I think if you're positioning yourself as a "Pingdom killing start-up" (I didn't know Pingdom needed killing? Are they that evil/bad?), I'd put the feature comparison, or a subset of that, front and center on your website.
I really like what you guys are trying to do here. But, I think your sign up flow needs some clarity and maybe some a/b testing with an app like Myna (mynaweb.com).
For instance, I currently require 3-7 clicks to understand the entire offering and how they compare cost wise. This needs to be done to 2 clicks max.
Also, your primary call-to-action needs to stand out on the landing page, above the fold.
There are bunch of other optimizations I see, but for the first cut this is really good.
Just created an account and it looks interesting. Some random thoughts, take them for what you will:
1. The differentiating factor is the 5-second check interval, yes? Clearly, I am not the target audience for that, but I suppose it could be of interest for some people. The argument seems to be that there is a measurable difference in the ability to react to an outage if you are notified within 5 seconds versus 60 seconds. That is true, but I suspect that even at my best, it would take me at least another 5 minutes to do anything about an outage.
2. It's not clear on the demo account tier how I would receive notifications. On the Probe editor, it shows that I will be notified, but not how. I presume by e-mail at the e-mail address I used to sign up (since you don't have anything else yet). But it should probably be more clearly indicated. Aha, elsewhere on the site it's clear the notification is via e-mail.
3. Overall the graphic design looks a little too "templatey," if you know what I mean. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a designer so I don't have any grounds to criticize design. Nevertheless, a few things could probably improve the look & feel:
a. Slightly tone down the color depth. Right now, many different sections of the page are all popping as if they are accent or highlight colors.
b. Commission some custom icons. I don't have any drawing skill, so I too use stock icons. But considering how heavily you utilize your icons, the icons are important for you. The icons have no site-specific character.
c. At the "Detect Portal," the content of most interest to me--the list of monitors--seems among the most diminutive and unimportant visually speaking.
d. Padding, margin, and spacing. The icons shouldn't touch the borders of their containers. The label on the "Create Check" button looks off-center vertically.
e. Terminology. The page names are a little weird; the page title doesn't seem to change? Also, while I understand what you're trying to do with the main navigation along the left, it's a little odd to click "Detect" to get to a list of "Checks" which are then called a "probe" in the URL.
Thanks! Great feedback, we'll chase those items down. We have the differential locked in, but its not released yet...you'll have to stay tuned, but trust me its good ;-)
- Not a huge fan of the "Pingdom killing" tagline in the title here. It sends a negative message that's unneeded, IMHO.
- I like the main page, but the multiple black boxes that popped up are distracting from the main content. Specifically, the "we're not here now" Contact button in the bottom-right, in addition to the Support button and the Sign Up button.
- You can't drag the scrollbar on the "Edit Check" page - it selects part of the page instead.
Other than those points, some small stuff: it doesn't say how I get notifications, the "contact us" black button obscures the "Follow Us" when you scroll to the bottom of the page, and, like bhauer mentions, the color depth seems a bit much - it's almost TO flashy.
All criticism aside: I'm still using it for my personal website :-) It looks like a good product, so keep up the good work!
+1 Regarding the tagline, "Pingdom killer". I would first agree with this comment that you need to focus on users, not competitors. You're trying to communicate the experience the user will receive, not your business objectives (which should be making money...if you succeeded in getting people to stop using Pingdom but some third competitor gets all of the users then you have done all of the work but captured none of the reward)
Also, you've basically given Pingdom advance notice that you intend to compete with them, so what is to stop them from copying your best ideas and capitalizing on them?
1. On iPad, when I clicked the link to the how it works section, the animated arrows showing the flow of checks and responses were in a layer behind the cloud images that I think are supposes to stay in the back layer. I only saw this glitch once.
2. Pricing confused me. 6 checks for $14/month. My first thought was this means you only would check my server 6 times a month, so on average it would take 2.5 days for you to notice a problem and tell me. That can't be right, so I must conclude I have no idea what a "check" is. Does it mean 6 pages or things at my site are monitored? Anyway, sine the pricing is based on checks, you should make sure no one gets confused as to what a check is.
Thanks for the feedback, we'll look into those ipad issues. "Checks" are an individual end point (Http or TCP) you want us to monitor, we will continually monitor that check as often as you like (from as often as 5 seconds to as irregular as hourly).
Wow, that's really confusing terminology. I would never have guessed that a "check" corresponded to a url or port.
Why do you hide the link to pricing info in the "Features" section? My first question about any product is "How much will it cost me?".
The back button doesn't work in either browser I tried (Chrome and Safari). Click Features, then click Our Customers, then hit back. The page scrolls up about 2 pixels.
Of course it means 6 things are monitored, I feel like you're exaggerating your confusion here. Pingdom uses the word check to refer to the same thing, they seem to be doing ok.
On the feature comparison chart, the "Early Response System" seems to be something Pingdom has, but you've marked them as lacking it. Per their docs:
> If we can’t reach the target with a test, a second location in our monitoring network will be asked to perform another test right away. If both these locations agree that the site is down, the check is considered as down by Pingdom.
