Review: dream-library.com

scottdizzle · 09-30-2007, 07:28 AM

I have a lot of sites that I've been working really hard on.. sacrificing sleep haha.. but I'd like to introduce them slowly because if I wrote them all on here at once you'd call me out for spamming. So, I'll start with my personal favorite.. the one that is most unique and gets the least attention because of it.

www.dream-library.com

It has a membership area and members are able to log in, write their dreams, and guests and members can read the dreams for free. Well, it would be stupid to make people pay to share their dreams. Oh also.. only members can leave comments on dreams.. so it's kinda like a forum.. new topics = new dreams.. then members write their replies.

I've never seen a site that collects peoples dreams and everyone dreams.. so I wanted to start capturing them. The dreams on the site are real dreams from users.. but I just added the membership area so they all show up 'anonymous' until they create a user account. I used to have it set where there was a form and people would send me an email (they didn't know it was just an email form) and I would copy and paste them into my CMS. Now they can actually take care of it all themselves after logging in. I just finished this site a few days ago.. well adding the membership area anyway.

I'd love to get anyones dreams if you got em!

Check out how the menu works.. that took FOREVER!

Picture:

scottdizzle · 09-30-2007, 07:35 AM

Ah, I forgot to write Review: dream-library.com in the title! I'm sorry. I can't figure out how to delete it or edit the title!

Jul · 09-30-2007, 07:39 AM

Ohh!! Thank you for bringing something fresh

I love the idea and I am going to register now!
I'll write my review on design later...

scottdizzle · 09-30-2007, 09:14 AM

Thanks Jul, that's very exciting! I've been dying to get some new members so I can see all my hard work pay off and make sure everything is working correctly.

Dsgnr · 09-30-2007, 12:50 PM

Nice Job and Nice Project "scottdizzle".

Congratulations... I will register to your site...

Jul · 09-30-2007, 12:58 PM

Ok, now when I've took closer look I'm back with some comments. You can take them or ignore them, but I feel very certain about them.
The design is very nice - good concept, pleasantly surprising color scheme. However, I would suggest some changes:

1. Emphasize your slogan (Dream library is full of your dreams....)

2. Change menu items' order. Here is my offer:
Write Dream | Navigate Library (New Dreams | Popular Dreams | Most Discussed Dreams | Dream of the Day | Dream Cloud)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Home | Members Area | Members List | Help & FAQ | Contact

3. This sign "+/-" after each dream category is unclear. I think it'd be better if you used ">"

4. There are three boxes in the middle of the page...they have sort of an image background inside of them. It makes text hard to read. In addition, I feel like there is too much boxes. Look around – everything is inserted into a box. I suggest canceling those three tables and leaving the text on a plain background.

* BTW, when I registered, I marked the checkbox "login after registering", but it didn't log me in.

Good luck with the site, it's awesome! Fresh idea and professional implementation.

scottdizzle · 09-30-2007, 09:22 PM

Thanks so much Jul!

Quote:

"login after registering", but it didn't log me in.

I noticed that too.. I think I might just take that checkbox off. Or it might log you in the next time the page refreshes.. I'm just now getting used to how the membership stuff works with the CMS I use and it's really confusing and not very well developed.. well it is.. but I'm really the only person trying to embellish on it at the moment. So, I'm very glad to see some people try it out so I can see where it fails and needs more work.

As far as the menu.. I will try to rework it soon.. I'm exhausted working on the site for now lol I need a change in pace.. I also know there is some problems in the comment boxes.. I know I forgot something.. I just can't deal with it right now

As far as the image in the background behind the content boxes.. it's a crumpled up piece of paper that I took a picture of. I'm kinda fond of it. I know it kinda makes it hard to read.. but I don't know if I want to take it out or not. If enough people tell me it's annoying I'll do it but it's from the old layout and I was trying to keep it somewhat similar so the existing visitors would feel familiar with the layout.

But, it is very nice to get some great constructive criticism.. I'll come back here and go through your list and try to brainstorm some ways to improve on all of the things you've listed. I'm bookmarking this page.

The sites only good if other people like it!

scottdizzle · 09-30-2007, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Congratulations... I will register to your site...

