Wouldn't this be better built as a Facebook app? Just because users already have profiles there and won't need to signup for a new service. Just a thought.
The menus at the top don't work. It took me ten tries (very bad) and conscious thought (far worse) to figure out that the little arrows next to the words were the trigger for the pulldowns. I would sweep the mouse over the word and see this menu flicker on and off. I thought your Javascript was broken or something.
The context is confusing. As someone who happens to be a freelance Drupal developer, I was curious about the project that wanted a Drupal developer. But the pitch is one line long. There's no indication of whether I'm signing up to be a startup partner with equity but no salary, an unpaid volunteer in a community project, a contract programmer working for someone with a budget of $13.95, or the recipient of spam from half a dozen sleazeball recruiters.
I realize that I may be criticizing a throwaway piece of scaffolding text. But, if I am, you need to design around a more useful piece of scaffolding text!
I know what nonprofit-org sites are for. I know what news.yc is for. I know what Rentacoder is for. What is your site for? The whole thing is so minimalist that I have no contextual clues.
hey thanks for the comment.
well, the menu is going to be corrected so people will have an easier time accessing the options.
about the drupal listing, the description was written by an existing member of the website, who thought one sentence would be enough. one thing though, interested visitors are supposed to ask questions to the user who posted the listing to ask for more info.
There is no idea so great that a one-sentence description, made by a stranger, will cause me to send an email asking for more. There are too many scammers, cranks, and clueless people in the world. There are too many people who have no idea how hard it is to complete a successful project. There are too many people who are looking for something for nothing.
Of course, you folks are strangers, and yet you got me to give you some design advice -- twice! But you did quite a bit of work for this "free" advice -- you had to build an entire prototype site and post a link to it. That is the kind of presentation -- a working, criticizable prototype -- that might get people interested in joining a random project. It's a lot more than one sentence.
Other than providing working code -- or extensive mockups, or a detailed written proposal, or a compelling story -- the easiest way to get me interested in a collaboration is to get me interested in you. I don't care if you plan to cure cancer -- I want to know who you are, first. That takes time, and it takes words.
So, if people are going to meet and start collaborations on your site, you need to give them lots of room to converse, to get to know each other. You need to give them long comment threads and rambling discussions. (Like, um, news.yc. Score one for PG's design sense.) If you don't feel like building an entire social network (and you probably shouldn't) you need to encourage people to introduce themselves with links to Facebook, or LinkedIn, or their own blogs, or something. And you need to encourage them to put as much flesh on the bones of their proposals as they can -- because nothing attracts builders like something that's already half built.
As it stands, my fear is that your site just doesn't have enough words. Whitespace looks clean and professional, but it doesn't tell me what the site is for, and it doesn't tell me what the individual projects are about.
EDIT: changed the link to the first essay to the one that I really wanted to cite. :)
