Hi

I'd really appreciate some feedback on this site.
http://www.keasoftware.com/coloring/

Here's some of the goals I had with the site...

* Easy to use / navigate.
* Fun and colorful.
* Content that makes users want to come back regularly.
* Similar look to the product (hence the corkboard bg etc).

Some of the issues I'm struggling with...

* Keeping the menu simple, but still make it easy to find the growing information.

* How to expand the design to accommodate further products? I have a couple more products in the pipeline, but fear that my current design may make it cumbersome to cross promote.

* How to remind people that a donation would be appreciated without nagging them.

* The recent realization that some things don't look the way they should in FireFox.

* How to encourage people to make use of the forums.

As I said I'd really appreciate any feedback, and am happy to reciprocate for what it's worth.

Also, if you have kids (or just are a big kid), please feel free to download a copy of the Kea Coloring Book. It is pretty cool, and there are lots of extra pictures available to download too.

Regards

Jonathan

It's rare I use my kid as a site reviewer. But here is his assessment:

"Dinosaur, RRRaahhh"

He would also like to note that the wood plank might not work perfectly in terms of associated softness with the rest of your choices, and that the cleanliness and generally restrained interior is rather offset too much by the overwhelming background tile. Precocious little kid, he is.

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Jonathan,

I didn't download the software, but it looks like something I could have used as a kid - a way to stay between the lines!

I like the site. To address a couple of your issues:

Donations: Having the opportunity on every page is good. I'd probably change the copy to: Learn How To Support The KEA Coloring Book!

Forum Use: I'd put another image under the left menu that links to the Forums. Copy could be something like: Learn how to use KEA, learn about competitions and more - Join the Forum! That's probably too long, but its late, and you get the idea. :-)

Adding Products: Probably lots of alternatives depending on how you want to approach it. Could use fly-out menus. Have all info for the coloring book on one flyout (features, download software etc), all info on 2nd product on another.

Depending on how you're setting up your SEO, you could have separate sites that link.

One general comment: I'd put more space between the sections of each page. It seemed compressed to me. And on the home page, for example, I'd use headers the size and color of the one that says KEA Coloring Book or latest news throughout.

Meaning, I'd make New User Forums , New User Forums, Easter 2005 Coloring Competition, etc much more visible.

Best of luck. I'd bet kids love the site, and when I have a bit more time, I might stay and play myself!

Kathleen

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Thanks so much for the advice.

I often find that I have reservations about something, but it's not until someone else repeats the thought that it really sinks in.

I totally agree about the spacing on the home page, and will address that right away.

The point about too much background tile is valid, but I'm unsure how to approach it. I guess I was trying to make the site look nicely laid out down to an 800x600 resolution, but then on much higher resolutions that backgorund can prehaps appear overdone. Any suggestions on how to improve this?

"The plank" as you call it was my attempt at having an easily resizable menu reminiscent of the artist's palette in the game itself, and I agree it certainly is a bit angular. The problem I had was how to get a nice shape without it using excessive screen space. I'll have to think some more about how to reshape that.

Both these last two points relate to my intention to keep the site looking nice on 800x600. I took this as a basic minimum (god help you if you are still 640x480), but now I wonder just what the stats are on different resolutions.

It also just occured to me that the game itself requires 1024x768 to run. Maybe I should redesign to look good at this resolution, whilst still trying to not look like a train-wreck for 800x600?

Thanks again for the valuable advice. I look forward to any more insights you (or others) may have.

Regards

Jonathan
Kea Software
Home of the Kea Coloring Book.
http://www.keasoftware.com/coloring/

Thanks so much for the advice.

I often find that I have reservations about something, but it's not until someone else repeats the thought that it really sinks in.

I totally agree about the spacing on the home page, and will address that right away.

The point about too much background tile is valid, but I'm unsure how to approach it. I guess I was trying to make the site look nicely laid out down to an 800x600 resolution, but then on much higher resolutions that background can prehaps appear overdone. Any suggestions on how to improve this?

"The plank" as you call it was my attempt at having an easily resizable menu reminiscent of the artist's palette in the game itself, and I agree it certainly is a bit angular. The problem I had was how to get a nice shape without it using excessive screen space. I'll have to think some more about how to reshape that.

Both these last two points relate to my intention to keep the site looking nice on 800x600. I took this as a basic minimum (god help you if you are still 640x480), but now I wonder just what the stats are on different resolutions.

It also just occured to me that the game itself requires 1024x768 to run. Maybe I should redesign to look good at this resolution, whilst still trying to not look like a train-wreck for 800x600?

Thanks again for the valuable advice. I look forward to any more insights you (or others) may have.

