Filmaster.com asked me to review their website: User Experience not so great right now :(

Filmaster.com asked me to review their website. Overall it’s not to great now but i  think they are in beta mode. So they have still time to fix it.

So here it goes:

1. Main Purpose not easily understandable

   The main problem is that the purpose of the website is not easy understandable on the homepage. That needs to be fixed asap. Other wise you’ll loose too many visitors. Cut back on fluff EVERYWHERE.

2. Site is loading very slow

3. Movie recommendation engine gave me no recommendations

   After logging in via Facebook Connect i got to the movie recommendation engine. Instaed of showing example recommendations that can be refined afterwards you showed me a button saying  “compute recommendations” which apparently also might take up to 5 minutes. Firstly 5 mins is waaaay to long. Cache them somehow or whatever but you gotta bring them faster. Secondly even worse i got NO RESULTS. It sad “No recommendations, sorry.” Now if you need input form the use first another method would be to guide them DIRECTLY into the data gathering process (probably rating movies, pointing out movies they liked). So now i have no clue on what basis you are recommending movies to me.
   
   
   

4. Way too much text and stuff on the homepage.

   People have incredible little time these days to grasp what a website is about. I think its around 8 seconds. So you have to cut away EVERYTHING that distracts from the core purpose of the website.

   

   • For instance to grasp what “The Planet” link is about i have to read 1.5 lines of text? That is not good. The link should be descriptive enough.
   • Rate movies should probably be “Movie Recommendations”
     What is not good that when i click on it i have to register first. Especially not if its called Rate Movies. The point is that no one will read the explanatory text and when they click on it they expect explanation of the feature which they do not get. Instead they are asked to register. Why register though? So far for the average NEW user the website has shown NO value – so why would you register? So you lose a lot of people there.
   • there is more but didn’t have the time to write about it…

5. Search doesn’t stand out

   The search has very light coloring and does not jump into the eye at all. Yet it is one of the most important means of navigation on your website. It’s gotta be more attention grabbing.

6. Don’t be clever, use the established stuff

   A lot of times you guys try to be clever. For instance:

   • What does “The Planet” mean?
     I have to read the description to grasp it. Nobody has that kind of time.
   • You put “You are looking at Filmaster | pre-premiere version” First of all i know that i am looking at Filmaster and 2nd it’s called “beta”. There are sooo little standards on the web. Lets try and use at least the quasi standards.
   • Under the forum headline on the homepage you put the username above the headline. Nobody knows that these are usernames.

7. Some Links not recognizeable

   Some of the Links are the same color as the rest of the text. While this might look better from a design p.o.v. its horrible for the user experience. I have to mouse over stuff to figure out if it’s a link -> Don’t make me think.

There is more stuff but i didn’t have the time to write it all down… But i think one gets the main point. Site purpose not easily understandable.

In order to fix it:

Either start working with a usability expert on your website or start reading up on all books from Jakob Nielsen and Tog. Here is a list of interaction design ressources by Scott Berkun.

Here is a good post from Timothy Ferriss on how cutting back the fluff is really helpful for the UI.