Madrassa – Code & Design Courses Reduced To 5-sec GIFs
Target Audience: Digital Natives
Website URL: https://www.madrassa.co
No. of Feedback Providers Requested: 3
Feedback sought:
Note to Feedback Providers:
Please note that businesses are looking for in-depth feedback that gives them thorough, insightful and actionable input. A ‘superficial’ submission that does not add value, is not thorough (i.e. written in a hurry, with poor grammar, punctuation etc.) and does not offer any constructive feedback is not particularly helpful and will therefore be rejected.
1) Look around the home page – what is your initial impression of what you see?
2) Take the first free course and let me know what you think about it
3) What courses would you want to see on Madrassa?
4) How much would you pay for that course?
5) Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
1. I like that the home page is clean and simple. I don’t like clutter or an overwhelming amount of content on a home page. “Prototype your app…” could be in a different color to make it stand out more. The white looks nice, but it seems to get a little lost against a light colored background. Maybe black and bold like Madrassa is on the other side would stand out nicely.
2. I thought the course was very well done. The instructions were well illustrated. I also liked that short videos in the course continually replayed, so if a person didn’t catch something, he/she wouldn’t have to re-click on something.
3. With the strong skills used in setting up this course, I can see any appropriate course working well here. I can see courses for the iOS 8 Development for Newbies and Design & Build a Responsive Website without Code that are mentioned on the site. I have a website and don’t use html, so I especially see the value in a course for building websites. Since the person who set up the prototype course did so well at giving instructions, a course for websites would be nice.
4. This is difficult. I was able to find information I needed for free on YouTube when I built my WordPress site. That said, it was a drag having to look for videos on various pieces, which plugins to use and how to do the home page since it was different than the other pages, adding media, then verifying the site with Google, and on and on. Having one place, where the various pieces are clearly identified, and offering all the steps in one place, would be great. Then it’s something more worth paying for. What would I pay? Maybe up to $100.00. Less would be better. While I realize it’s a cost to provide the courses, there’s so much information like this available for free.
I’m not suggesting the course needs to be on WordPress. I’m just sharing an example from my own experience.
5. It’s so important to build websites that are responsive, so it’s great that you’re making sure to say that you’d be helping someone build a responsive site. Responsive is one word I look for when considering a WordPress theme, for example, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who looks for that.
I like the content on the About page. It looks like the person behind the scenes of this site is good at identifying the problem (people signing up for courses, but not following through because of the time it takes) and solving it with the product offered. In this day and age, with shorter attention spans, this is the way to go.
For someone who isn’t all that savvy, yet can learn (which describes a lot of people), this is a great site.
1. Upon opnening the home page the uneven coloring (white on the left) burned my eyes a bit. I like that there is some movement on the left portion of the page. The right three portions are unnecessarily big and I need to scroll, which only delays how quickly I orient on site. Initially I did not have the page in fullscreen and did not see that there were actually buttons in the three potions of the page, maybe move them to the right of the text so minimalization does not hurt the site. I also did not like chat popping up, I saw it there and the pop up just blocked the view of the site.
2. Again, the popping up chat blocked the view of an arrow to the next step of the first course. The arrow is too small and with the chat popped up entirely invisible. The number of page I was looking at (ie 19/20) blocked a portion of the letters that explained the step. Otherwise the course seemed simple and well explained.
3. I would like to be able to create a simple application to keep my notes, or to start up another application (alarm with a radio and similar) or to be able to create an application that would directly stream my favorite radio.
4. If the quick courses were not too expensive, as an amatour I would not mind paying $5 to create a customized application. The payment should reflect how complicated the application is.
5. I would definitely look over the site in various browser and check how minimalization and screen resolution shows on the site, if there are obvious design flaws I would not pay for instruction videos at all. Move the chat icon so it does not bother text or arrows to move pages. Otherwise it is a site I would definitely be interested in following!
1) Look around the home page – what is your initial impression of what you see?
