@BiskotakiPower I apologise for the slight wait for the completion of your review 🙂
First Impressions:
Upon entering your sites URL and clicking enter, you are presented with a very modern and informative homepage. Two large buttons allow you to instantly login to your account or to register for one, these are two important features which you have strategically placed to place emphasis on having an account at your site. Another feature I liked about your homepage was the tiers of information provided about multiple features of your site such as "Building Your Reputation" and "Share Instantly" These present some of the features of your site instantly to visitors without any looking around and makes it clear why users should join your site. Upon exploring some of your other pages however, I noticed a distinct lack of information however; For example your Explore page presents a search bar and nothing else. This keeps a basic appearance of the site and could be further expanded through some trending searches or newest content. Another example of this simple approach was your community page, which rather than presenting a forum or communal page, just displayed the amount of members you have. Again this could be improved through some further information. Overall the first impression a user gets, is varied between an informative and sleek homepage and other pages which don't really display very much content.
Average
Design Quality:
One of the first thing that strikes me about the design of the site is the lack of genre of what the site is actually about. From an initial glance as a guest looking at your site, you aren't to tell what the site is actually about and whether it is a website with a community/forum, a website or a social media platform. It is only once you register or view the description of the site, do you actually find out the genre. To me the front page is one of a website not a social media, for example, while emphasis is placed on signing up, the page doesn't mention facts about the Social Media, community, its members and instead just states features of the site which again can be tied to either a forum or a social media site. The page seems to be rushed in some places with the Join Us button in the footer being surrounded by a grey box not matching the colours of the site. Upon taking a look at the explore feature, I noticed as a guest it didn't work! Trying to search for things presented the page just reloading the explore page again and again and doesn't actually bring up any search results. I know many future employers like to look up job applicants on social media to see their personality, behaviour outside of a work environment etc. and this feature prevents this. Another use of a search bar on a social media site, is to allow people to look up friends or relatives to see if they have an account which may make them signup to collaborate with them; By disabling this search tool, essentially you are turning away some users for having a reason to actually signup to the site. Now in general, social media platforms take a very closed door approach to visitors and guests and generally to explore the community you have to be a user however with RapidSay you almost showcase the features but prevent a user seeing any content. For example you allow guests to visit the community page but all they see is a member count. Taking this teasing approach often does not work and actually put users off from joining as they see all of the features they have witnessed as dysfunctional and unhelpful. Overall, I feel that if you redesign the homepage for your guests and prevent access (or fix and address the issues with) to the additional features, it will portray your site better to guests and if fixed could offer further reasons to give users to signup.
Poor
Thing you liked best about forum: I liked the graphics and logo used by the site and feel they portray the site well and professionally.
Thing you liked least about forum: From a design perspective and guest view, the site looks broken and unprofessionally designed. For guests, little information is provided and broken features (like explore) are presented to them.
Overall Mark:
At the moment forums are inevitably dying and social media is a huge part of all of our lives, I know it is often one of the first things I check because I can collaborate and interact with my friends at any time, so you have certainly picked a very good niche for your site! RapidSay does have a huge potential to capitalise on the Social Media market and become extremely popular compared to Chatrooms, Forums and Discussion Sites such as reddit once you have improved the overall experience for your users and target your guests more appropriately, giving them reasons to signup and use your platform. I want to end on wishing you all the best of luck with your exciting new social media project and I truly believe that with a higher quality design and lots of promotion, RapidSay can truly become a success!
🙂
