4 replies to this topic

[Little Asterisk]

I've already posted some of this in my introduction topic, but I thought it'd be good to repeat it here. I have just a couple advices for your site that you can accept or dismiss, however you want. Just don't shoot the messenger.

Firstly, I like your policy of free domains you sustain posting on these forums. Because people who are searching for free hosting will probably choose your site over some other hosting that has advertisements all over the place, and the ones looking for paid hosting will just go to your paid hosting. In that spirit, you could maybe try to add some feature so a user can check answers to their posts since last visit.

I understand there is a "View new posts" category, but it's not directly related to answers to user's topics/posts. And we can't really remember all topics where we posted all the time.

Also, maybe it would be useful to put the left sidebar at the bottom or accessible through a menu since I know it bothers me a bit that the forums aren't full-lenght throughout the site...

The last remark concerns your flash site, which doesn't really fit in the whole "knowledgesutra" picture. I think more people would be able to access your site if it were in HTML, and if the letters were a bit readable. Not all people can see that good and are that interested to research, some just want to see results right away...

And that's pretty much it, maybe you could categorise the topics in a little less subforums so more people would stumble upon content they're interested in...

Hope you implement my advices to the site!

[k_nitin_r]

Hi!

@Little Asterisk

I kinda like the flash-based website and do have concerns about search engines being able to index the contents of the website, but in terms of user experience, it's pretty cool. Flash often takes the text out of the Flash object and places it as a comment within the HTML while publishing the website, so I'm not really sure if it does help search engines find the content. I do notice a difference between the main website and the forums though, so it does make it apparent that they are two separate systems.

A user can access his or her own posts by visiting the profile - it's pretty much the same as for Twitter or Google Buzz, where you access a user's profile to find posts by him or her.

[Little Asterisk]

Hey, look! I can access my posts through my profile! (:jumping through the roof:)
Now, if they only implemented the ability to check answers since last visit, that'd be great (I understand you can enable mail notification, but that's simply not it...). Thanks, nitin!

About the site:
I like flash websites, too, but their site simply isn't "my thing", I dislike the loading period and the fact that space isn't used equally... I don't know, I like the Leo Burnett site, for example, much better, it has a more minimalistic design and much shorter loading period...

But I agree that their page isn't bad, it just needs some tweaking.

And, as far as site indexing goes, I think that Adobe has made an agreement with Google about Flash site indexing recently. However, I don't know much about it so I won't draw any conclusions just yet - I still think HTML sites have a much better ranking with search engines.

[rob86]

I'm very impressed with the flash intro, it looks great. I wish the forum was done to match the new style, with the colours and stuff. I am so sick of this plain blue and orange it's not even funny! The forum itself looks so generic and uninspired, and doesn't stand out at all. It's disappointing to go from the beautiful flash page to this drab place

[Little Asterisk]

Blast, I have been proven wrong...

Maybe it's my slow connection, but the Flash site needs some time to load. Well, if the majority (as it seems for now) agrees against me, then I suppose the site isn't so bad.