Thanks man

very good to hear.. the more the merrier right?

**Ayaka** · 10-01-2007, 04:59 AM

Title fixed.

Jesse Vlasveld · 10-01-2007, 04:05 PM

It looks pretty good.

My first impression is, the moment you enter you get this "web 2.0" stylish feel, the logo with the mirror effect, the birds at the side, clean and simple.
When you look better, and further.. it gets chunky.
What I'm trying to say is that it looks like there are two seperate styles used. The style you've got in the logo and the birds, the colors.. it's awesome. But try to work it out in the entire site.

CountryNaturals · 10-01-2007, 07:31 PM

I'm lousy with design stuff but I'm good at finding typos.

"We've been promising our users for a membership area for way too long."

Get rid of the first "for."

Good job. I can tell you've put a lot of work into it.

scottdizzle · 10-02-2007, 05:24 AM

Mmm.. thanks for finding the typo

and here I thought I was great with English. Well, I know I'm not perfect.

Jesse, I don't understand. It's one stylesheet file that is used throughout the whole site and I used an eye dropped to get exact color matches in hexadecimal. I can't think of better colors to use because I matched them all up exactly. Can you suggest some hexadecimal alternatives? Thank you much for the kind words though

I know it needs some fine tuning.. I'm burnt out at the moment lol. I did 4 sites in 4 days back-to-back.. This one was unfortunately the last and I was starting to get lazy.. but I tried my hardest to stay focused.

zealous.cre · 10-03-2007, 07:14 PM

Very good design, very good color scheme. Me personally I like to have my background image fixed because it brings the content forward a bit but thats my preference. Your games links open in your parent page not good. y should visitors or even members at that have to navigate away from the page to play games. The games should open in a new tab or window.
Other than that your a brilliant designer with great ideas keep it up.

scottdizzle · 10-04-2007, 04:43 AM

Quote:

Your games links open in your parent page not good. y should visitors or even members at that have to navigate away from the page to play games.

Dream-library.com has 0 games on it.. Those are paid advertisements collected at www.linkvertise.org and I run them across about 6 sites right now. They work similarly to Google Adsense but it's my own advertising program. I asked advertisers how they would like their links to function in my advertising.. cause if they don't pay.. then my ad scheme fails/makes no money.. and if I don't make money then I can't exist so they have to stay. I'm glad you and other people are clicking them.. keeps making my sites more valuable

Quote:

Other than that your a brilliant designer with great ideas keep it up.

Thanks so much.. that was a very nice compliment!

eyje.com · 10-04-2007, 05:25 AM

Congragulations, i hope everything would be great for you! You have a good design and idea, have a nice day, it's time to seo and promotion!

scottdizzle · 10-04-2007, 10:08 AM

Quote:

it's time to seo and promotion!

Thanks eyje.com! Yes, yes I'd say it is. This is step 1. Show some webmasters and get some reviews. Hey, it already helped. For once, searching Dream Library on Google made it show up on the first page of results.. result #10.. but at least it's finally crawling up. I just can't believe that one of the sites before me is actually a Page Cannot be Found and the name of that site isn't even Dream Library.. I haven't even added all the meta keywords and description to each individual page yet. But, it used to have that and honestly it's doing better now than it did then lol. Weird.

By the way, I love your colorful yet very simple and pleasing to the eye www.eyje.com

I know it's a review for my site.. but I was pleasantly surprised when I visited that.

oldstocks · 03-22-2008, 07:31 PM

cool niche but i just saw the same template when reviewing another site.

You might want to do some legwork to a find a dreamy, sleepy time type of template to fit the theme

Rob Manchester · 06-04-2008, 03:04 AM

Thats very good ive never seen anything like this on the net before very fresh
How you come up with that idea?
as for the website its slef im not sure I can say there is anything wrong with its done very well I wish you all the luck in the world with it

MicheleDB · 06-04-2008, 11:17 AM

Good golly, your site must have taken forever! I can see lots of hours have gone into this so all i can say is well done! I like the layout. Neat and pleasing to the eye.

Dream Line.Ltd · 06-10-2008, 03:08 AM

Great site and good content. But too many ads in homepage.