I threw together a new website for peercoin.net. Let me know if it sucks

Hey yall,

http://bringcoin.com/peercoin/

Realizing that the current site needed some design and organizational improvements I threw together another site - to get the ball rolling.

This is in a completely different direction and not everybody is going to like it. But check it out and let me know if this format, look and feel has potential. If consensus says yes I will work to refine it by conducting a series of polls to get group feedback on each modification, change to color and for developing content. I can also work with, Super3, the current web developer to see how we can integrate some of what I created.

If you think it sucks please tell me, you won’t hurt my feelings. And if so, I will abort this mission.

Check it out: http://bringcoin.com/peercoin/

Helpful! thank you

Ok, first here are my negatives:
[ul][li]The banner image has the same feel to me as the green matrix code, which feels kind of tacky and not appropriate for a financial instrument.[/li]
[li]I don’t like all the images in the background. It needs to include more barely noticeable patterns that are one color like the current website.[/li]
[li]It wastes entirely too much space. That’s one thing the current site gets right is the way it compacts a lot of information without having to scroll far down the page.[/li]
[li]I don’t particularly like how clicking a link zooms you down the page. I think it would be better if clicking on a link takes you to a different page that only focuses on that topic. That doesn’t mean we can’t feature some of that same info on the home page. It would rather include some of that info (A Preview) to get people interested and have a link that takes you to a page that gives you much more detail on that topic.[/li][/ul]
And here are my positives:
[ul][li]I like the logo being in the middle like that. It makes it the focal point of the entire page. Although it does waste some space on the left and right side of the logo, it looks good, so I think a sacrifice can be made for appearances in this case. We would just need an appropriate banner to go behind it. Maybe it doesn’t even need to be a large photo, but a different pattern, better than the wood paneling and the matrix looking pattern.[/li]
[li]I like more information being on the front page, it just needs to be a lot more compacted, no empty space.[/li]
[li]I also like the navigation being underneath the banner and the included drop down menus, although I feel there could be a lot more buttons included in the navigation rather than being hidden in the drop down menus. There’s still plenty of space for more buttons.[/li][/ul]

Need to work on the imagery, but I do like the layout.

Thanks Sentinelrv! Most of what you suggested can fixed in this site and I will round up all suggestions and implement should the community want to go in this direction. Agreed in the matrix thing and images not being so slick.

But let me clarify what “in this direction” means and speak to your point about screen real estate and getting all on one page. The reason why I chose this template was expressly because it doesn’t put all of the information in the first view and because it does do that click and zoom down the page thing. Engagement and getting people interested should be the first priority here and having all info any given individual might want in the first view is not the way to do that - in my opinion. That’s why sites like Apple, Microsoft, Tesla have sparse front pages - they have a sense of what the majority of users want to see and have the hooks in place.

That said, I know there is much I can do to improve this design. But first, I suppose, I would love to hear from you and others if we even want to go with my idea and go in this direction - to use a site that presents one or two hooks up front and then compels the user to dig more as opposed to putting all the info up front in one place.

If not, my feelings won’t be hurt. :slight_smile: And in that case, I think we can stick with the site super3 already has in place. I can re-purpose my site for another project.

Thanks again!

The reason I proposed compacting the information and eliminating wasted space was because I thought people might not have enough motivation to continue to scroll all the way down the page, especially when this stuff can be so damn complicated for normal people to understand, but if you think you can figure out a way to really hook people to find out more and continue on down the page, then I’d like to see it.

One question I have is who should we be marketing to, Bitcoiners or the general public? Right now with the current website we seem to be marketing to people who already use bitcoin, because the general public is not going to understand anything in those three text pieces. I think we are going the right route, getting bitcoiners on board and then when we hit a certain point of success, we switch over to the general public.

Great questions - and good idea on target population. If we get consensus behind this design this is I could start a series of threads for the different questions that would need to be answered. Such as:

–Target population: I think you are right but also I think there are a ton of people who don’t use or own bitcoin that may be interested in peercoin - those who had gotten sick of hearing about bitcoin and are inclined to get started with something that is better. But, again, I say we pose this to the community here and work out our target populations. We should also get a sense of age, what types of stuff (brands) they are into (trekkies?) etc. etc.

–Top 3-5 things we want our target populations to learn and what subsequent actions we would like them to take. These will inform the hooks at the very top as well as whats on the front page and what the front page links to.

–Next 5-10 things we want out target populations to learn and actions to take. These will inform the menu choices and the content of the other pages.

–Colors to use throughout the website. I tried to the gold and green in the logo and it didn’t look very good but perhaps the base of black is wrong or something else. I think our choices of target populations should help with this.

–Imagery (photos or art) to use on the front page.

I think we should think of this as a six month campaign too, rather than a site we are going to have live with forever. “Who do we need now and what do we need them to do”, is the question.