My initial impression of the website is quite positive. The website has a very unique look and I like how it has been divided into sections. It has highlighted the different parts of the website and when I scroll, only half of the page moves. This is something I have never seen before and I liked it very much. The website looks quite refreshing and has a fun feel to it. It has a very professional and modern look to it. The colour choices are very unconventional and bright. I like the grey-white-black combination used on the sign up box. I also liked how white has been used for the text as it just stands out and makes the website look really very appealing. The logo is quite intriguing too. It is continuously moving and has your attention at all times and I kind of liked it. The homepage is short and simple. It is to-the-point and each section clearly describes what it’s function and uses are. It leaves no room for doubt and we know what we are getting into. The icons and pictures have been placed accordingly. The app course which is free has a picture of mobile and tablet and the others have a picture of a lock, clearly indicating that it is not available at the moment and we have to put in our email address to be notified when we can have access to it . It also clearly mentions that the course is free, but that word FREE has not been given a lot of attention. I think it should be highlighted because then even if someone just stumbles upon the website, they might end up using it if they see the word FREE. It is because it is a win-win situation and there is absolutely nothing to lose. We can see that other links to the Contact page, About page and the company’s social networking websites pages have been added to the website. I think this is a good idea as social networking sites prove to be very important in increasing traffic to the site. It helps reach a lot more people and prospective clients and increases the likelihood of someone sharing the website. I also like how the logo also appears on the browser tab. A Contact Us floating box has also been added on the bottom right and this makes me trust the company more as I know that I can contact someone instantly if I face an issue or problem and need help solving it. It shows the company’s dedication towards it’s clients. The concept of learning through GIFs is brilliant and I think that it will make learning fun and easy to follow. Overall, the website looks quite modern and refreshing.
2) Take the first free course and let me know what you think about it
I liked that the page which opens when we click on the “Start Course” button, has very clear instructions on what we need before we begin. Then, we can use the arrows to go through the course. It is a GIF, so we can watch it infinite times till we get what has to be done. The quality of the GIF was very nice and it was extremely easy to follow as the screen had information which we can use to understand what is happening and what is needed to be done. It was quite simple to go through the course and learning and understanding it took absolutely no efforts. It was quite an experience. I found it a very interesting way to learn. The steps have been broken down to the core. The arrows were easy to use and the website was very fast and there was absolutely no lag. I think instead of only using the mouse to click on the arrows, it would be great if I could use my keyboard too. I would have preferred using the left and the right keys on my keyboard as it is much easier to go back and forth using the keyboard when I am using more than one device. One more thing that I had trouble with were the GIFs explaining the steps on the mobile phone. Those parts were really hard to watch and were putting a lot of strain on my eyes. It was very shaky and that was hard to watch. I think it would be better if the mobile was kept on a still surface and then operated. Other than that, no problem.
3) What courses would you want to see on Madrassa?
I think it would be interesting to learn coding through it. It is because I think it will be quite easy to learn it this way. Including courses on HTML/CSS – Basic and Advanced, UI/UX Design, Android Development, Design Fundamentals etc. would be good.
4) How much would you pay for that course?
I think around $20 to $30 per month.
5) Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
I liked the website presentation and the concept very much. It is not overwhelming, has shared just the right amount of information, is to-the-point and extremely easy to use and understand. I would just change the GIFs a little, so that it is more still and easy to watch and add an option to move between tasks by using the keyboard left/right keys. Overall, I found the website to be interesting, modern and simple.
I’d like to thank you for providing me this opportunity to help you. Good luck with the website! Thanks.
1. I don’t think the divided page is a good idea, you are loosing one half of the page in an animation that is not actually that good.
The colors in the other half are a little odd and the zones should fit the screen, I shouldn’t see a part of the section with another color before I scroll down on my screen.
2. I believe this part is ok because when you are starting a course you should not be distracted with anything else in the page, so a clean and simple description in steps is fine.
I don’t like that the videos are separated on such simple tasks like the first one, I would not take this course very seriously if I see that as a first step…
I don’t like that the videos are really short and on a loop, I think it is really annoying and confusing.
3. Some course with code
4. 5 dollars if the course worth it
5. The page is really interesting but I think that the videos and the design should be more carefully made because it is a design courses page!!!