FetchHelp.com - job portal, custom design

[Stebes]

Hello all,

I've been working on this site for the past week or so, and I'm very pleased with the results. I'll review what I have done below, and any comments, criticisms, suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Also, if things don't appear to be displaying properly in your browser, let me know :D.

What is it?
The site, FetchHelp.com, is what I would call a mashup of craigslist and Monster.com. The site is a job portal organized like a classified-ad system, focusing solely on general-labor jobs. The site was produced using Drupal (an incredibly powerful content management system) version 5.x.

How it's organized:
Jobs are listed by location, by city and state. Users can browse either their state, their major city, or search their town/city and view a table of any available listings. Jobs are not categorized by type, (like you would find on a career search site), as any physically-able person should be able to apply for and fulfill most job positions.

Job Posting:
Posting a job simply requires that you login/signup. From there, if you select post a job, you fill out a form listing a title, description, location etc. The post is then filed in the correct location.

Job Applications:
Applying for jobs or responding to applicants is handled through a private messaging system within the site. Under each job listing, there is a Send Application link that brings you to a private message screen for that user. Anonymous users can send an application, but must include contact info (an email) if they expect to get a response. The site will alert you when you login and have a new message!

Forum:
This is where my css and basic layout all went to hell. I was unhappy with the default forum layouts within drupal, so I included a phpbb2 discussion forum. This is where I expect many browsers to mess it up :D.

Other:
Users can easily edit their profiles to add a few more personal details.
The forum profiles and private messaging system should link to the site-wide profiles and pm system ( I hope :P). I plan to complete a wider implementation of adsense at a later date. Most forms, messaging systems, and comments are protected from spam via a visual Captcha system... hopefully it works!

This is definitely my most complicated drupal site to date, but even at that, it wasn't too painful to create (a bit time consuming...). I'm pretty happy with the layout and functionality, but I would love some feedback.

Thanks,
Scott
FetchHelp.com

 

[kbweb]

It's a little pale but looks fairly good. The thing I dislike the most are the two buttons to the right. Either the words are too small or the buttons are too big. Also consider taking out the text shadow. Also the nav buttons are too light for the white text.

 

[Stebes]

thanks for the quick reply. The text-shadow on what, the logo or the buttons?

 

[kbweb]

thanks for the quick reply. The text-shadow on what, the logo or the buttons?

The text shadow on the two buttons to the right. It's not that bad, just see if it looks better without it. IMO, things like shadows, bevels, inner shadows, and the like should be used little, to make a clean, polished site.

 

[Stebes]

They'd definitely seem more like button and not pictures without it, I'll try it out.

Also, I definitely agree about the site being a bit bland. However, I'm trying to keep a light, neutral site design. I'll try out a few other colors for the buttons and perhaps the main block backgrounds.

Thanks,
Scott

 

[DotUSDomains]

very nice,
Do you have ajob listing on the site so we can see what the internal pages look like.

I like it,

Simple design straight to the point.

Good Job.

 

[Stebes]

There are currently 2 test listings under Alabama. This is how the table of listings for a given area looks. This is what an individual listing looks like.

thanks for the feedback so far... I just updated how the buttons look... not quite satisfied. Redoing them now.

 

[gjvblack]

Very Nice Theme, The logo is very nice and perfect, The style is good BUT, it needs a little more color or at least some pictures of something relevant to the site to make it alive, other than that, it is perfect and very nice theme.

 

[Stebes]

I updated the color scheme a bit... still not 100% satisfied, but it's slightly more appealing. I'll play with it some more later when I have more time.

 

[kbweb]

Yes, it looks better now. Keep tweaking it and you'll get it perfect. That's what I do. I could tweak my design 20 or more times before I get the look I want.

 

[Mike]

Looks great and well organized. The logo, while simplistic, gets the message across and the tag line is quite a match as well.
One thing that i'd change is the selection between Jobs by State and Jobs by major city - i'd convert both into a drop down window, it clean up the site and should get it next to a "no scroll" site - that would be near perfect.

Otherwise, if you leave it as is, an indicator/counter next to each state or city, displaying how many jobs there are would be great. it avoids that users get frustrated digging into a state or city that doesn't have any listings.

M.

 

[Stebes]

Mike,

Thanks for the feedback! The plan is to get the site populated enough where there are plenty of listings under every location :D... for the time being, I'll have to see if there's anyway I can implement a counter. As for the dropdown... I considered doing this. I came to the conclusion that it might be quicker to scroll and pick the term out of an open list than to scroll through a drop down menu. With the cities, it also allows the user to quickly see what options are available. Perhaps a drop down would be quicker? Anyone else have thoughts on this? Maybe I could put a link above/below the drop down that takes you to a complete list, as it is displayed now?

Thanks again,
Scott

 

[silveraden]

First, I would like to say it's a great site. I can oversee the success if properly optimized.

I think it would be more attractive if you darken the text colors of states... just a little more darker.

 

[Stebes]

I agree, darkened them a bit. I'm working on a drop down selection list. I'll see how that looks in a bit.