Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

Good effort for building a website on your own!
In a nut shell, I would say your site is a bit overwhelming. I'm not sure what to look at first. The left navigation is lengthy and it's not obvious where you are when you click on a page. I think you may have overdesigned and that is taking away from you offering an 'easy to read and learn' experience. Some items don't need the same amount of emphasis, like "The Other Stuff", can be turned into text links at the bottom of each page. My advise would be to simplify.

Best of Luck,
Nancy Fareed

Hi there! Congrats on actually taking the time to create and website AND to ask for comments. It shows you really care about making your site successful. Here are my comments, for what it's worth.

1.What's your first impression of this site?
Very busy and as Nancy said, overwhelming. There's really nothing to direct the eye- I didn't really know where to go first. In the top banner (where your title is), I'd suggest making the Brush Script font an easier to read font. When you have two decorative-type fonts, it slows down the reader and makes it hard to read. I like the design in the background but I think backgrounds are a little old-school. Maybe use that as a graphic somewhere else.

2.WHO do YOU think it attracts (what customer profile) and WHY? It sounds like it attracts businesses perhaps? The only reason I say his is because you talk about "registering," which would seem odd wording for, say, a family going to enjoy an event.

3. What could be made better/optimized and HOW?
The "start here" page really didn't get me grounded in exactly what the expo and festival are. Are they 2 separate things? Try to answer the basic journalist's questions in the first paragraph (who, what, when, where, why and sometimes how). Heck- you may even want this info on your homepage.

Also, I'd clean up the homepage into more of a simple, less busy design.

Hope this helps!

Clever background. Maybe make text and font clearer. Nice effect on photos homing in and out.

Reduce the menu choices, by consolidating them. You can do that by using drop down menus for the main topics .

Place the most important links at the top.

Get rid of the symbol on the background.

That you're only looking for experienced practitioners to attend, seminars/demos are not intimate, and there's lots of merchandising going on.

https://www.taichifest.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8...
should have links to the pages (i.e., clicking "START HERE!" text should be active).

There are a lot of people teaching tai chi in the United States - why should I want to travel to NY to attend your convention? What makes your instructors so special? What is Jou Tsung Hwa's lineage? Can I see a video of your various instructors teaching to get an idea of their teaching style, focus, etc.?

If I'm not up on the who's-who's of your faculty, why should I want to attend your awards ceremony?

Because of the wide range of offerings, create some basic "tracks" to guide people: For the Tai Chi Beginner, For the Non-Martial Artist, etc.

There's a lot of graphical elements and it's hard to focus on anything -- background, lots of fonts, lots of colors, Chinese characters, moving photos, poll, lots of links. I'd suggest simplifying (a LOT). On the plus side, you've got a great URL!

I would recommend you get rid of the background. It's distracting. Pare down your fonts to just 2-3, and keep them all in the same color. Use a different color to indicate linked text, but don't use different colors unless it's linked text. Don't use underlined text (looks like a link). Instead of using asterisks (****) to separate sections, use a header rule.

One of the basic rules of graphic design is to make the most important point the most prominent. So ask yourself what the one thing people should know after visiting your site -- and make that most prominent (larger, at the top). I would guess that is the festival name, date, location, and link to buy tickets.

I highly recommend the book "Don't Make Me Think! A Guide to Web Usability" by Steve Krug - you can read it in about a half hour and is worth its weight in gold.

I have two sets of comments; first about design, and second about the content.

Design

As others have said, it's very busy. There are too many navigation buttons on the left and it's hard to read the white text against the graduated brown background.

The text on the bottom of the page (listing the hotel information) is also very small.

Content

It's difficult to tell who your target audience is. Professionals? Consumers who want to learn more about tai chi?

And, what will they gain by attending? What problems does your event solve? Do attendees learn ways to attract customers to their tai chi classes? Do they find out how to improve their health?

To put it another way, It's not about your grass seed, it's about their lawn!

What do you want visitors to do?

Register for the class? Sign up for the yahoo group? There are too many choices. If your primary purpose is registration, make that the focus. The other links (yahoo group, the memorial, etc.) are distracting and confusing. The harder it is to register, or to find information, the lower the number of responses you will get.

Hope this helps.