My Ubuntu oriented tech website. What do you think?

[diablo75]

Hi guys (and ladies). I've been working on an Ubuntu F.A.Q. on my website for the last few weeks and I've decided to divide it into three parts. The first is mostly finished, and it is written for a "Windows users who are curious about Ubuntu or Linux in general", and is intended to sounds a bit more "human" and less technical. If you have a chance, please look it over and tell me if you think it needs some help.

Why am I posting this in the Art forums? Well I was wondering if anybody out there might have some ideas for ways to make the web site more "Zen". Any suggestions?

www.davestechsupport.com

[maruchan]

Great job, bookmarked. You did a really good job picking tasteful Beryl videos, for example. Also, you've kept the color scheme under control. :popcorn: I'll give you a longer response because I think what you're doing is cool. :)

A couple things that might make you look more amateur than you want:
-Suspiciously low prices (esp. for full data migration). It just says "amateur" to your customers. It took me a year of hard work for rude cheapskates to realize that pricing is advertisement, and says much more about you than "I'm this expensive."
-User-friendliness: HP BSOD photo isn't really well explained, same with Monty Python photo. Without context, any lingo or in-jokes you use may confuse visitors.
-...and the photo of a CD with marker writing on it...sorta sketchy, no? ;)

If you asked me to make your site more "zen," I would also cut the word count by half (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html), at least, over-simpify the layout, and break things out into separate pages. I'd also ask you to identify your target audience.

Also, both Linux the Operating System, and computer consultants in general have a bad reputation for being over-complex, so anything you can do to nullify those concerns on the site (by making your site super-simple to navigate/understand/scan) will probably go a long way to help your business stand out. :)

I would keep a copy of Ubuntu FAQ as it is, though. Call it your manifesto. Warn people that it's long and may contain in-jokes. It could get a lot of Diggs and bookmarks from Ubuntu users who just want to read about how good a decision they've made. ;)

[diablo75]

Wow! Thanks a lot for the feedback. I have about 10 hours of nothing to do tomorrow so I'll be sure to come back here in the morning and follow as many of your suggestions as I can.

[psyopper]

I agree with all of the above. My opinion about pricing may differ slightly, though low I wouldn't raise your prices too much. Ask yourself this - who is your target market and what will that TM consider affordable, reasonably priced or a good value?

If part of your aim is to make converts (huzzah!) to Ubuntu/Linux I would suggest that you "include an hour of free tutorial in the spirit of free software." It will make them far less likely to think twice. Think about this - your asking them to convert to a new OS that is both libre and gratis that they know nothing about and totoring them at your rate for two hours (a reasonable time frame to get them up and running) will cost almost as much as purchasing Windows and not requiring any lifestle changes at all.

On a design note, I personally feel it's a touch too green. Add some more charcoal (definitely not black or brown) highlights. Maybe make your borders a little thicker and darker. Same goes for your links - the green link color blends into the background a little too much and reduces readability. Personally I prefer links of a slightly different color, font, size than the original text with no text decoration.

[Lord Illidan]

Very nice site. Just skimmed over it, though, but from what I saw, it was good. Home page looks very pro.

[diablo75]

psyopper, thanks for your suggestions too.

You were talking about how I should think about who my target market is, and weighing the price.

Well, one of my intentions is to virtualize the tutorial process by creating a large collection of my own tutorial videos that I make myself. I already have few test videos here (http://www.davestechsupport.com/video)in ogg format and here (http://www.davestechsupport.com/ubuntufaq2.html), the first of many to be hosted by google video (save on a lot of bandwidth so why not).

For additional marketing, I've gone ahead and installed it on a few PCs for clients who I've done work for in the past, but for FREE. They're befuddled as to why. My intention is to let them gradually fall in love with the OS, feel proud about it, tell their friends about it, and hopefully, some of those friends of theirs will give me a phone call and say, "I want that! Hook me up!" I mean, I offer other services such as network installation and hardware troubleshooting/upgrades, all that A+ stuff and I charge for all that stuff to everybody. So offering an OS installation to everybody in city limits for FREE almost seems game to me (for now because I've got nothin' else going on). But really, the way I look at it is that it's like a way of saying "Thanks for shopping" to the customer before they've even bought anything. Because you know a good chunk of them are gonna like you if you make a good impression and so they'll choose you next time instead of Geek Squad or whoever. Either because you're honest, you're useful, or your cheaper.