Its a fair comment, but this is one of the main reasons why we state this is because pingdom does the check "soon" after the error. The issue with this is, if your problem is intermittent, or changing over time...the actual issue may not be the issue you observed in the check on the "follow up".
I've been a Pingdom customer for several years, with no plan to leave. Here's my perspective:
1. Our primary use of Pingdom is to show prospective clients our app uptime, as validated by a 3rd party. So Pingdom's main value for us is in marketing.
2. Because Pingdom has years of our data, we are really locked in.
3. Sub-minute monitoring is not appealing, I don't want that much load on my servers from monitoring.
4. The name Verelo does not convey what your service does.
5. I think Pingdom's $10/month price point is about right for our use-case. We'd probably drop it if they raised prices very much.
The initial page load and scrolling back up to the top is extremely laggy, not sure what your doing behind the scenes buts its bad in Chrome on dual i7's
21 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 50.3 ms ] threadFor instance, I currently require 3-7 clicks to understand the entire offering and how they compare cost wise. This needs to be done to 2 clicks max.
Also, your primary call-to-action needs to stand out on the landing page, above the fold.
There are bunch of other optimizations I see, but for the first cut this is really good.
Best wishes :)
1. The differentiating factor is the 5-second check interval, yes? Clearly, I am not the target audience for that, but I suppose it could be of interest for some people. The argument seems to be that there is a measurable difference in the ability to react to an outage if you are notified within 5 seconds versus 60 seconds. That is true, but I suspect that even at my best, it would take me at least another 5 minutes to do anything about an outage.
2. It's not clear on the demo account tier how I would receive notifications. On the Probe editor, it shows that I will be notified, but not how. I presume by e-mail at the e-mail address I used to sign up (since you don't have anything else yet). But it should probably be more clearly indicated. Aha, elsewhere on the site it's clear the notification is via e-mail.
3. Overall the graphic design looks a little too "templatey," if you know what I mean. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a designer so I don't have any grounds to criticize design. Nevertheless, a few things could probably improve the look & feel:
a. Slightly tone down the color depth. Right now, many different sections of the page are all popping as if they are accent or highlight colors. b. Commission some custom icons. I don't have any drawing skill, so I too use stock icons. But considering how heavily you utilize your icons, the icons are important for you. The icons have no site-specific character. c. At the "Detect Portal," the content of most interest to me--the list of monitors--seems among the most diminutive and unimportant visually speaking. d. Padding, margin, and spacing. The icons shouldn't touch the borders of their containers. The label on the "Create Check" button looks off-center vertically. e. Terminology. The page names are a little weird; the page title doesn't seem to change? Also, while I understand what you're trying to do with the main navigation along the left, it's a little odd to click "Detect" to get to a list of "Checks" which are then called a "probe" in the URL.
Best of luck!
- Not a huge fan of the "Pingdom killing" tagline in the title here. It sends a negative message that's unneeded, IMHO.
- I like the main page, but the multiple black boxes that popped up are distracting from the main content. Specifically, the "we're not here now" Contact button in the bottom-right, in addition to the Support button and the Sign Up button.
- You can't drag the scrollbar on the "Edit Check" page - it selects part of the page instead.
Other than those points, some small stuff: it doesn't say how I get notifications, the "contact us" black button obscures the "Follow Us" when you scroll to the bottom of the page, and, like bhauer mentions, the color depth seems a bit much - it's almost TO flashy.
All criticism aside: I'm still using it for my personal website :-) It looks like a good product, so keep up the good work!
Also, you've basically given Pingdom advance notice that you intend to compete with them, so what is to stop them from copying your best ideas and capitalizing on them?
2. Pricing confused me. 6 checks for $14/month. My first thought was this means you only would check my server 6 times a month, so on average it would take 2.5 days for you to notice a problem and tell me. That can't be right, so I must conclude I have no idea what a "check" is. Does it mean 6 pages or things at my site are monitored? Anyway, sine the pricing is based on checks, you should make sure no one gets confused as to what a check is.
Why do you hide the link to pricing info in the "Features" section? My first question about any product is "How much will it cost me?".
The back button doesn't work in either browser I tried (Chrome and Safari). Click Features, then click Our Customers, then hit back. The page scrolls up about 2 pixels.
On the feature comparison chart, the "Early Response System" seems to be something Pingdom has, but you've marked them as lacking it. Per their docs:
> If we can’t reach the target with a test, a second location in our monitoring network will be asked to perform another test right away. If both these locations agree that the site is down, the check is considered as down by Pingdom.
1. Our primary use of Pingdom is to show prospective clients our app uptime, as validated by a 3rd party. So Pingdom's main value for us is in marketing.
2. Because Pingdom has years of our data, we are really locked in.
3. Sub-minute monitoring is not appealing, I don't want that much load on my servers from monitoring.
4. The name Verelo does not convey what your service does.
5. I think Pingdom's $10/month price point is about right for our use-case. We'd probably drop it if they raised prices very much.
Hope this helps, good luck with your venture!
I would encourage you to check back when we add our next feature set, there are some big game changers coming.
And why do you delay the page load just so you can do a fade in animation?
It seems like half the things you have on the page are there to prevent me from finding out what you guys do.