as long as there is a steady rate of articles being published, that usually serves well for the website in the long run, knowing that the website authors are actually interested in taking care of the page and not just as a sudden growth of adrenaline. No articles have received any comment and the view rate of the articles are also generally low. It is much understandable given the age of the website. Instead of comments, perhaps a like and dislike button will be more useful to see which kind of content visitors favor most since not everyone is diligent enough to write lots of words. It doesn't mean that comments are not important, though. I just feel that it should not be a standard in deciding on whether the website or article is popular given the nature of the website.
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Average
Staff Professionalism
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This is a rather tricky field to judge. The way Lemonoid is structured, there is no clear distinction on who makes which post. So I can only guess from the writing style in various articles and at some pages provided. I will talk about my concerns about the way the paragraphs are written in 'Grammar and Spelling' section below. From what I gathered, the overall professionalism is good. The website is well-designed and well-structured. Copyright and sources are properly linked/cited. There are minor grammatical mistakes or spelling errors in pages or articles, but they do not hinder the experience of browsing too much. This is something you definitely have to keep up under any circumstances.
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Average
Originality
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As written at Lemonoid's 'About' page, this website is about viral images and super special-interesting stories found anywhere around the internet. That, in its very basic definition, does not align with originality. I would like to praise the effort in re-writing the content in your own style, not simply copy-and-paste what has been posted out there into this website. This is an important asset and may even be one important selling point if visitors find the writing style fun and interesting.
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Average
Site Structure
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Being a website as simplistic as Lemonoid is, the structure is simple and fluid. Access is easy for the main content. By only showing 9 articles at once, it saves visitors from unnecessary scrolling if there is no interesting article visible in the first place. The top navigation bar also contains the most important links. The size is not too small or not too big, so I say that it is well placed there. I also say that it is good call to place social media panels only when a visitor views an article. It cleans up the index page from distracting details. Although you can still put buttons linking to Google+ or Twitter at the top navigation bar, for example, since there is still much space left. My main concern is the second navigation bar which contains the categories of Lemonoid's articles. There seems to be two kinds of problems: (1) there are categories with no posts yet inside it, and (2) the categories feel redundant. I can't quite comprehend why there are 'Technology' and 'Girls' categories there where there are no posts tagged such yet. 'Technology' is still a useful category, but 'Girls' feel out of place compared to the others. There is an article about Game of Thrones categorized as 'Funny' when it can be considered as part of entertainment. On the other side an article about basketball falls under both sports and funny. The last three categories in that bar are the most redundant ones because most posts have been categorized using the previous groups. I suggest to lessen the number of categories and pick only important ones. That will make the navigation simpler and easier for visitors to find the kind of content they are interested in.
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Average
Grammar & Spelling
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There are few concerns related to grammar and spelling. The first point is about the titles of the articles. The titles have been rather inconsistent in terms of using punctuations (question marks, exclamation marks, and dots), spaces, and capital letters. Some titles use them, some others don't. The titles are all sentences so it is ideal to have punctuations at the end. The 'About' page needs one more proofreading round for the missing spaces and capital letters problem. Next point is about general flow of the post.
In this article, the writing style feels like it's made in a rush. Let's try to compare it to
this article which looks more carefully crafted (although there are still minor problems with that post which can be overlooked). I understand that the website is intended for humor, therefore this section may not be as demanding as it will be for professional websites. However, I still think that to have a standardized and consistent format will at least show that the website is tidy and that the authors do not simply copy-and-paste content from other websites.
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Poor
Final Remarks
Lemonoid is a young and potential website. Some things have been done correctly, some things still need improvement. The fact shows that Lemonoid is growing and has the elements it needs to be an even better and bigger website. Hopefully by improving on content, design, and structure, Lemonoid can embark on greater journey into the world of internet. Good luck!
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