Article and Link Directory

Continuing my reviews of directories, the next up is Article and Link Directory. The first thing I will point out is clearly much has been done on this site, and kudos to the creator. The second thing is I don't like light text on a dark background. It is hard for me to read. That said, I still think this is a great directory, and want to give it an honest look.

Design wise, I like the overall layout. There is a lot of content on the homepage, but nothing seems squeezed. The blocks of information work well individually. I would almost say there are too many blocks though from the standpoint of wanting to shape traffic. I think it might be good to create some goals for what you want the traffic to do.

Obviously, you want people to submit links, and that is front and center. But what other "hooks" might there be for people? Do we want them to engage you on twitter? Since this is an article and link directory, do we maybe want to show an article with a nice graphic on the homepage that would lead someone to want to read more? (or maybe a couple of article lead ins with graphics?)

There were also a couple of nice features that I had not seen much: the rss list and the live chat with meebo.

So well done overall, and I hope some of these ideas will help. I apologize for my comment about the light text on dark background, but it does make my head swim a little. I'm sure this is not true for everyone.

Finally, a big thanks to the owner of this directory for their participation on the phpLD forum!