:slight_smile:

To be honest I think it’s way too dark and it looks like an Anonymous theme. I don’t think that is the association we want people to get. Black is not a colour that goes well with finance, saving and environmental protection.

Thanks sandakersmann. It is dark and could use some color lightening, etc. And if we determine that finance people are one of our target populations than we need to move to lighter colors in a big way. But, I’m inclined to think peercoin has much less chance of gaining traction among finance people than with other groups.

I actually do think going after folks that like the anonymous is wise. Its a huge and growing contingent of people which I believe also has a strong backbone in environmental protection. I imagine there is a lot of overlap between anti-fracking, anti-XL pipeline and fans of anonymous. I also get the feeling this population would spread the word about bitcoin a lot more than finance people would.

What populations do you think we should be looking to reach? What are they into? What brands do they like? etc.

I think we should aim to reach all the people in the world and when they enter the site they should get associations of finance, saving and environmental protection.

I think its hard to design a website around all people in the world and I don’t know a brand that does that well but I could be wrong (I often am). Even if peercoin will ultimately benefit most people in the world, many groups have completely opposing views of what money is supposed to be.

But do you know of a brand (product or service) that does that well? We could perhaps take a look at their website and stuff.

You can just take a look at the Peercoin logo.

Gold = Trustworthy/saving
Coin = Money
Green leaf = Environment
Double P = P2P

Right. The logo conveys those sentiments well.

So, what I think you are saying is that we should take a similar approach to that of bitcoin (http://bitcoin.org/) - just a slight modification in look and feel for the environmental approach. Right?

Correct :slight_smile:

Thanks for the convo sandakersmann. Your approach makes sense.

I’m inclined to think we should take a shockingly different approach to differentiate ourselves from bitcoin. I like what dark wallet did: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bitcoin-dark-wallet - Though I wouldn’t go that much into the anti-bitcoin community stance.

But, if folks here want to make the look, feel and messaging similar to bitcoin.org than we can do that.

Would be great if we heard from other folks watching this thread! Be heard!

I think it’s wrong to assume that a lighter, more professional and cleaner style is only marketing to financial people. I don’t work on Wall Street or in a bank, but I would still have more trust in a financial website that uses that style. I think it’s what most people have come to expect.

I don’t disagree with you sentinelrv. But I think its hard to say what folks would expect from and want from the peercoin website since we don’t have a clear sense of the target population yet. Or is this something you all have discussed before? I’m curious about:

–What brands to they like?
–What types of movies are they into?
–Do they play video games?
–Would they shy away from or be attracted to the anonymous brand?
–Would they shy away from or be attracted to the coinbase brand?
–Do they read the Wall Street Journal or watch Max Keiser? Or both?
–Do they use apple products or PC?
–Americans? Europeans? Asian?
–What age brackets?
–If they are bitcoiners what would they give as a reason for buying peercoin with money they could keep in bitcoin?
–For investment only or because they believe in a green future?
–If they aren’t bitcoiners why would they put their hard earned cash in to peercoin?
–Are they attracted to the prospect of large returns or are they truly interested in helping something important come to life?
–Are they idealists or opportunists?

I don’t think we can be all over the place at this early stage. One or two target populations at a time. Successful brands and campaigns have super tight targets and tight messaging, colors, imagery, etc to match. If we hone in on something I am certain we will be wildly successful at getting lots more people interested. But if we stay loose it will be much more challenging.

In the absence of answers to those questions from you all, I’m inclined to think it would be a smart to go after the alternative crowd at this stage. The market is flooded with bitcoin clones and companies that are all trying to get banking, financial instrument sort of legitimacy - all with websites that convey that. It is highly competitive for those eyes, if you ask me. And these companies are spending a shit ton of money. I think we need get a lot of individuals liking peercoin and buying it and the financial instrument legitimacy can come later. And I think those kids that tie themselves to the XL Pipeline and actively protest fracking are the ones that are going to not only fall in love with peercoin but become evangelists for it. And I think the folks that like the anonymous brand and dark wallet brand will as well. And people who watch Max Keiser as opposed to read the Wall Street journal. I think its mainly American and Europeans at this stage.

All that said, I defer to you all, that have been working on peercoin much longer, and the community in general. And I absolutely could be wrong about my idea to approach the alt crowd. Just an opinion that I would be fine stepping back from.

Thoughts? Anybody want to try to answer the above questions?

How about if it was more like this newly released brand: http://www.circle.com/

Ok. I’m going to abort this mission for now. From what I gathered from this thread and other threads that I started or contributed to, we are going after crypto-currency techies and miners right now. I think it is smart to go after those folks because I suppose you can let the crypto-media translate for peercoin, but I think its a missed opportunity not to communicate directly with a wider audience of people who don’t know, and don’t care, what PoS/PoW is and don’t care what a block is.

When yall are ready to take that approach, and think you can hone in on specific types of people and/or companies outside of crypto community, I would be glad to help with branding, messaging website.

Viva peercoin!