Design is an essential element of functionality. I had to click on one small link at the top of the navigation bar to get to the most important information: Users.
Then I had to scroll through a list of people, pulling out various tags and keywords that might have been interesting to me.
I gave up finding what I was looking for, but not before clicking on 'Search' at the top. The search wasn't an autocomplete field, so I typed in something, hoping for the best. 0 results.
A good design, IMO, makes the most important function the most obvious feature. It makes the most complex task the most simple to complete.
For this site, I could have used a sortable and searchable data table that let me both browse, search, and communicate on one page.
Thanks for your feedback! We'll definitely make some changes soon.
>For this site, I could have used a sortable and searchable data table that let me both browse, search, and communicate on one page.
Can you please elaborate on this? Do you mean sort of personalized dashboard?
> I gave up finding what I was looking for
Our plan is that: you say us what are you looking for and we take care of everything else. After we filled in the tags in profile, you can click on "My Recommendations" and we also send you email messages when find something intresting for you.
> Can you please elaborate on this? Do you mean sort of personalized dashboard?
No... I just want a way to filter people quickly by 'wants to learn' and 'wants to teach'. At first, I don't really care about the details of the person except for that info. So a table that can be filtered with some javascript would be great. Especially if you used something like chosen: http://harvesthq.github.io/chosen. That way, I can both see all the options as well as get autocomplete.
The idea is just that I want to know right away whether or not there is someone who I can help, and someone who can help me. Otherwise, it's a waste of time for me to register. It's like a dating site... I'm not going to register if there's no one available, in the hopes that the site will become popular later.
> The idea is just that I want to know right away whether or not there is someone who I can help, and someone who can help me.
Ok, this makes it much more clear! We'll definitely improve search experience for unregistered users. Thanks for the link, btw, the lib looks very useful.
> Otherwise, it's a waste of time for me to register. It's like a dating site...
Yeah, I do agree that the site would be attractive with more users. However, you can register, type in some tags and receive occasional notifications when someone with the same tags signs up.
Then I had to scroll through a list of people, pulling out various tags and keywords that might have been interesting to me.
I gave up finding what I was looking for, but not before clicking on 'Search' at the top. The search wasn't an autocomplete field, so I typed in something, hoping for the best. 0 results.
A good design, IMO, makes the most important function the most obvious feature. It makes the most complex task the most simple to complete.
For this site, I could have used a sortable and searchable data table that let me both browse, search, and communicate on one page.