Is it a Bitcoin web developer's goal to create ugly website?

[turlando]

What do you think about this?

[1714144723]

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[Timo Y]

Let's see your site then?

You can see my portfolio.

http://bit.ly/kBsL7I

No offense, but your web design looks sooooo 2000's.

[bcearl]

Google shows how websites should look like:

- White background
- Mostly text
- Colors and images where it actually makes sense


Blockexplorer is best.
Bitcoincharts is worst I remember.

[Chick]

Seriously, there are a few that look decent, but the rest is all crap. We're in 2011, what you guys have was 14 years ago.

The average surfer wants simplicity so they can get what they want fast and easy. They have the attention span of a toddler and want instant gratification.

The most popular website in the world is a white background with a search form and a couple links (google).

Web developers and graphic artists who havent got a clue will complain about simplicity and "ungliness" because those sites that are so popular, probably to pump themselves up and to feel better about not being as successful as those simple ugly websites.

I am a member of a trade org bullien board that has been the same since 1996. No changes to the front end, although backend security has been updated frequently. Its still more popular than the thousands that have been put online since combined. Make much more money from the advertising as well. Its simple, easy to use, lightening fast, and you get your information fast. No clutter. Just nuts and bolts.

Geeks spend a large portion of their time online, so they can appreciate the time and effort someone puts into a fancy site. But geeks are a very small fraction of internet users. Your average surfer doesnt appreciate it. In fact the more fancy and cluttered it is the harder it is to find stuff.

Web designers do not complain about "simplicity". I have no idea where you're getting your sources from, but this is entirely incorrect. It is the complete opposite.

What would our goal be if we went for the complete opposite of what the public wants? Why would we even be here in the first place? We're here because we get business, and surely, we get business because the average 'joe' doesn't have the skills of an average web designer to get what he wants.

And I sure hope you have your terminology in place because a graphic artist != web designer. A web designer takes everything into account from the user experience to the simplicity and beauty of the website. A graphic artist does not. He draws beautiful ponies stealing your Bitcoins.

The front of Google is beautiful. Excellent color selection in the logo and simplistic navigation. This is EXACTLY what web designers strive for. And I sure fucking hope you don't think the front of that was designed by an average 'web developer', because there is more than what meets your eye. Everything from the color of the 2 buttons to the placement of the links were carefully planned to give a soothing user experience.

This was not a day's work, yet alone a week's. I'm sure they did tons of A/B testing with a random selection of users to better understand what the users want.

Sure, of course you can replicate what they have there in a matter of minutes, because it's already there. No need for you to wireframe anything, because it's done for you.

Web developers simply need to 'learn' some modern web design skills. And please, get rid of the horrific color placement. That bothers me the most.


Oh, and craiglist is not dying because of the "lack of colors". It is dying because people simply do not want to see "reposts" every Single. Fucking. Day. There is an article somewhere, but I'm too lazy to find it.

[Chick]

Let's see your site then?

You can see my portfolio.

http://bit.ly/kBsL7I

No offense, but your web design looks sooooo 2000's.

I believe you are talking about the color selection I chose. Classy.

[hamdi]

i love simple websites,
no js
no css
no bs

way to go!!!

[Chick]

What do you think about this?

If I were to be a critique right now, you could probably make the headers a bit smaller, so they're not the size of the logo.

Maybe put a lighter color in the body area and keep the grey of the header.

Make the input boxes fit the parent box. Or make the parent box a fieldset element (if it isn't already) and add in a legend element instead of a header.

And more margin-bottom on the paragraphs.

Add in some text under the login box to cover up the whitespace.

Add in labels for the input boxes or use placeholders (HTML5 placeholders would be nice with a JS fallback).

Looks great.

Also, I wouldn't reveal your age, it loses trust in potential customers and visitors.

