Criticism on website design please

[cyrex]

K guys, as some of you know I'm working on a web app to track 4 main things:
Diet/Food comsumption
Training (weight, cardio, sports, whatever)
Supplementation (um . . . creatine... yeah creatine and glutamine . . . )
Measurements (weight, bf%, caliper measurements, tape measurements, etc)

similar to fitday.com


anyways I had one of my designers do a few designs for me and this one was the only one I liked...
Design 1
But I still don't really like it too much. Anyone have specific suggestions? Don't worry about the text it's just junk tossed in to show what could go in there.

I'm working on the interface now and will probably have it up for testing in a week or two..

BTW this is totally free done on my dime as well as hosting so i'm getting absolutely nothing out of this other than a project in my free time. Rather than wasting my companies billable hours I'm gonna do the rest of the designing myself so I need some suggestions.

 

[digger]

I'd be real curious to see the HTML / CSS your designer is using to produce that layout. If it's all just a graphics program mockup, screw that noise. If he can do it in a browser, sweet.

 

[Castro_bigdog]

You need Flash ...............

 

[cyrex]

I'd be real curious to see the HTML / CSS your designer is using to produce that layout. If it's all just a graphics program mockup, screw that noise. If he can do it in a browser, sweet.

hehe Of course I can stick this in a browser. I had him do the design in Photoshop. I'm gonna slice it myself and write some proper XHTML with CSS to control the layout

 

[cyrex]

and there will be flash charts and graphs.

 

[cyrex]

I was kinda hoping for some constructive criticism such as:

"I don't like the logo cause the K looks gay"
or something like that

 

[vin01]

I wasn't going to say anything until you made me intrigued..

What's with the "K"??

 

[cyrex]

Not sure. I'm gonna post the other 3 logo concepts he did for me. I personally did not like this logo at all but my wife does... so I figured i'd toss it up here and see what the masses think...

I guess it's just a styalized logo..

I was quite impressed that the designer (outsourced to India) understood the concept of the site pretty well with the vague description I gave my coworker (main designer that manages our Indian designers).

 

[cyrex]

bump

 

[chewyxrage]

yeah the K needs to change, wierd.

also, that dude curling a 5 pound dumbell? why? not realistic

other than that I like it

 

[cyrex]

yeah the K needs to change, wierd.

also, that dude curling a 5 pound dumbell? why? not realistic

other than that I like it

Yeah. I'm looking for some better stock photography. There is a guy at my gym that is a fitness model and is just about to do a shoot for MuscleTech to be their new guy for the next few years I guess. I was gonna see if he might be interested in letting me take a few shots in the gym.

BTW this is iteration 2 which has images 10x better than the first one.

 

[fbodyguy02]

yeah the K needs to change, wierd.

also, that dude curling a 5 pound dumbell? why? not realistic

other than that I like it

I disagree. The "K" in the logo is what identifies the name/website. I like it.

 

[cyrex]

hmm so another person likes it . . .
I need to post up the other 2 logo concepts to see if ya'll like one of them better

 

[cyrex]

Thoughts?

 

[cyrex]

bump

 

[chewyxrage]

Thoughts?

number 3 jumps out at me

sleek

and that stick design of two people gives it a nice look

the yellow matching the dumbells right next to it looks good

 

[cyrex]

that image of the pissed off chick with the dumbells is gone but yeah I liked that one myself.. I'm thinking of maybe taking #2 and #3 and combining the ideas somehow . . .

 

[preemo]

#3 i like the best

 

[digger]

Use motion to draw the eye toward the things you want people to look at. Why is the stick figure in logo #2 running toward the left? It makes it looks like he's trying to escape.

 

[ironbabe]

*All the pics are a bit too similar. All waist up and mostly the same size. You need some variety and probably less over all pictures. Also the placing of the pictures needs to make sense in the over all layout, not just the layout of each text box.

*When you first get to the page there is not one specific point that draws you in. Your eyes just jump randomly about.

*Also, don't put the average fitness guy next to the buff guy. It just makes you think about the shocking comparison between the two leaving no room to think about your product. If you ditch the semi buff guy, the built one will become a focal point.

*Add something with color/weight at the bottom to even out the color "heavy" top.



Hope this helps. Web design is what I do.

 

[the-short-one]

i like the font in #3. easy to read. not crazy about the little logo with it. i like the blue background. very nice.

 

[cyrex]

Use motion to draw the eye toward the things you want people to look at. Why is the stick figure in logo #2 running toward the left? It makes it looks like he's trying to escape.

my thoughts exactly (remember I didn't design these, this is just what my designer created for me for concepts and I'm gonna take it from here. I was thinking of incorporating that running due (pointing right) along with logo 3 maybe or playing with that idea.

 

[cyrex]

*All the pics are a bit too similar. All waist up and mostly the same size. You need some variety and probably less over all pictures. Also the placing of the pictures needs to make sense in the over all layout, not just the layout of each text box.

*When you first get to the page there is not one specific point that draws you in. Your eyes just jump randomly about.

*Also, don't put the average fitness guy next to the buff guy. It just makes you think about the shocking comparison between the two leaving no room to think about your product. If you ditch the semi buff guy, the built one will become a focal point.

*Add something with color/weight at the bottom to even out the color "heavy" top.



Hope this helps. Web design is what I do.

Great suggestions!
I'll take many of these into consideration.

Also note that this is just the front page as far as 95% of the rest of the thing its a web app so it'll mostly just be forms, charts, graphs, whatever the user puts in their journal, etc. I'll be using a similar color scheme and similar header but that's about it.

 

[jafo]

I say steal the concept that EF has ...wait that was meant to be a PM



if where me I would stick to the more modern logo types ...just due to the fact that people in general associate them with state of the art or cutting edge ...




if you use our ideas ...that means we get free access RIGHT

 

[cyrex]

hehe everyone will have free access i'm not doing it to make money. If I get so much traffic that I can't afford the hosting I may consider selling stuff on it like fat calipers or use a magazine sales affiliate for fitness magazines or something but I don't see that happening for a few years if at all. This is 100% a personal pet project. I'll be hoping to get constructive criticism from users and implement any requests that seem usefull as they come in.

 

[cyrex]

BTW my main competition is http://www.fitday.com/
This site is functional but definitely not geared toward the bodybuilding crowd as much as I'm going for and is lacking a NUMBER of things that I'm planning on implementing

 

[jafo]

BTW my main competition is http://www.fitday.com/
This site is functional but definitely not geared toward the bodybuilding crowd as much as I'm going for and is lacking a NUMBER of things that I'm planning on implementing

I have seen this web site ...didnt care for it to much


I would KISS the whole idea (Keep It Simple Stupid)

 

[vansmack2000]

your alert box is broken bro
also setup a free version of webtrends on it. get some good tracking data

 

[cyrex]

your alert box is broken bro
also setup a free version of webtrends on it. get some good tracking data

ahh thanks hehe
I have all the tracking I need. I do web applications for a living Not just some script kidding playing around for the first time.. Thanks for the headsup on the alert hehe. I didn't bother checking it. I just tossed it up quick to replace the host's default page.