sh0rt.net - url shortening service

[cwnt]

sh0rt.net

Hi,
I just finished the design and script for the site, and was wondering what you think of it. It looks best in Firefox, as IE has an error displaying the top of it, although it is both xHTML and CSS valid.
Any comments would be appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[antman]

Website Design Review
Site: Sh0rt.net
Domain: http://www.sh0rt.net/

All Ratings are out of 10...

Website Domain - 7
Appearance and Design - 9
Navigation and Accessibility - 7
Activity, Popularity and Marketing - 6
Originality - 6
Loading Times - 8
Quality of Content - 7
Features and Interactivity - 5
Visitor Rating - 6

Overall Rating - 7

Detailed Analysis

There have been many sites similar to yours lately, but most of them have been the not-so-good shortening of domains that you can't remember. Sh0rt is a great domain to use, so marketing it won't be too hard.

The most important thing you need to fix is the light colours and font. I can't read it! The font needs to be a lot bigger, and black font possibly.

As there isn't much to offer, as expected, you should see what similar sites have to offer. [http://no_url_shorteners]

Your website is still new with shortening links - is it possible to start the shortened urls at 100? [http://sh0rt.net/100] I've seen many sites like this start at a high number.

Lastly, you might want to find a more suitable logo for your website. Most importantly, you don't want someone to mistake your site as short.net, so advertise it as sh0rt.

And on a small note, get your site a favicon.

Good luck.

Review by Anthony Lieu. Your site was accessed on a ADSL T1 connection, on Mozilla Firefox with a screen resolution of 1280x1024. Thank you for allowing me to review your website design - I hope it was useful.

 

[cwnt]

Thank you very much for the extremely detailed review, Anthony.
I had second thoughts about the font colour, as I had thought that maybe some people would find it difficult to read. I'll fix that in a moment. I'll also try to add a Javascript button somewhere near the top of the site to enable visitors to change the text size themselves, if they are having difficulty reading it because of that.
I was also thinking about starting the URLs on 100, but I thought that I would leave it as it is for a while, and see how the site goes. If I let it be for now, the early users get the shortest URLs
Lastly I would like to thank you again for the review. It's obvious that you spent a lot of time writing it, and I really appreciate you spending that time doing something for me.
Thank you.

 

[antman]

Thanks Harry.

A Javascript button would be a great idea. Good luck with the changes.

I just thought of any suggestion >
On the page where it shows you the sh0rt URL, make it a one-click select box instead of highlighting the whole thing.

Good luck :tu:

 

[cwnt]

I was thinking about that whilst driving the other day. I thought I would add a box with the HTML code and BBcode to use the link, kind of like imageshack.us.
Thanks again Anthony

Edit: Added the Javascript text resizer and changed the font colour so that it is far easier to read. I've just got to fix the long link, as if the text is too large then it goes off the edge of the content area
What do you think of the new additions?
Thanks, once again.

 

[Coopey]

Hi again,
I think I mentioned in another thread that site looks good.
The only problems for me:
The +enlargetext link is in a small font- i.e. if you can read the button then there's no need to enlarge the text!
Using the enlarge function breaks the long URL out of the main content box which looks a little bit messy.

 

[cwnt]

The +enlargetext link is in a small font- i.e. if you can read the button then there's no need to enlarge the text!

That's a very good point - I never thought about that! I'll probably change the buttons into small images that will be easily recognisable soon.
Thanks for the reply. Rep added.

 

[genihanna]

About your site

I'm new to this - so bear with me - I think you have a great idea. As for the appearance - it looks faded to me and, not having the best eyesight in the world, it almost looks blurry. Wouldn't a more bold background be easier on the reader?

 

[cwnt]

Hmmm, it seems several people have had that problem. I'll probably buy another domain (two character one :D ) and setup another site providing a similar service, but with an easier to read layout
Thanks for all the replies. Rep added, genihanna.

 

[cwnt]

I just added a small advert to the site. Do you think it fits in alright with the rest of the layout?

 

[antman]

I just added a small advert to the site. Do you think it fits in alright with the rest of the layout?

I can't see them, but I can see bidvertiser loading. It does appear when I use a proxy though...

Maybe because I'm an Australian?

And yes, it suits right in

 

[cwnt]

I can't see them, but I can see bidvertiser loading. It does appear when I use a proxy though...

Maybe because I'm an Australian?

Strange. Might just be that they take hours to load Australian ads, or there aren't any in the current pool that are set to display for Australians. I'll have a look.

And yes, it suits right in

Thank you, glad to hear that

 

[Coopey]

I just added a small advert to the site. Do you think it fits in alright with the rest of the layout?

It fits in, but on my laptop the URL entry box is now right at the bottom of the screen- so increasing the text size pushes it out of view.

I'll probably buy another domain (two character one :D )

I got a .to for my site- downside is they're $50pa, upside is there's stll lots of short names free...

 

[cwnt]

I'm probably going to go for a .tc, .vg or .ms - I think they are $40 at iDotz.net and I have a list of all the available two character ones.
As for the box being pushed off - I may remove some of the text on the site. That should help prevent it on most resolutions.

 

[PsychoDude]

Instead of taking text off you could also widen it up a bit, most people will be using 1024x768 or higher anyways, making it wided up a bit be not that much of a difference but does enable some more text.

The long link I would give a somewhat more realistic looking link, someting like:
http://www.freesitehosting.com/free/yoursite

Looks a bit more natural than all those numbers.

I personally think it would also be better if you would switch around the order a bit; placing the shorter bar on top, followed by the ad, followed by the explenation text. After all the shortern bar is what you will be wanting to use most frequent, the text you'll just want to read once if you don't already get the idea.

 

[cwnt]

That's probably a good idea actually PsychoDude, I just designed it the other way around and never thought of that :D
I see what you mean with the link too. I'll probably end up changing that.