Great feedback, you nail many points. I’m actually working on a redesign right now. I’d love more feedback and to let you in on a small inner circle to help me make this iteration even better.

Thanks,
Jason M. Putorti
Lead Designer, mint.com

Multiple research projects have shown that users form a first impression about a website in as little as 1/20th of a second (literally in the blink of an eye). They make instantaneous judgments about a websites visual appeal. It’s also been proven that through the “halo effect” those first impressions can impact subsequent judgments on a site’s credibility, trustworthiness, and more.

And ultimately it influences their confidence in the product/service and their purchase decision. And what’s scary.. for many this is done subconsciously. Only professionals like you and I know to set aside those immediate and subconscious concerns and focus on the actual site content. The great majority will not. And yes, they do recognize good design from bad even if they couldn’t tell you exactly what that means.

So while headlines, benefit statements, web copy and call to action are VERY important if it’s not supported by a decent design that is all lost, especially in the first 30 seconds when immediate impressions will determine whether they leave the site or not… and especially for the spontaneous and competitive buying modalities.

Mint.com just happened to have a great design so that snap judgment supported your further analysis. In this particular case, it doesn’t.

He does use a couple best practices like running testimonials down the page but he drops the ball on a few others. For example, no one reads every word from top to bottom of a long copy sales letter at best they scan it. That means bolding key points, strong calls to actions, frequent and descriptive sub-heads (the best sub-heads are benefit statements in disguise), and don’t be afraid to mix in some highlighting and appropriate images. Something he does very poorly on this homepage.

Strangely enough, several of the product pages do a far better job of leveraging long copy sales letter best practices than the home page but he still needs to do a MUCH better job of bolding and highlighting key selling points in the paragraphs versus nice to know information. He also seems to do a better job of bolding at the top of pages but then nearly abandons it by the mid-point of most pages. If he wants I’ll give him some very detailed and specific examples and suggestions, this comment is already way to long so I won’t include them here. Throw him my email address if he is interested.

Of course, if his site is like that of many successful specialized publisher sites he gets only a very small amount of entry traffic to his homepage with most people going directly to product/content pages from information searches. So maybe the home page isn’t really all that important.. of course the visual elements encompass the entire site and you now know how I feel about that. =)

(this is not spelling or grammar proofed.. sorry)

First, I’m digging these videos, please keep doing them. But you may consider adding a link back to the blog above and below the video, if not during then definitely afterwards. To get back to the blog you have to use the “back” button and while lots of people do end up doing that, why make people think? I accidentally closed the window twice thinking the video link had opened a new window (and I just hadnt noticed) and wanting to get back to the blog. Most people would just carry on and not take the time to get back to the site like I did.

Second, I recommend adding some of the social media bookmarks to your blogs. Your creating some interesting and unique content. Give us an easy way to share it with others on Digg, Technorati, StumbleUpon, etc..

Third, open all your links to other sites in a new window. You are just begging people to leave by not using them. For example, the Hypnosis site you reference in this post uses Javascript to keep people from being able to use the back function on their browse to return back to your site. A feature by the way that I absolutely detest and cant fathom why someone would still be using it. Its so shifty.. but Ill get into that in my next post.