Quick Review for Tune Junkies

[Red Herring]

Name of Site: Tune Junkies
Site Genre: Music
Site URL: http://tunejunkies.net/index.php
Type of Review (Full/Quick/Questionnaire): Quick
Opening Date: A few months ago.
Additional Notes: I look forward to your review.

 

[Zezima]

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[Zezima]

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Tune Junkies
Quick Review by Zezima​

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Analysis:

Strengths:

1. Logo & Theme
   The first thing that strikes me is that the logo is very well done and presented; it has an air of professionalism about it and it conveys the purpose and subject of the site aptly without being too bare or too gaudy. A good, well balanced branding. You could model the whole site's design around it alone.
   
   Additionally, the theme overall is rather pleasing to the eye. The shades of light grays and various hues of blues play off each other rather admirably, and it does keep in line and in coordination with the color scheme used in the logo.
   
   
2. Posts
   The way the posts are formatted are rather pleasing. Good choice in color, font, and nothing wholly objectionable to speak of. All the functionalities are intact and unobstructed, and everything's fairly clearly laid out, allowing for an approachable, straightforward interface.

Weaknesses:

1. Lack of design capitalization
   To clarify, I do think the design, as it is, is still decent. But I think there's plenty of untapped potential here, and that's always disheartening to see. You seem to be running off of rather vanilla, or lightly modified MyBB software, which, although nothing wrong in of itself, doesn't give yourself much opportunity to stand out against competing sites. MyBB is a popular platform, and the worst thing you can do to hurt your site's chances isn't to leave a bad impression (after all, it may be so bad that they have to tell others about it, leading to further exposure), it's being so that there isn't much to say to begin with. You never want to blend in. Even if you're in-confident in a proposed design direction, the worst that can happen is that people take issue with it and you'll find ways to improve it.
   
   From what I can see, there's a lot of default assets floating around, and that's not something you want to see. Personalize. Customize. Make it something no one's ever seen before. As I said, you could design the whole site around the logo alone, and that's exactly what I suggest. It's so well done, it'd be a shame to let that be the extent of its influence. The buttons, for instance. New topic, new reply, quote, find, et cetera, they could all do with creativity. It wouldn't even have to be anything fancy, just finding a font that suits you, giving it a transparent background, and adding some relevant and suitable iconography. For example, new topic could be written in the same font that the taglines in the banner are, and it could be accompanied by a bass cleft. The quote button could be a quarter note ("♪ Quote"), the forum icons indicating new posts could be a half note in one color becoming a quarter note in another; filling the empty space while also representing the site's content.
   
   Don't be content with what you have; always strive for improvement.
   
   
2. Minor design errata
   While the majority of the site seems to serve its functions well enough, not everything is as it should be, ideally. From a legibility standpoint, the headers in the statistics box (who's online, et alii) aren't in a high enough contrast of color compared to the background, causing difficulty in reading. Same for the post numbers and timestamps in the posts themselves. And, it may be because I'm unregistered, but the orange arrows meant to redirect you to the last post of a topic don't seem to be clickable, which shouldn't be the case. And, this may be nitpicking, but the icons for category collapse and expand are oddly outlined and I couldn't recognize what they were for a moment there.
   
   But all these are labeled minor for a reason. It's just the little details that add up. It's still, on the whole, good.

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Final Remarks:
While inoffensive and generally appealing, "generally" shouldn't be a descriptor of a site with a specific and clearly defined purpose and subject. Find more ways to exercise your imagination and have your site stand out from the crowd while maintaining the amiable, minimalist atmosphere you have. Take what's already good, and make it great.

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[Deleted member 7467]

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