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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The Web Design Critique Thread
 
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slap me and kiss me
Apr 1, 2008

You best protect ya neck
Intro

I developed an online game that's essentially a free browser-based civilization. I would really like to boost conversion and retention. Right now my splash page scares over 80% of visitors away, and there's progressively less retention the deeper people get into the site.

Design Criteria
  • The initial pages should convince people to try it out, not scare potential players away
  • The game should feel exciting

Images

Splash page


Signup page


Interface


Changing settings


Links

http://www.afuriousengine.com

* # ¿ Apr 24, 2015 15:14
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# ¿ May 21, 2024 03:50
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slap me and kiss me
Apr 1, 2008

You best protect ya neck

The Dave posted:

So right off the bat, looking at your page for 5 seconds, it's extremely uninviting.

- Ditch the carousel, people are more likely to scroll and see all the images laid out throughout the page then sit then and cycle through.
- Reconfigure the copy. Your first bullet point about "Build an Empire" would be a fantastic intro headline + first paragraph. I think you should look into each of those bullet points representing a row of content with the images from the carousel.
- The nav is awful. All of the focus is drawn to your social icons, are they the most important thing you want a visitors to do? (No.) Also the top level bar with Home / Contact is just unnecessary
- Not sure any of those second lines of copy with the nav items is necessary.
- Stuff like "WWAAAAARRRRR" and "Play the game already" comes off as really amateur. I would avoid that tone.
- Contact page is all errors

That's just the first round of quick stuff.

That's really helpful, thank you! Would welcome second round (third, fifth, etc) of feedback as well.

* # ¿ Apr 24, 2015 15:31
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slap me and kiss me
Apr 1, 2008

You best protect ya neck

Lumpy posted:

Going to start with this one. Think about the humans who got here. How did they get here, and why did they come here? Likely there are two use cases:

1. Someone followed a link and wants to learn about the game
2. Someone who plays the game needs to log in.

Right now this page doesn't let #2 do this w/o extra clicks. Why isn't there a small login form at the top?

As for #1:

The carousel is awful. It's too busy, visually distracting, and offers little actual content. The copy is "meh".

The rest of the page looks like a bland phone company or marketing site or something. Does this page look fun? Nope. So I'm expecting a poorly designed, bland experience from your game. This is probably not what you want.

Grab me. Sell me your game in one sentence. One bigass sentence that tells me the essence of your game. Have an image, probably as a background the giant sentence sits on, that captures the "essence" of your game. It's probably not a screenshot, as your screenshots are not sexy (and that's Okay!). Do a gogole image search for "space battle". That's what you are selling: the idea of awesome epic battles.

If you grab me, I'll scroll down to read the minimal copy you have describing a bit more of what to expect when I sign up and a screenshot or two. I'll then fill out the signup form just under that. Don't make me work to sign up.

So three sections on that page: Grab me. Hook Me. Sign me up.

Great advice, thanks very much!

Lumpy posted:

Hire a designer!

Man, if only. This is just a hobby project with a budget of approximately $0, so hiring a designer isn't in the realm of the possible (if I'm going to exceed my budget, it's going to be on in-game art).

* # ¿ Apr 24, 2015 18:05
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slap me and kiss me
Apr 1, 2008

You best protect ya neck

Lumpy posted:

Some designers will work for free / cheap if they think your project is fun. Hell, I'll mock something up for you this weekend! (I like space games.)

That would be super cool of you! I've been really wary of posting for help, because a) I haven't had a tonne of luck working with contributors in the past, and b) rev-share and royalty posts are pretty bullshit, especially because I'm not planning on making any money on this at all.

I've been tinkering a bit, how is this?

slap me and kiss me fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Apr 24, 2015

* # ¿ Apr 24, 2015 18:26
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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The Web Design Critique Thread