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Design

Honest Feedback on Website

Hi Team, Friends are awesome, but sometimes too nice for honest feedback. I know my site www.thecoachingline.com needs to be redone. I would love some honest feedback on it, replete with examples of how it could be better. Thanks, Molly

Ok, I redid it! Thanks for all your advice team. What do you think about it now? https://thecoachingline.com/

6 Answers

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

You are right, that site needs to go.

  • The colors are too harsh
  • typography in general
  • poor use of hierarchy
  • use of all CAPS (bad for reading, can feel like screaming or legalese)
  • long bullet lists (bad for reading, use better "chunking")
  • not indenting answers under the question. (bad for chunking)

I'm also not a big fan of the giant face background.

I'd check out this blog series design school for developers on how to do those things better

Mike Bronner
Mike Bronner
16,395 Points

Yes, the face background caused me to wonder what in coaching is so important or related to the face? If it is the owner of the company, it implies too much ego (from the visitor's point of view). If it's for another, specific reason, it doesn't seem apparent and perhaps should be emphasized more (the reason, not the face). Otherwise, the face should be emphasized much less. You want to bring the most important information to the fore.

Emily Kelton
Emily Kelton
3,626 Points

I like the colors, but agree about the caps and face especially. I would break things down into smaller chunks like James suggested. The first impression I get when I visit your site (I'm on an iPad at the moment, btw) is chaos and disorder, which is probably not the message a life coach want to send.

I like a lot of the elements (I actually love the colors, and the rectangle elements). There's also no left margin on my screen - everything is shoved up against the left side.

I think you're on the right track...more order, more white space, smaller chunks of information. Less looming face. Good luck! I hope we get to see the re-design!

There is no consistency across the entire site. Looks like you're on the right track, but keep working and moving forward. One of the most basic and important concepts is the use of headings. Start using h1, h2, h3 tags, and when you have paragraphs, use a font-size. You don't need a huge "CALL NOW" at the bottom of the screen. That font is bigger than the actual heading on the homepage. Use your heading tags appropriately, and smaller fonts are better. Make your navigation look more like a navbar, rather than a bunch of links clumped together. Work with the structure first, then go back and style everything. Your main body needs a set width. Contain similar elements, and make use of horizontal rules. Good job so far, but don't get discouraged, you are doing great.

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

The top is a huge improvement, I like the background, colors and pictures.

However everything about the text still needs a lot of work:

  • typography in general
  • poor use of hierarchy
  • giant blocks of text (bad for reading, use better "chunking")
  • long bullet lists (bad for reading, use better "chunking")

I actually like the old color scheme better, but after seeing this improvement, I think this style fits better with your content. You still have way too much text on the homepage. You need a little "snippet" of each coach, and from there link to individual pages that share more info about each person. Maybe a paragraph at most, then "Learn More..." It looks like you have a "blog" type website on the first page. I would look at the new wordpress series treehouse just released. It would probably solve a lot of your problems. Overall, good improvement! I still think you can slim down the content on the homepage, and put that information into their own separate pages. "What is Coaching" can be it's own link in the navbar... The blog section can be it's own link in the navbar... Or share snippets of each on the main page, and then link to their own pages. What is Coaching should be an overview, and then link to the main page... Same with the blogs by Stephen and such. Create a "Recent News" area, and then link to the blog section from the navbar.