Hot take: My freelance site was too cluttered until I got roasted in a coffee shop

I was sitting at a local spot downtown last Tuesday, working on my laptop, when this guy next to me asked what I did. I showed him my freelance site (you know, hoping for a lead) and he just squinted at the screen for a second. He said something like 'dude, I don't know where to look first' and pointed out I had three different calls to action in the header alone. It stung but he was right. So I stripped it down to one clear goal last weekend and my contact rate went up a bit this week. Has anyone else had a random stranger give them a brutal but useful site review?

3 comments

3 Comments

rosepark14d ago

@quinnperry maybe it's just me but random strangers aren't always right about design feedback.

quinnperry17d ago

Oh man, that reminds me of the time I was in a bookstore and some random teen told me my portfolio site looked like "a geocities page from 1998." I was like okay rude but also she had a point about my font choices. Sometimes the best feedback comes from people who don't care about your feelings at all.

the_rowan16d ago

Not to be that person, but Geocities was around way later than 98. By 98 it was already getting kinda old. You're probably thinking of the whole blinking text and Comic Sans era. That was more early 2000s. Still, rude teen was right about fonts. Comic Sans is never the answer. But hey, at least you got free design feedback.