www.artofmath.com

You may want to add code to check for duplicate problems. For example, when I tried a quiz, the first page had 3 problems, all three were "2+2". (on following pages, there was variety). When creating new ones, many times I got duplicate problems as well.

-Greg

PS. I resisted, didn't click on the google ad, although I really liked what it was advertising...

Thank you very much for your reply. The dup question check is a great suggestion.

Also, thank you for not visiting my google ad. If everyone just started clicking on those ads I would have an extra $1.28 that I wouldn't know what to do with. I'm not ready to retire yet anyway!

I propose that you put the menu that is currently on the right side, under the items on the left, and put the google ads on the right instead.

The single google ad at the bottom seems to make it less symetrical.

JM

Pretty neat. I see this expanding in the future for you. I think the idea of a parent being able to generate a test for the child is cool. I don't know what it is I just feel like this site is missing some kind of filler. It needs some meat on it's bones. Are there any other services that you could provide? Could there be more pictures or any fun interactivity for the kids?

Great site idea( I mean really great, it's bound to grow), the site just needs time to mature.

Goldmine

Wow, thank you very much for your feedback. Version 1 of this product randomly chose a "kid friendly" set of images (balloons, candy canes, etc) so my son could count his way to adding 3 + 4 (or whatever). This was removed when he got older because having 1938 race cars on one page makes it load pretty slow.

Other services.... Like what? I guess I could try to make some math-based web games for the kids to play in between tests. I will try to think of a few.

Any suggestions?

You didn't click on my google sponsors did you?

No, I didnt click on any of the sponsors.
I just think the idea of a parent being able to test the math level is pretty neat.
Maybe the questions they can answer could form a report on what math level the kid is currently at. Is the child below his age range, is he above?
I see it as an online test that parents could actually see if their kids are up to par on their math skills.

Looks cute! I like it.

As someone involved in online learning myself I'd like to provide a little feedback on the math section itself. I think it would be a lot more helpful for the student to get feedback right away rather than having to click through to the end. That way they don't have to retrace their steps and try to figure out what went wrong. Instead you could give feedback right after the question is answered and give them a chance to try again. At the end of the test, I wasn't even clear on how to access the scoring. There's just a date there with a link - how do I know I'm supposed to click on that to get the score? I had to guess. Another thing I wasn't clear on is how many pages of questions I was going to get. I didn't know when the test was going to end (okay, so I didn't read the front page!). I don't know what "problems per step" means either.

So a few usability issues but overall a good job. I think it might be cute to add some sort of clip art to the front page just to liven it up some more.

Thank you both for your help. I agree with all of your thoughts.

goldmine -
That is a great idea. I don't really know of a way to test for a certain grade level. I guess I could talk with my son's teacher at school and see if she has some sample tests for each grade level. Maybe offer some pre-made tests at each grade level so the parents don't have to spend time creating them?

Megan -
What great feedback. Thank you again. 1 question - Are you suggesting the test only has 1 problem per page or that javascript checks their answers after each problem? Either way it does make sense.

Problems per step refers to the number of problems the child will be presented with before moving onto the next step. The system is designed with 6 total steps so the total number of questions is 6 * number of steps. I agree 100% that logic could use some work. The logic just made sense at the time of creation, but as the audience grows the need for better instructions increases as well.

Great start, I look forward to seeing it develop!

Good luck!

Nice use of the google ad spots, that hidden text above the logo isn't something I think is a good idea to have there though.

I didn't have enough text on the page to allow google to provide proper advertisements. I contacted them and they told me that I needed more text on the site. Unfortunately, the concept of the site can be explained in very few words, which is already displayed on the screen.

Please help me understand a better way to get the google ads to work and remove that text. Move it to the bottom of the page?

http://www.artofmath.com

Ok, version 2.0 is now available. Please review the changes and let me know what I'm missing.

Changes include:
- New design
- Entirely new challenge logic
- pre-loaded tests by grade level
- ability to increase difficulty as the test progresses
- ability to validate all answers before moving onto the next problem
- a large collection of fun animations have been loaded to keep the children interested in moving onto the next page.

Thanks for your feedback.

Looks good!