[Jessy Kang]

Google shows how websites should look like:

- White background
- Mostly text
- Colors and images where it actually makes sense

No, Google shows what Google's website should look like. They have done tens of thousands of hours of multi-variant testing to get to those colors and that layout. Other sites, offering different products and services if they do the same multi-varient testing will not end up with the same design. that is why every site on the web does not now look like Google.

It is the process Google uses that should be emulated- not the end result. Because that result will depend on your audience and content.

http://ompldr.org/tOTV0MQ
What do you think about this?

You're off to a great start. There are two basic parts to that page, the design, and the text pitch. The design, you are going to want to do multi-variant testing on. So sign up for Google Analytics and do a split campaign with a few different color backgrounds and text colors. You probably won't have enough signups to do conversion (goal) tracking so what you are going to look at is "Average Time on Site". You'll want to keep the design with the longest time on site- that means they are taking the time to read your text pitch.

Once you have settled on a color scheme that seems to do well, you need to look at your text- or Copy. You need to think like your audience, if you were a miner, coming to this site- what would make YOU sign up? I think it's great that you are doing this at 14- but is that going to scare away some potential sign ups? You can even do multi-variant testing with a few text pitches- just like you did the color scheme, and keep the one that converts (gets the most sign ups) best. The most successful website owners are constantly testing new variations, and trying to tweak their sites for slightly higher conversion ratios.

Good luck!

[turlando]

If I were to be a critique right now, you could probably make the headers a bit smaller, so they're not the size of the logo.

Smaller in height?

Maybe put a lighter color in the body area and keep the grey of the header.

I'll try it immediately.

Make the input boxes fit the parent box. Or make the parent box a fieldset element (if it isn't already) and add in a legend element instead of a header.

I have not understood this very well. The "box" is a fieldset with no legend. Do you think it's better to put a legend also in the sidebar as in the login page? Maybe, I could increase the legend font size...

And more margin-bottom on the paragraphs.

Yep, I know

Add in some text under the login box to cover up the whitespace.

Yep, there will be the hashrate, round shares number and so on.

Add in labels for the input boxes or use placeholders (HTML5 placeholders would be nice with a JS fallback).

I'll add this right now.

Looks great.

Thanks a lot

Also, I wouldn't reveal your age, it loses trust in potential customers and visitors.

Maybe customers shouldn't really trust us
Ok, I'll change this.

You're off to a great start. There are two basic parts to that page, the design, and the text pitch. The design, you are going to want to do multi-variant testing on. So sign up for Google Analytics and do a split campaign with a few different color backgrounds and text colors. You probably won't have enough signups to do conversion (goal) tracking so what you are going to look at is "Average Time on Site". You'll want to keep the design with the longest time on site- that means they are taking the time to read your text pitch.

I'll try to do that.

Once you have settled on a color scheme that seems to do well, you need to look at your text- or Copy. You need to think like your audience, if you were a miner, coming to this site- what would make YOU sign up? I think it's great that you are doing this at 14- but is that going to scare away some potential sign ups? You can even do multi-variant testing with a few text pitches- just like you did the color scheme, and keep the one that converts (gets the most sign ups) best. The most successful website owners are constantly testing new variations, and trying to tweak their sites for slightly higher conversion ratios.
Good luck!

Right, maybe I'll put "super experienced people working in ibm running aix servers with oracle databases and assembly through cgi code" instead of "14 years old" 
However, I'll change the "welcome text" with something better.



Really thanks to both
If someone wants to continue helping me with my project, you can contact me via PM or mail.
P.S.: @Chick, are you @andrew_tian on Twitter?

[d.james]

mtgox had a very nice and professional looking website (when it was up)
I mean, it had colors and everything, also came with matching buy/sell sections.

How many of you accidentally sold coins when you're buying because they all look the same?

[FlipPro]

The goal is simplicity, and breath taking design. It can be done...

groupon did a really good job at this.

[killer2021]

Simplicity and a clean design is best. Facebook and google have proved that.

[FlipPro]

Simplicity and a clean design is best. Facebook and google have proved that.

