CIMLS Usablilty

[CIMLS.com]

My site is at www.cimls.com

My question is... Do you think the site structure is obvious? Is it user friendly?

[RobertD]

I think it looks nice, but I wasn't able to get past the second page isnce I (and most of the public) refuse to sign up to get to perform a search. That's going to hurt you.

[CIMLS.com]

Yes people don't usually like to sign up for things.... Thats why we changed the sign up page and made it easier to use.

[RobertD]

Lack of simplicity isn't the problem. The problem is that people don't like to give out their personal information to an unknown and untrusted entity. You need to build value with the consumer first. Give them a reason to use and trust your site before asking for their personal info.

[Goknights]

looks good to me.. I would slow the scroll in the left of the page. it makes me dizzy.. want to trade links?

are the listings free? advertise free listings instead of free register.. if the service is not free, you may have to make it free for sometime just to gain users..

[CIMLS.com]

Its free, and we have over 60,000 users. Yeah the marquee goes a little fast, but we have it on the slowest setting... =P

[Fergus]

Hi, guys. CIMLS, I took a look at the script you're using and figured out how you can make it run slower if you want it to. You need to modify the following code in new_member_marquee.js (just two lines).

Where you see:

//Specify the marquee's width (in pixels)
var marqueewidth="130px"
//Specify the marquee's height
var marqueeheight="260px"
//Specify the marquee's marquee speed (larger is faster 1-10)
var marqueespeed=1
//Pause marquee onMousever (0=no. 1=yes)?
var pauseit=1

Add:

// Fergus's hack, bigger = slower
var interval = 40;

Where you see:

lefttime=setInterval("scrollmarquee()",20)

Change the line to:

lefttime=setInterval("scrollmarquee()",interval)

This is not the sort of value you change by ones or twos. Change by tens or twenties to see the effect, but I think the setting of 40 is pretty good. The hardcoded default was 20, and my code allows you to set it to anything you want, which gives you control of the scroll speed down to the millisecond.

Remember to make a back up of your existing script before modifying it in case you make a mistake. If you find my instructions difficult to understand, private message me and I can e-mail you the modified script file. Hope that helps, and I'll send some usability comments later on because I have to go to work.

[REW Fergus]

On the subject of the usability, my suggestion would be to replace the huge block of links to various states with a simple drop-down list. This would take up much less area and wouldn't require you to list the states in four columns. I find it harder to read alphabetically if I have to "reset" to the top of the next list. I think it would look more professional. I'd recommend adding a bit of Javascript so that the browser automatically redirects to the item chosen from the drop-down instead of requiring a click on a submit button, but this suggestion only pertains if you want to use a drop-down in the first place.

[CIMLS.com]

Thanks for the marquee help. I updated that.

As for the links. We kind of wanted to fill up that space so that people would notice it and try out some of our listings if they weren't convinced to sign up before that.

Thanks for the suggestions. ;D

[REW Fergus]

The scroll looks better to me now than before. Happy to help!