BTW, how did you know clicking on the Google ad only "give me $.08 of google's money"?

wow! You did all that for your son!
Anyway, few problems:
1.) Can't really see 'of' on the crayons
2.) BIG duplicate problem
3.) For English people 'Grade 1' 'Grade 2' etc might be a bit confusing as we have years, 'Year 8' etc. I think perhaps that you should do ages.
4.)

Superman wrote:
Whatever you do, please do not click on the google advertisements (unless you want to give me $.08 of google's money)!

Exlplain?

Great feedback! I have found a few other problems and will have all of these fixed ASAP.

1. You are right, that is an easy fix.
2. This is possibly because of the type of test you took. Let me explain the logic involved in "Increase Difficulty". All tests are broken into 5 stages. If you choose increase difficulty the test will start with the minimum number as the smallest possible and the largest number is 20% of the difference between smallest and largest. This is gradually increased through the 5 stages as follows.

assuming a test from 1-10
1st stage: 1-2
2nd stage: 2-4
3rd stage: 3-6
4th stage: 4-8
5th stage: 5-10

3. So (5 years old), (6 years old), etc would be better?
4. That's reverse psychology. Did it work?

oops, I forgot to explain why #2 would cause duplicate questions. If you were taking a test with 20 questions and the number range was 1-10 then all questions in stage 1 (4 problems) must have all numbers between 1-2... not many options. If you experienced something else please explain. I can build in the logic to deny duplicate problems, but want to make sure the problem isn't based on the logic explained above.

Thanks again.

1. done
3. done

As I started to fix the duplicate problem I realized I already put in place the logic to ensure duplicate questions don't appear immediately after each other. Due to the explanation above I don't believe I can check for duplicates throughout the whole test or there would be too many possibilities for endless loops.

Any suggestions?

From the first look I like it. It looks nice and the idea is wonderful. Bet your son is happy

He is a 6 year old that can do exponential equations because of the fun ways I've had him doing math. He loves it now, but when he gets older and realizes how hard these things are to the other kids he'll really be happy.

I'm not geeking him up too much yet. He knows he's learning, and he loves it, but we still spend a lot of time playing sports so he's not just the smart kid in school.

Click on the link to jacobscollegefund.com on the bottom of artofmath.com to see a picture of him.

Sorry, I went a little too far on the response. Can you guess if I'm a proud parent?

Quote:
By using google's partner programs we have found other useful math tools to help your children succeed. Please take the time to visit these partners and take advantage of some of the greatest online math tools available.

Capitalize Google, and that's lying...

Also, after I took the test, the smilies don't really reflect how I did on those problems. It would be cool to run some time counter that generates the smilies on how many tries and how long it took to get the problem.

Thank you for the reply. I have capitalized Google.

That is a great idea. If you do not choose "validate all answers" you can get answers wrong and then they are flagged with an X instead of a random smilie face. The timer might be a good idea to give the users another way to measuring success. I will work on that.

sorry webads101, just saw your last post. I am guessing the click is around $.08 each for google ads. They may be larger or smaller... I don't know.

I have created a timer for each problem which obviously rolls up to a total challenge time. A legend has been provided at the bottom of the results page to show what each icon means next to the problem results.

Let me know if this is what you had in mind.

Any other comments / suggestions?

Cool. I too had problems with repeat problems. Also, the times seem a little low for kids of that age.

Are the repeat problems possibly caused by the explanation above or are you suggesting there is a bug in the logic?

You're right, the times are very low for children. I will attempt to slow them down a bit.

Any other suggestions?

1. thanks fortaking my advice about the ages
2. how do you know what the times are? when i went on there i was just told my time, which is far better than any time limit

1. You're welcome
2. I am not sure I understand this question / comment. I will try to explain both possible answers.

How is the test monitoring the times?
The test is entirely javascript based. A timer starts when the challenge is initiated and intervals are recorded for each step along the way. A sum of all timers are displayed as the total time required for completion.

How does the user know what his/her times are for each problem?
By using the smilie legend at the bottom of the page you can see the category you fell into for each problem. ie - smilie with glasses means you took less than 2 seconds to complete this problem.

I hope this answers your questions. If not, please reply with more details.

Thank you.

yeah, by your/Dragon of Ice's posts i thought that there was a time limit, hence, being too low etc.
so I thought, well how do you know when the timer will run out
Then i went onto the last page and saw that category thing.
which you have just exlplained above
Thanks

Does anyone know of any learning sites that might want to trade banners? I have spent quite a bit of time on this and would like to get the site out there for everyone to enjoy.

