In the WebDesign-Review section, the developer of the “GoBop” asked webdesign attendees to comment on their new site. Since we love travel, events, dining and so forth, we decided to take a look . . . we liked what we saw! What do YOU think?
In the WebDesign-Review section, the developer of the “GoBop” asked webdesign attendees to comment on their new site. Since no others have commented yet, we decided to take a look . . . What do YOU think? From Seattle Washington, “HeyAdam1” writes :
The (very) small start-up I work for just released its first build. We are planning on implementing additional features such as social sharing and user submissions in later releases. However I would greatly appreciate any feedback regarding layout, functionality, color/font scheme, etc. Please feel free to be brutal. Thanks in advance.
The (very) small start-up I work for just released its first build. We are planning on implementing additional features such as social sharing and user submissions in later releases. However I would greatly appreciate any feedback regarding layout, functionality, color/font scheme, etc. Please feel free to be brutal. Thanks in advance. 
This is a complicated site, and works remarkably well — very nicely programmed. We liked the look immediately — and felt instantly at ‘home’ with the interface. After all, it’s pretty simple. Enter a ‘what’ you’re looking for; ‘where’ you’re looking for it, and ‘when’ it’s happening. Simple. www.gobop.com then attempts to return stuff that will interest you. It’s lots of fun, and quickly addictive.
www.gobop.com has 13,713 characters of code, clocking in at about 16K … a nicely trim page — except loaded with graphics it required about 9 seconds to load using typical wireless internet. We really like the way it smoothly rescales everything to fit the size of the screen, and resolution. Try as we may — we were unable to ‘fool’ or trip up the screen display. Wow — that’s great programming.
Design, layout, and colors are all working together harmoniously. It’s almost always a home-run to utilize darker shades of blue for backgrounds . . . since blue always recedes. The bright key colors then snap well against the blue; and the site really relies on the photos to provide the excitement — as they should! After the initial load, the photos are bright, fresh and surprisingly quick loading. Nice work, guys.
On the downside
Of course there were just a few problems. As we worked with the site we found more and more little bugs in the results. Now this is probably not the site’s fault — but rather the quality of information in the pool available to the site’s searching functions. For instance, it gave us many, many events that had already happened. So the dates were a little screwy. Additionally, it would give events that are far, far away. Like, we asked for “French Food” , and while we know for sure there is a French restaurant about 6 blocks from here, (a very good one) GoBop sent us to Paris, 3,379 miles away, as the ONLY solution.
Other little quips include a cursor problem in the form. Probably a Flash bug. It is difficult or impossible to place the cursor in form fields. We had to place, then backspace away the current item. The cursor arrows don’t work either.
Otherwise, it’s a fresh looking site, with capable programming and as we see it — a big future if they play the cards right. We’re looking forward to GoBop’s maturity because it’s really fun and useful!
Now, if you want to help us out — help out your fellow web designers — or get some feed-back on your own work, then just log into the Web Critique department of WebDesign & Review at DTG-forums.com. Surely someone there will be happy to communicate. If you’re more serious, were disappointed that no one reviewed your site… or you would just like to get a check-up to see how you or your designer is doing, then consider getting a Formal Web Site Critique or Site Makeover. I’d be happy to work with you on that!
And, thanks for reading
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