So with the tutorial videos, it would be like an additional incentive for them to try it out. They might sit and watch videos out of the faq for a couple weeks before making up their mind. They'd probably prefer doing that instead of reading this big FAQ.

Something else I'm trying to do today is add a kind of audiobook feature to the website. I want each question (section) to have it's own mp3 recording of me reading the actual FAQ to the user, upon hitting a play button somewhere.

Edit: Found this pretty damn good tutorial:

http://www.gmg.com.au/assets/tutorials/flash-mx-audio/index.html

[ikonia]

why is this in the art and design forum ?

This website will nicely put together and full of factual information holds no different information from the ubuntu wikis.

With respect I don't believe this website would offer value to anyone in the ubuntu community for information that could not be found in the official wiki or forums. Why not contribute your information there rather than adding another personal support site.
Apart from that the only loss is you would not be able to advertise your services which is perhaps not appropriate in the art and design forum.

[diablo75]

why is this in the art and design forum ?

This website will nicely put together and full of factual information holds no different information from the ubuntu wikis.

With respect I don't believe this website would offer value to anyone in the ubuntu community for information that could not be found in the official wiki or forums. Why not contribute your information there rather than adding another personal support site.
Apart from that the only loss is you would not be able to advertise your services which is perhaps not appropriate in the art and design forum.

I started this thread here because I wanted to see reactions from people who are keen on art and aesthetics (and design too) on the website in general. The content (information wise) doesn't matter as much, especially to current users of Ubuntu (but that depends on which part of the site you are looking at). The first FAQ is intended to be read by Windows users, not Ubuntu users. The second and third FAQs (once they are established) will actually be less FAQ and more library of tutorial videos, and geared more towards Ubuntu users. Kind of a bonus to those who decide to switch to Ubuntu is the fact that they'll be able to watch tutorial videos for free on their own time.

The website is also, for the most part but not entirely, intended to promote my physical services (such as on-site tech support for home users and small business). So a majority of the content that is put up on the site is intended to satisfy my immediate customers as well as advertise my other services. But I'm going to attempt to make the second and third FAQs geared more towards non-local audience, hopefully building up a resource of useful links, perhaps a forum, and otherwise very useful or practical information that can be used for reference.

But if anybody has ideas on ways to make it work better, I'm all ears.

[Cappy]

Hello diablo, I also think your site is far too wordy. Many of your sentences are "round about".
There are some good tips you should follow here: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the_day_you_bec.html

For instance, your page "services & pricing" needs a better beginning sentence.
"When it comes to computers, I think we can all agree on one thing: They were obviously built by a bunch of monkeys. "
The rest of paragraph should be condensed into one or two short sentences.

Even a beginning sentence such as "Fixing a broken computer with spyware, printers that don't print, security problems can be a pain!"

"Imagine if the threat of viruses and spyware became a distant thought and your computer didn't get slower with age." - This is an especially strong sentence that should be improved and moved to the front of a paragraph.

You should use better formatting for each page. Either use a list and list out what you can do, use bullet points for each paragraph so someone can skim it, or make the first sentence a summary of each paragraph.

Remember, what you want in a webpage is Ease of Use, Ability to Skim it (conciseness), and not having as much wordiness to bring forth a starting paragraph.

One last note, I like the green side theme but the green at the top left banner is a little much. I'm not an artist so I'm not sure how exactly to improve it =P

[diablo75]

Excellent advice! Thank you.

I'll try to get to it after I finish dinner.

[ukripper]

Good work, especially with you tube clips additions for beginners. Nice one mate!

[timmahhny]

First you site looks great. I love the colors, the layout.
My remarks is about price.
Being self-employed, I will tell you that it is much harder for you to raise price then it is to lower it.
Me, I would look around, take stock of what others are attempting to charge, see if how you compare to them, then adjust the price as needed.
I never do anything that I am not going to make money on. I would rather walk on hot coals, then to do work and not make money. We all need to eat, live, and buy stuff.
Set your price a little higher, if things don't work out as you intended, then slowly lower it.
Site is bookmarked.
Timmahhny

[Cappy]

Hey the website looks very good! I'm literally falling asleep at the keyboard but I was still able to skim your website thanks to your bold keywords and the more concise sentences. Impressive!