Try Google

Like that piece of advice is breaking news.

I already have submitted my site to google, dmoz, yahoo, etc. I don't know that using adwords is the best idea because I'm not really selling anything to make-up the costs.

Your copyright notice is out of date.

You're right. I will change that ASAP.

Thanks

Let us know if anything changes with your site or your google ranking

The copyright is up to date now. I will let you know if the google ranking increases.

..I think your a genuious. This is a wonderful site.. GREAT job.

Wow, thanks.

Lol, np its true.. I think your site will be very successful and i can promise you parents will love it..better than flashcards

This is one heck of a really kewl site and I'll be passing it around to many people I know who have kids ... AWESOME JOB!!!

Rating: 10.0/10.0

This is great feedback. I really appreciate it. As always, if there is anything you would like to see added please let me know and I will make it happen ASAP.

A majority of the functions were suggestions from right here at webmaster-forums.net. Thank you to everyone that helped make this site a success.

Very good bit of programming, and very easy to use... Even for a big kid like me!

I actually had a go whilst at work, got some funny looks as I struggled with 5+6 but never mind

I think the site could perhaps do with a little more structure, it's a bit hard to see past the adverts to what the content is, so putting in some borders and background might be a good idea. Aside from this minor glitch the functionality of the site is very good!

One more thing (in a Columbo style) make sure your site validates according to the W3C (X)HTML Validator currently you're not even telling the browser the language the site is in, or the flavour of (X)HTML you're using.

I think that the layout looks really good and the idea behind it is great! You may want to use a little CSS to dress up those input boxes a bit, but other than that, I like it!

As always, thanks a million for the feedback.

JeevesBond - You are the 2nd person that pointed out the missing tags, but the first to tell me where to check them. All tags have been changed (except for 1 small error that seems to be nothing).

You also mentioned the need for a structure change. I do agree that this structure is very basic and might not draw enough attention to the functions needed to run the app. I would like to make that better, but don't know exactly what I want to do with it. If you know of a site that might have a better structure for me to look at please post the URL and I will see what I can do. Thanks for the feedback.

travelagent - Thanks for posting my URL. What message board? I would like to stop by if it's public.

trickedrides.co - I have used some basic css borders to dress up the input box during the challenges. I wanted to draw attention to it so a 2 pixel red border is what I put in place. If this isn't what you had in mind please let me know.

Thanks again everyone for your feedback. By the time I hear from everyone here this should be a huge success.

Tried the sample test and really like it! There are different images for each question. That makes fun. I added your service to my free web advertising site and hope to refer more visitors to yours.

http://www.hot-web-ads.com/view/adId/158/show.html

webads - My kid loves to get to the next question so he can see the next animation. I was pretty sure that would be a hit. Thank you very much for adding my service. I have followed that link and found the great review of the site. I really appreciate it.

travelagent - I have checked the pm and followed your instructions. I look forward to your response.

I'm not sure what to suggest with regard to any structure changes, it's not too difficult to use the site, so no urgent action is needed at the moment. Maybe you should have a surf around the Internet until you find some inspiration?

That error is caused by the height attribute being present in a 'table' tag, a table may not have height, I believe the td tag is the only one that is allowed 'height.' This attribute is deprecated in HTML 4.01, but as you are using the transitional DOCTYPE you should be fine (when using it in td tags).

Nice choice of character set btw, UTF is universal and extensible... Simply the easiest option

The reason I didn't change that is because with the height attribute it does set the height on my screen (IE6). I would assume it is ignored by the other browsers though. If I set the TD height to 250 and then put a table inside it there is no way (that I know of) to make the table expand the entire height without setting its height attribute. An example of how to do that would be appreciated.

I'm not too sure what you're trying to do, probably the only way to get the inner table to increase its size to the maximum possible is to set the td's of the inner table's height 100%, if you have more than one row in the table make each td a percentage height that when combined add-up to 100% e.g.

Also, I've downloaded a copy of the front page and removed that height from the table, then tested it in: IE5 & 6, Opera 7.5, Firefox 1 and couldn't see any difference!

you may want to make a navigation bar, there always good.