Hi all,

I am having difficulty working out how usable my website is. I have sat down with a few people and watched them use it with some constructive feedback.

So now I am after some constructive feedback from a wider audience, if you have a spare minute to have a look and don't mind being brutally honest in giving some feedback I would be greatly appreciative.

The website is http://www.elisle.com.
Its is a front-end to a few simple 'engines' that will soon have an API. There is an engine for asking and answering questions, another for statements (for debating) and another for general discussion.

So for http://www.elisle.com:

What I want to know is:
- Is the website easy to navigate and use?
- Is what to do apparent to the user?
- What needs to be fixed?

Also, does anyone have any ideas or good practices for assessing website usability?

Kind Regards,
Adam

(Note that my website has no advertising, and all passwords are hashed and salted).

I like the idea for the website. I like how the inner pages look. Is it custom-written or built on some software?

The navigation is straightforward and intuitive.

I dont like the front page at all. It has a different look and feel from the rest of the site. The above the fold space is wasted IMO. Maybe you could put what is in the left vertical sidebar horizontally at the top of the front page where the waste of space welcome is.

The right column on the front page (with all the questions) is dull and boring. Please change the red, blue, green to some cool and sexier colors. Also, maybe you could make the entire hover area of a question clickable and not just the "play" button.

Keep SEO in mind for the website. I notice most of your pages use HTTP GET parameters to send data which is not very search engine friendly. So:

http://www.elisle.com/?site=question&qu ... 5347a7f632

Could become:

http://www.elisle.com/question/what-cou ... ove-elisle

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+1 for friendly URLs. They're currently just plain ugly.

On my mobile browser, the site is relatively good; I have to scroll to the right to get to the "meat", although that's not too bad. It does underscore the need for making each item more clickable, though.

There is no alternate text for the play-button links; so, I can't use them with a text-only browser. (See above)

When I look at a discussion post, it's not obvious how to reply. (The little + next to the Google +1 button produces a drop-down where "Reply" is an option; this brings up a box wanting me to create an account, which I didn't feel like doing.)

It might be worthwhile to consider supporting OpenID.

One thing is certain: it feels fast. Props.

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Thanks for the couple of replies. Its always good to get feedback from people outside your circle.

To Nehalem:
All I have used is PHP along with jQuery and 'Bootstrap From Twitter'.
I agree the front-page has been going through almost constant changes to find how it can fit with the rest of the site. Another redesign is probably needed.
I never originally intended the URLs to be that ugly . Thats something in the pipeline that won't be too much work.
Anyways, thanks for the feedback. Any other suggestions, please let me know.

To Hoopycat:
As for the play-button links... I will overhaul that area.
Replying to posts was a concern I was having and you have validated. I might pull it out of the menu and change the menu item somehow.
Supporting OpenID is a good idea. I will make that a priority. Thanks for the tips.

Good to hear it runs quickly. There are a lot of SQL queries on the site, but I created a PHP function that can easily cache select PHP code to a DB.
http://www.fitcache.com/

Any other ideas, please let me know.

Well I have taken the suggestions and made a few changes.

Two things remaining include cleaning the URLs and supporting openid and/or facebook login.

Any more suggestions please let me know