Here’s a checklist Jason Fried (from 37 Signals) wrote for reviewing a design.  It popped up on my Basecamp to-do’s that I needed to review the design for SmallBizTriage.com, so I figured I’d do it publicly.  I’ve removed some items from the list not relevant to me.

SITE:  www.SmallBizTriage.com 

What does it say?

 

What does it mean?

  

Why do we need to say that here?

 

If you stopped reading here, what’s the message?

What’s the take away after 8 seconds?

 

How does this make you feel?

 

What’s down below?

 

How else can we say this?

 

What’s memorable about this?

  

Who needs to know that?

What’s the payoff?

 

What does someone know now that they didn’t know before?

 

Why is that worth a click?

 

Is that worth scrolling?

 

What’s the simpler version of this?

  

Why that order?

 

Why would this make them choose that?

 

Why would someone leave at this point? 

 

What’s missing?

 

What’s the obvious next step?

 

Would it matter if someone missed that?

 

Does that make it easier or harder?

 

Would this be better as a sentence or a picture?

 

Where’s the verb?

  

What matters here?

 

What would happen if we got rid of that?

 

Why is this better?


How can we make this more obvious?


Is it obvious what happens next?

   

Whew … it took awhile, but now I have a clear idea what needs doing.  Coming next week … the Landing Page Checklist

 

CONCLUSIONS:

 
Short answer … I need more visuals, need to make the calls to action VERY clear, and I need more real estate to minimize scrolling.

 

FYI, Here’s the original version of the checklist.   What do you think?