Regards

Jonathan
Kea Software
Home of the Kea Coloring Book
- A FREE Coloring Book for kids of all ages.
http://www.keasoftware.com/coloring/

Jonathan,

Actually, I understood that the background was a cork board, and it didn't really bother me. Looks kinda like you're looking at a corkboard!

Not sure how this would work, but I'd experiment with lightening the shade of the background. See if you can still tell its a corkboard, but it might make it just a little less prominent.

I think the board was extremely well done. But, if you want to soften it a bit, I'd experiment with making the shadow a different color. Maybe a "lighter" black, gray, or the darkest color in the corkboard. I don't think the front of the board looks too angular, and maybe if you soften up the definition of the board, some of the angularity will diminish.

For what its worth...

Kathleen

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I'm always looking for great coloring pages to use, so when I saw your post, I had to take a look. I thought the site was pretty good. The only thing I have a problem with is the color on the sitemap. But that's more a personal preferrence. Sometimes I have a problem with colors that are too bright and since right now I feel a headache coming on, it might not have been the best time to see that.

I can honestly say, though, that your site is one I'll go back to just to see what's going on.

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Thanks again Kathleen.

I'm going to do some work to try once more to get a more rounded "palette" for the menu, and I'll definitely lighten the shadow a bit.
I have the feeling I might have tried that originally but got into trouble matching it up with the surrounding corkboard. By having it really dark it wasn't an issue.

Thanks LiviLou.

I will ease the color back on that site map. It was a late addition to the site, and a page I just don't even look at very often, so I'd forgotten just how ugly it was.

Regards

Jonathan

I get an horizontal scroll bar at 1024/768. I use firefox.

I don't know why, but ... i like it. It has got all the colours and might look childish, but it's indeed bright and I get a heppy feeling when seeing it. It's breathing good feelings and I think that's great. best of luck with it ... it's a nice site.

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Thanks Dojo

I'll check out that issue with Firefox. I only just recently switched to using Firefox (at least some of the time). On Friday I did some changes to table sizing to make them compatible with Firefox. I'm not sure when you viewed it, but I think that may have been before my changes, as it seems okay for me in Firefox, but I will double check.

I've still got a few things to think about, but this is primarily a project that I can only attend to in my spare time, and that's a commodity in short supply. One thing that could use up quite a bit is just looking through all the entries from the Easter Coloring In Competition. At this stage it looks like there will be around 2,000 people who've downloaded the pictures, so if they all send them back, I'll be very, very busy!

As I mentioned earlier, I also have some other products that will be added to the site over time, so I'll be back again asking for some input when that happens.

Thanks again to everyone who posted. Please let me know if I can ever return the favour.

Regards

Jonathan

I am very interested in this program since I have many click and paint drawings on my own websites.

http://www.scissorcraft.com, http://www.papervalentines.com
http://www.papersnowflakes.com
http://www.patrioflakes.com
http://www.paperchrismons.com

My paintable images are controlled by a simple applet and limiteds to 6 colors. I've been looking for something a bit more comprehensive.

Here's my review:

I downloaded one image to my pc before I tried downloading the Keacolor program.

The first download of the Keacolor program resulted in an error window when I tried to install. (not valid win32 etc).

After re-reading your page I located the alternate download site and tried again. The second time worked. Please place the alternate download location closer to the first one. You don't want to frustrate your visitor.

I opened the kea program and succssfully painted the initial image that came with the kea program.

When I clicked to open the first image I downloaded however, no menus or paint pallets appeared so I was unable to paint this image. Is there a special directory to place the imagee in? If so please stress the program be installed first!

Also after installing the program the instruction page opened automatically and my initial thought was the page would be a bit too overwhelming for kids to grasp.

Instead of asking for donations why not go Google?
I used to ask for donations and discovered people looking for freebies seriously don't want to shell out money, but they will click on an ad or two. My income grows exponentially since I installed Google ads (which you can color to blend into the background) and people really don't seem to mind their existence.

snowflake

Thanks snowflake

It just hadn't occurred to me that people would try to download the pictures BEFORE downloading the program, but I will make it clear that they are for the Kea Coloring Book only.

We've had a few issues with the installation shell that we've been using not having enough flexibility so we are currently redoing the install set with a new tool and hope that will resolve the install issues you mentioned.

You are right about donations! Our current estimate is that around 20,000 people have downloaded the software and of those 20,000 people exactly ZERO have decided to donate.

I'm not too concerned though, as we do have other plans about how to generate some income from the site. For now at least I am going to try to avoid using ads. Maybe I'm being too much of a purist. We'll see how some of the other ideas go first.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Jonathan