Design of MoneySavingExpert.com

SimplyAUser

I think the main website needs to go through a face lift.

Not to undermine the effort of people who are working on it day and night to support it, but a friendly suggestion that although the content is excellent (thanks to every single member of this website), the presentation is shoddy.

Some sample websites are available for free if you would like to take some inspiration (A nice freebie for Martin)

http://www.templatesbox.com/

SimplyAUser

A little techy stuff but will be helpful for the site administrators

Using CSS/HTML etc will make the the presentation controlled by the site administrators and the content controlled by the Martin and other posting members.

As an example
http://www.csszengarden.com/

This website has fixed content that can be shown different using different css files. (You can click on the design on right hand side for different presentations for the same site)...

sra

I'd love to see the homepage have about a tenth of the stuff that it has right now.

It's not a case that having info on the homepage makes you notice it - There's so much I usually go straight to the sidebar. If the thing I was looking for was on the first page I probably wouldn't even notice it was there because I can't be bothered reading it.

Edinburghlass_2

I think you will find that the site is an having an ongoing face-lift with a Designer now onboard

SimplyAUser

sra wrote:

I'd love to see the homepage have about a tenth of the stuff that it has right now.

I could not agree more.


Coming back to the design part:

The Home page is such a good example of how not to do websites (I am sorry if it hurts).

There are 5 fonts used in different locations
> sans-serif
> Arial
> Verdana
> Helvetica
> geneva

This is in addition to the different types of fonts used in Images etc.

Although I think the administrators are very good in maintaining this site well and are fully capable of implementing any design but someone should look into the design as well.


Some of the things like:
"As commended by a parliamentary motion"
"Biography of Martin"
Stamps everywhere for the "Consumer Revenge - Free of Ads"
"Martin's picture of holding mobile phone on every single page of the website"

It looks a little too desperate attempt of marketing....

SimplyAUser

Forgot to mention ... when you move mouse on different pictures on Homepage, it changes colour !!! I think that was intentional...

Former_MSE_Abuse_Controller

Just to say, we do now have a proper designer on board. I suspect you'lll have noticed certain new elements creeping in already (there are some new design items in articles and new alert boxes). The overall site was done for Martin a couple of years back for £100 and is fundamentally unchanged since. The team are, at present, getting quite a lot of new things together and i am aware that you will see some changes in the coming months.

I hope everyone liked the new new EmailTips newsletter when it was sent a couple of weeks back - that was a colaboration between our new designer and the development team.

Stick with us guys. There is more going on behind the scenes right now than any of you realise (on all fronts) and the team are all working incredibly hard to make changes and developments for the better.

daveboy

I personally think that this is a cracking site and thank the whole of the team for the amount of time they spend maintaining it.

This site has saved me a lot and it is a bit harsh to knock it for its design.

For me, there is no rush in redesigning parts of the site as I can understand just how much time is taken doing all the other things. I'm sure I'm one of many regulars who knows it's impossible to put more hours into the day, and is more than happy with things the way they are.

Let the MSE team do their job! Never knock a good thing!

SimplyAUser

daveboy wrote:

Let the MSE team do their job!

Don't you think, MSE team will benefit from the people who are posting suggestions :rolleyes:

It will be nice if we could be made aware of what exactly is changing rather than waiting for that Christmas Party Suprise or Unvieling thing.

I am sure there are plenty of users who will have more ideas.. :T

----

Also more suggestions:

Search - There should be 1 search (rather than selecting from different searches...) that should select results from the main website, forums and financial providers as well ...

Colours - Currently the Home page & the other pages are dominated by (Orange, Green, Red.) ... I think White is essentially the best colour, So although Tri Colour will still be around, can we reduce the usage to make it look better.

Former_MSE_Andrea

No worries on any of those fronts. All ideas for the site re-design are welcome. Any feedback/ideas, good or bad, is great - that's why the This Site board is here.

We also really appreciate any thanks we get (and no, I'm not asking for thanks before anyone asks . We love hearing how much people have saved from the site. That's what it's all about and it's great to hear what we do is paying off (literally!)

Andrea

SimplyAUser

Another suggestion or rather error reporting

2 of the Useful Trios on the top right hand side do not work for Firefox

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