blinking on my brain

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Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 10:57:00 -0800 (PST) From: Jack Schonchin Subject: blinking on my brain To: thestaff@Allrecipes.com Hi... I thought I'd drop you a little feedback. I'm really interested in your web site, particularly your vegan section which will help me accommodate several vegan friends.

However, a couple things hindered my use of your web site. FYI some honest feedback...

You are presenting a wide array of information on your front page. I started from allrecipes.com and clicked into your Vegetarian section, at which point the domain name changes to vegetarianrecipe.com. The problem is that the two front pages are almost identical, showing me all sorts of information I'm not likely to be interested at your front page (such as a newsletter sign-up form, shopping deals, etc.).

I count only two vegetarian items being shown on the veggie front page - a highlighted recipe you are promoting, and links to various veggie recipes. These two items constitute a very small percentage of the overall space allocated for information presentation, even though they are the only things users are likely to be interested in at that point.

Anyhow, the larger issue is all of the blinking and animated graphics you have on the page. Given that I'm experiencing information overload looking at the dozens of options presented on the page, it is distracting to have four separate blinking graphics to draw my attention away and hinder my task of locating my target information.

Please, consider why users come to your web site and present them that information first in a prominent fashion. Don't take the shotgun approach of presenting everything on your front page (see Yahoo as a prime example) because it makes it difficult for people to find their target information, and thus they are less likely to return for additional visits. (IMHO, that's why sites like Yahoo.com are losing traffic to simpler, targeted interfaces like Google.com.)

Anyhow, thanks for listening.

-- JS (schonchin@nospamthanks.yahoo.com), March 19, 2001

Answers

From: "TheStaff@allrecipes.com"

Subject: RE: blinking on my brain

Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 12:13:01 -0800 Thanks for your feedback to Allrecipes.com. The Staff here appreciate your comments very much and are committed to making Allrecipes.com one of the premier baking and cooking sites on the Internet. Feedback from community members like you is our number one guiding influence when it comes to making improvements to Allrecipes.com; suggestions like yours are always welcome!

Happy Cooking, The Staff @ AllRecipes.comŽ

-- JS (schonchin@nospam.yahoo.com), March 19, 2001.


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