I'm planning some revisions to address this issue ... starting small. Some of them may be in place by the time you read this. But I'm looking for outside eyes to tell me what you see and any suggestions you might have to a) improve site navigation and b) clearly delineate - without separating - the three functions of the site. And if you can't guess what the three focii are, I guess I've really screwed up

URL in profile ... Thanks!

I'm going to ask you a few questions they may seem dumb (and perhaps offensive) but you'll see where I'm going with it.

My first impressions of the site:

1. What is the purpose of this site?
- It looks a bit like a forum is it?

2. Who is Effie Rover and what does she have to offer me?

3. What does this site do again?

[my question as a designer]4. What is the main theme of this site?[/my question as a designer]

5. I would click on something to learn more... but I just don't know what to click on.

Based on the above reasoning I can tell that perhaps your biggest problem is the theme and clarity of the site.
- "What does this site do and what is it going to do for me?"

I think you should start with a theme for example...

Is your site about Effie Rover? - If so who is she? What does she do and why does she do it? Communicate that!

Is this site about her community as the topic suggests? If it is why don't I know what the purpose of her community is. (This means the message got lost.)

It definitely sounds like you've been working on this one for a while because I can tell you have a great understanding of it but me as a visitor especially not knowing what the purpose of the site is I just get lost and want to close my browser.

This message I found after digging around

quote:

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Welcome to Effie Rover's Community!

Stop in, walk around ... you've come to the right place. We're working to create a community forum for small business owners and other residents throughout the Western New York region (Genesee, Livingston, Orleans and Wyoming Counties in particular) for news, announcements, events, computer tips, regional discussion and more!

---

Does your site look like something that will provide me with business related news and great information? The design screams NO!

Here is why... Business related stuff should be clear! Your header graphic is blurry is has fuzz this carries over to the rest of the site. It looks distant and fuzzy. you should find your theme clarify and target that through everything on the site.

Take a look at other small business related sites done by professionals and see what their message is. How do they execute it through out their site? http://www.greatplains.com/

Let me know if this makes sense...

I realize you may want higher click throughs and that's why you put it in the most visible area of the site. But your ads are spinning RPG games. Are people searching for business related forums going to be interested in playing an RPG game at that moment.

Actually that ad made me think that your site has to do with games because it created a stronger case than your site.

These are all things to keep in mind for a revision of the site.

First glance, this is a web site about role playing games and/or software. This is all confused by clip art information and Christmas tree lighting. So honestly, I have no idea what this is, and will resist editing the post after I figure it out.

Is Effie Rover a game? What is a Glow community?

Sorry, I am not getting the jist, so it is hard to judge the navigation as well. I bopped around and the topic kept changing. I never did run into the "community", it was all by one person, or it looks like it anyway.

Definitely, I'm too close to this one. But you've given me better feedback to work with; I know where the issues are now. I'll move ahead with some ideas and reopen this when I get there.

Thanks!

Just let us know if we can help you with any other questions.

I'm looking forward to your redesign!

But I can see now (very clearly) that I have done my site the way many designers do -- a little here, a little there, in between client projects -- and that process doesn't make for a well-organized site. My theme(s) aren't clearly presented and there's too much on each page. In addition, the graphics are too much (intended to be impressive, but clearly over the top) so need to be brought back some.

I'm not insulted, just brought to reality. I need to do the same thing for myself that I do for clients. What is the focus of the site? If there are different focii, how will we differentiate them? What kind of look&feel will match those focii? You get the picture

BTW, the reason for the RPG ads at the top was that effierover.com used to mirror rpggateway.com and many, many people still came there looking for the RPG content. So I figured I'd put a couple of ads in rotation for the other domain and put them in heavy rotation so people didn't get lost. Wrong approach. Changed that already

I'm swamped now, but I'll be looking forward to your comments when I do get it redesigned.