Rich Page Ramblings

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For this next in my series of ‘Website Review and Rate’, I thought I would help one of the ‘littler guys’ out! I have a picked a smaller, up and coming website to review, who have an interesting idea. This website, called TypoBuddy.com, has a simple idea - they allow you to find misspellings on ebay auctions and on classifieds sites like CraigsList. But why would anyone care? Well, if no one is finding these items for sale because of typos when searched for, less people are bidding or showing interest, so its easier to get better deals on these because the sellers don’t have many interested buyers. So, how well do they execute this idea on their website? On with the review…

Look and Feel - 7/10
The good: There are two things that I particularly like about TypoBuddy.com. Firstly, I love the logo - its very original and is very memorable (particularly because of the cool use of keyboard keys), and I love the clean interface and use of dynamic page content. Makes for a very easy to use website.

The bad: The site is a little too ‘texty’ in places - some appropriate images on the home page that explain the purpose of the site would be helpful. That way the visitor doesn’t have to rely on just looking at the catch line below the logo to understand the point of the website. Plus why the prominent links to ‘delicious’ at the top? It doesn’t really add to the site experience.

Intuitiveness and Usability - 6/10
The good: I like how the site presets your search location to know where you currently are browsing from. This means one less thing to set before you run a typo search. I also think the rollover ‘help’ links are very good, and really help to increase the usability of the typo search, which is the main purpose of the website. The option to save searches is also a great feature.

The bad: Apart from the text under the logo, and in the footer, its not immediately clear what this website is for. An its not very clear what the product images are of on the main page. Are these just top selling items, or are they examples of popular typo items? It doesn’t explain this. If these aren’t actually typo items for sale, then it might be a good idea to put them here instead of generic items for sale. Also, the typo search doesn’t seem to work as well for Craigslist. I ran a few searches that came up with results, but when I clicked through to see them on the Craigslist website, it said that none were available. This is a confusing experience for the user and might make the visitor leave prematurely.

Sticky/ Web 2.0 Content - 6/10
The good: The saved search is a good sticky site feature, and makes it easy for someone to want to return to TypoBuddy and re-run searches they are most interested in. They most popular searches on the side also give an idea of what other people are most interested in searching for. They also have a blog that readers can read and subscribe to, in order to keep up with latest news.

The bad: Unfortunately they don’t really offer much other sticky or web 2.0 content. And no, the ‘delicious’ web 2.0 style link at the top doesn’t really count. In particular, there is no community element to the website (no profiles for example) or more web 2.0 content, like video or flash website content. Adding things like these would definitely help to increase site stickiness and help increase the amount of return visitors (cheaper to way to obtain visitors!)

Overall Rating - 6.5/10
Its an original idea for a website, and could prove to be useful, especially for ebay-aholics, who are trying to get the best deals possible. Its a fairly easy to use, simple website, but I definitely think there is room for improvement. However, I will definitely remember this TypoBuddywhen I am looking for ebay auctions or Craigslist classifieds in the future and want to save more money.

Analytics/Testing Ideas (non-geeks can avoid this section!)
It was no great surprise to see they are using Google Analytics for their analytics tool, as that will satisfy most of their analytics needs. In terms of testing, I would definitely test putting testimonials on the website from people that have used the service and got a great deal. This increases the whole ’social proof’ concept - ‘if it works for others, then it must be good for me too’ and i’m sure they would likely see an increase in usage with these testimonials on the site. I would also test putting some extra images on the homepage that convey the purpose of the website, perhaps with a clearer call to action to search - maybe ‘run misspelling search now’ or something to that effect.

>>>> So there we have it, a website review and rate for one of the smaller guys. I hope you found it interesting. If anyone has any suggestions for smaller, more unusual websites that they would like to see reviewed by me, then please go ahead and contact me and send me the details - and I may review it!

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