Greetings. we've recently updated the site for my company's CMS product, but I know it still needs some work. I'm a technology guy much more than a designer, so I'm interested in feedback on look and feel and usability.

One important point that the site is trying to make is that we are interested in partnering with Web developers who would want to use our product on thier clients' sites. We did not go into this on the homepage and right now just the partners page discusses it. I think we need to work it in more prominently. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark Reichard

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Mark Reichard
iData Technologies www.idatatechnologies.com - SEO Friendly Content Management

It's a very professional-looking site. Couple of usability comments:

1. The relationship between iData and this site is not clear at the outset.

2. The site name doesn't match the site URL.

3. A tagline explaining the site should be associated with the logo.

4. It's not clear that the red text items are links -- users might miss them; especially since they're not underlined and in other areas blue is established as the link color.

5. If you're going to offer site search, expose the search box on every page. Studies show it gets more use.

6. Product Offerings seems way too far down on the menu.

7. It's not clear on the homepage what the site or the company offers.

8. "Bubble up" specific product information in easy-to-read call-to-action "chunks." You can handle your partnership call-to-actions this way also.

Hope this helps!

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WebCritica
Usability Matters.
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Custom usability evaluations

Thanks for the excellent feedback. It's funny --- some things that you pointed out are things that I'd never let a client do (e.g. different link color).

Thanks again,
Mark

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Mark Reichard
iData Technologies www.idatatechnologies.com - SEO Friendly Content Management

Hey I have to agree the site is very profressional looking and bright!

I have one question, why do the pages scroll so far down with no content on them?

Good Luck!

csolutions

I like the feel of the site. I noticed a couple of things that i might have done different.
1)On the navigation bar. Perhaps the grey bars should be the same width as the picture. Since none of the text fills the whole width, it could be trimmed down. On the same note, those little arrows aren't doing anything (sometimes when you see them and click, they will expand the menu) and they could be lost or incorporated into the button design. (i think that this would create a nice flow)
2)Most advice that i have seen in the past, says that the logo should be linked back to the home page, I didn't see that here.
3)On the top corner under the iData link, there is a heading, that should be centered. Then your eye has a natural flow to the center of the page from the logo text above it. And, it also could be implied as refering to the link for idata, which leads out of the site. (and incidentally then you need to use a back button to find the information on the Synapse site). I would think that these links would be better serviced on the bottom of the page.
?)How about using an idata button to split up some of the text in the news area, explaining the relationship of the 2 sites?
4)The large image at the top of your text looked like an add to me and i initially didn't even glance at it. (I like the actual picture though) I would have to say that the problem with the pic is in 2 parts--1)it looks 'very fast' everything else is pretty stationary. 2)it is to big. If you moved it below your first paragraph and shrank it down it might work better. I think that would also bring your eye more to the infomation you want people to read. (What if you had the picture open a new, smaller, browser window with additional information and links. That page in turn could be optimized to some other specific content?)
5)I love the picture of the billboard! its a great idea. But, i don't think it is implimented correctly.
You should be using those links at the end of the paragraphs as headers at the beginning. Try moving the image to a left justification. Then, the eye would be able to follow a triangle (from the logo-first pic-back to billboard), the base of which would lead to your navigation, the point of which point to the news. With this placement change, try and have the text of the following paragraph not wrap around it so it is a seperate thought visualy.
here are a couple of thoughts about some phrases you could use near that billboard pic :
The sign of a good site.....The web is a two way street....make your website a billboard for traffic going both ways.......

Since you are using traffic images, heres one for you: try a variation of "Hows My Driving?" that we all see on the back of trucks. That could be used for the last paragraph.

By the way, your product seems very interesting. I may be contacting you!

Have a Good Day

Neosite,

Thanks so much for taking the time to look at the site and provide this excellent feedback. For someone unused to thinking much about how positioning and placement of elements affects how a viewers eye travels over the page, this is an incredibly useful perspective. Over the next several days I will be going through your post point by point to implement improvements to the design.

Thanks again,
Mark

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Mark Reichard
iData Technologies www.idatatechnologies.com - SEO Friendly Content Management