Bid2host.com

Welcome to TWF arcmax,

We do ask that you review at least three other sites posted in this forum before requesting one of your own, so if you would be so kind I'm sure that people will help you out with a critique on your site.

I'll have a look at the site and post again shortly.

Since you're just asking for a usability critique I won't talk about the design.... it's hard to talk about usability when you're main feature isn't working, but I'll do my best anyway.

I'd like to see a few more options in your forms here. Both of the fields you have should have an "any of the above" field or something like that. I'd also like to be able to narrow down my search based on amount of space, specific features I need, price range and things like that.

I also think that you'e not doing a very good job of explaining yoruself here. If I go to how it works > web space buyers the text I read there isn't exactly clear. You have "What bid2host.com offers is a unified interface through which users can interact with companies directly to fulfill their hosting needs." I'm not clear on that. How, exactly am I interacting with companies through your site?

All of the text here could stand to be rewritten. I can find quite a few grammatical errors here and I'm finding that you're not getting your point across very well. This is also seeming like a rather complicated process which may scare some people off.

Example: "While placing the auction, we request you to, describe your web hosting needs in detail."

Poor use of commas - there should be no commas at all in this sentence. So then you get "While placing the auction we request you to describe your web hosting needs in detail." The first part of the sentence is slightly ambiguous. It should say "While placing your auction listing..." The next part of the sentence says "we request you to describe..." - just poor sentence structure here. Sounds like it's coming from someone who isn't a native english speaker. It should say "we request that you describe...". So your final revised sentence looks like this: "While placing your auction listing we request that you describe your web hosting needs in detail." Isn't that much better?

You really need to hire somebody to rewrite all this for you (try our Jobs and Barter forum). You're also not using the defined html list tags which is making things harder to read.

All the option locations in Netscape4.7 say "USA", the operating selection in Net is "plese select one" but operating system on is on winNT.

IE has the top two boxs at winNT and the three bottom ones set at 'USA'

useabilty huh, ok, what if i wanted "anywhere" or "all" ? I cant so I'm limited.
I tried New Zealand (but didnt select a operating system), the page refreshed back to what it was, displaying "please select one" and "USA" so am guessing none of it works yet.

Best viewed using IE 5.0+ browser and 800x600 resolution. is a nono, these days its like saying, "oh I couldnt be bothered spending a few more minutes making it be universal cause I'm lazy and my business my reflect this" sorry its harsh but its true.

border="15" looks very unprofessional, frame="rhs" and rules="none" isnt universal same as bordercolor

Quote: Originally posted by Megan
The next part of the sentence says "we request you to describe..." - just poor sentence structure here. Sounds like it's coming from someone who isn't a native english speaker. It should say "we request that you describe...".

Was reading this over again and actually, this is just one of the many confusing aspects of the english language. If you were to use another verb, like "want", your structure would be correct - "we want you to describe your needs in detail". "request" is just one of those weird exceptions that doesn't work the same way as other verbs would. So you say "we request that you.." instead. "ask" would work the same as "request" in this case:

We ask that you describe your needs in detail.
We request that you describe your needs in detail.
We want you to describe your needs in detail.
We would like you to describe your needs in detail.
We hope that you will describe your needs in detail.
We would prefer that you describe your needs in detail

Jeez, I'm glad I was born and raised in the English language - wouldn't want to learn it as a second language!

I think at first glance, it's really colorful and fun to look at..
Not sure about the functionality or content.. seems to be a little shallow in that area, but I'll focus on the looks of your site to begin with.
I do like the colors at first, but if you want repeated visits by your surfers, I'd suggest toning them down a bit.
Also another suggestion, there's a large blue blank space at the top right hand corner of your page that you should seriously consider filling in.. You really don't want too much empty space with no information or even some kind of an advertisement. That's really the first thing that drew my attention.
But overall you actually did a really good job with the site.. just maybe more content and filled in a bit more with less eye snatching colors..

Rek