Lets be honest and completely fair here. Google is a search engine, I keep hearing people bring it up like it's a website when in reality it's more like a tool. It would be retarded if it were anymore than what it is. Now I will get 1000 posts from you guys talking about how Yahoo and MSN have cluttered search pages. Well they only started adding content when they saw Google destroying them in the search engine rankings. Those sites all started off pretty simple as well.. And now you see Microsoft trying to move MSN and it's search into different sites e.g."bing.com" just so they can go for the simplicity factor, and be compete with Google. It's nut's where the industry has gone, considering thanose old ugly tiled backgrounds over crappy css and html that we used to see in every other website. The computer world has gotten so much better at computers as a hole and as a consequence quality is the new standard. People expect a fast product, that is reliable, and that isn't completely disappointing to the eyes (Orange and Red Layouts)

[Jessy Kang]

Simplicity and a clean design is best. Facebook and google have proved that.

Design values are far from universal. Most people when they say "The Web" means "The English Web"- when that is only 42% and dropping quickly.

Chinese and Japanese surfers prefer a much flatter site structure, instead of clicking to drill down sub-page after sub-page they like for the index page to serve as something akin to an index in a book. It looks pretty huge and cluttered to a Western eye, but our print graphic design is often similar.

For the Chinese, this is the high conversion equivalent of Google's English-centric design:

http://www.qq.com/
http://www.sohu.com/
http://www.163.com/
http://www.tudou.com/
http://www.youku.com/

Japan:
http://www.livedoor.com/

Etc.

[Bind]

Simplicity and a clean design is best. Facebook and google have proved that.

Lets be honest and completely fair here. Google is a search engine, I keep hearing people bring it up like it's a website when in reality it's more like a tool. It would be retarded if it were anymore than what it is.

Google is a portal to all of their services.

The search is the most predominant because thats what makes them the most money.

Its efficient, clean, and simple because thats what people want.

I absolutely hate pages with 1000 times the crap that I dont need to see or find.

If I need google Analytics, its therer.

If i need Google Earth, its there.

If I need Google Sites, its there.

If I Need Google Code, its there.

If I need Google Voice, its there.

... Images? ... Maps? ... Videos? ... News ... Shopping? ... Gmail? ...

... Translate? ... Books? ... Finance? ... Scholar? ... YouTube? ... Calandar? ...

... Photos? ... Realtime?... Docs? ... Reader? ... Groups? ...

and a TON more all from the simple, clean, and efficient Google portal.

Come on ... Just a Search Engine ?

hardly.

[tiberiandusk]

I tried to make BitBid.net as clean and simple as possible. I'll use a lot more animated Gifs and Silverlight next time. 

[FlipPro]

Simplicity and a clean design is best. Facebook and google have proved that.

Design values are far from universal. Most people when they say "The Web" means "The English Web"- when that is only 42% and dropping quickly.

Chinese and Japanese surfers prefer a much flatter site structure, instead of clicking to drill down sub-page after sub-page they like for the index page to serve as something akin to an index in a book. It looks pretty huge and cluttered to a Western eye, but our print graphic design is often similar.

For the Chinese, this is the high conversion equivalent of Google's English-centric design:

http://www.qq.com/
http://www.sohu.com/
http://www.163.com/
http://www.tudou.com/
http://www.youku.com/

Japan:
http://www.livedoor.com/

Etc.

Wow it's really funny looking at their sites. They don't look that advanced or intimidating at all..

[speeder]

The fact you can write huge texts with 4 asian characters help a lot...

[Jessy Kang]

I tried to make BitBid.net as clean and simple as possible. I'll use a lot more animated Gifs and Silverlight next time. 

Looks good. Menus on the top or left tend to convert higher.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

[goodlord666]

http://wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=3&music=3&url=forum.bitcoin.org

Bullseye! That page design has EVERYTHING!
Love that "Campaign against frames"-button. Oh the old days...