New Website Feedback

Hi QuestionDate,

I have a few suggestions:

Colours
Firstly, I think the layout of the site is pretty good, but I was taken aback by the blue and pink colour scheme. I'm not exactly sure why you chose that colour scheme (perhaps blue refers to males and pink refers to females..?), and while it looks casual, the colours seem a little amateurish and not-professional. I do think there are many other shades of blue and pink that might work more effectively than the current selection, but I personally would not go with those colours (at least not in that combination).

Don't get me wrong: I do think you can work out something with the chosen colours, but because the colours are exceeding fresh, vivid, and slightly feminine, it can probably work well only if your website design is likewise creative and fresh and youthful. Here is a compilation of websites that make use of a similar blue and pink colour scheme:

Chamelle Design and Photography Blog » Hot Pink and Blue websites

Note how their designs, especially Havaianas Brazil and MTV Russia have really creative and funky website designs to match the colours. And it also helps that their websites have a youthful image and target audience.

There are probably other ways to communicate fun and refreshing in a dating site apart from the usage of such colours. Perhaps you could convey that idea more in the content as well as the tone of your site.

Elements
I feel that the graphic elements in the site do not gel well with each other. The logo, the white cut-outs at the top, and the cartoon Twitter bird do not really compliment each other. Your other visual elements, like the ones for 'Categories', 'Location', etc. are pretty ok. If you choose to use vector style images, try to make it consistent throughout your site. The 'Follow Me' twitter cartoon could be replaced with the pink Twitter logo that you have on the right sidebar.

I'm guessing that the three white cut-out silhouettes at the top of your site are landmarks in Northern Ireland, but they do not serve much of a purpose, since they are not very prominent, nor do they appear to have any relevance to the purpose of the site (unless the dating locations are related to those landmarks somehow?) Then again, I could be way off here, since I have no knowledge of the landmarks of Northern Ireland.

The photo collage that you have at the centre of your website has cropped off your site title, leaving it to be 'QuestionDat'. Perhaps you could just have the photos fill the entire space, and if you do want to place your logo there (though not necessary, since your logo can already be seen at the top left corner), at least place it somewhere at the bottom right or left corner of the photo collage.

Again, your photos show a fun, cool, but sophisticated and mature dating scene, but the website theme doesn't really compliment that.

Font
A couple of small issues:
Some of your text is in a san-serif font, and others are in serif. Like the text below the photo collage in the main page is san-serif, but the text under the 'Read Our Blog' section on the right sidebar is a serif font. Likewise, the text in all your other pages are of a serif font as well. Do try to make it consistent.

Another small issue as well, but the text colour of the word 'Antrim', and 'Events' under your 'Events' page is of a different pink from the headers of the other pages.

In general, the site layout is pretty clean and concise, and the relevant information is easy to find, so the layout aspect of the site is pretty good.

Hope my suggestions will be helpful to you, and I wish you all the best!

Cheers,
-Hum