Hi, just thought you'd be interested in hearing about my experience with eatdifferent.com. Please disregard this if it's unwelcome (sorry!) ... I figured website owners enjoy hearing first impressions, but this is kind of awkward. But on the off chance that it's useful:
Homepage: interesting concept. I like the clean design and the gigantic "start" button + "take a tour" option.
Next page: A little annoyed that I have to basically squint to see the alternative to Facebook signin. No, I don't want to join your social network.
Signup page: I'll admit, the number of fields to fill out gave me pause. I almost exited out. But I'll grudgingly give it a shot. (Specifically: you don't need my last name, it makes me feel like you want to sell my info. You don't need my location. You don't need my birthday, and the years starting with "1900, 1901, ..." makes me feel like you want to sell my info. You don't need my photo -- if I like your site, maybe I'll give one. But we just met. The lack of a "confirm password" box makes me slow down and carefully type my password, and makes me feel like closing the website. This is all happening in the span of about 3 seconds.)
Next page: Perfect; absolutely perfect. The defaults are spot-on, and the optional infotext (question mark buttons) is nice.
Next page: Hmm.... Reminders? I don't really want annoying reminders yet; I just want to see what your site is like. The lack of a 'skip this' button would make me close the site.
Next page: You want me to spam my friends. No... thanks.
Next page: We're at step 5. It's now gone from cute to annoying. No, I don't want to share my food logs with the world.
Done with the signup. Then you show me http://screencast.com/t/NXMzgOjjR50q ... it's not really clear what I should be doing next, or how it will benefit me. I think there's probably just too much raw text. Separately, each element is good -- "Prep your pantry", for example. And I like handy guides. But the sheer number of things I could be doing next makes me close the page and hope you don't spam me too much.
Apologies if this wasn't useful. I assume website owners like honest feedback, and understand that my viewpoint != the average person's. I have no idea whether your site is good or bad; I was just broadcasting my raw thoughtstream as I went. For example it might be a bad idea to cut the "invite friends" step, even if I am personally annoyed with it -- maybe it's valuable in practice. I don't know.
Homepage: interesting concept. I like the clean design and the gigantic "start" button + "take a tour" option.
Next page: A little annoyed that I have to basically squint to see the alternative to Facebook signin. No, I don't want to join your social network.
Signup page: I'll admit, the number of fields to fill out gave me pause. I almost exited out. But I'll grudgingly give it a shot. (Specifically: you don't need my last name, it makes me feel like you want to sell my info. You don't need my location. You don't need my birthday, and the years starting with "1900, 1901, ..." makes me feel like you want to sell my info. You don't need my photo -- if I like your site, maybe I'll give one. But we just met. The lack of a "confirm password" box makes me slow down and carefully type my password, and makes me feel like closing the website. This is all happening in the span of about 3 seconds.)
Next page: Perfect; absolutely perfect. The defaults are spot-on, and the optional infotext (question mark buttons) is nice.
Next page: Hmm.... Reminders? I don't really want annoying reminders yet; I just want to see what your site is like. The lack of a 'skip this' button would make me close the site.
Next page: You want me to spam my friends. No... thanks.
Next page: We're at step 5. It's now gone from cute to annoying. No, I don't want to share my food logs with the world.
Done with the signup. Then you show me http://screencast.com/t/NXMzgOjjR50q ... it's not really clear what I should be doing next, or how it will benefit me. I think there's probably just too much raw text. Separately, each element is good -- "Prep your pantry", for example. And I like handy guides. But the sheer number of things I could be doing next makes me close the page and hope you don't spam me too much.
Apologies if this wasn't useful. I assume website owners like honest feedback, and understand that my viewpoint != the average person's. I have no idea whether your site is good or bad; I was just broadcasting my raw thoughtstream as I went. For example it might be a bad idea to cut the "invite friends" step, even if I am personally annoyed with it -- maybe it's valuable in practice. I don't know.
Best of luck to you!