Thanks for the feedback scott_s. I thought the left middle side of the page was a pretty standard position for the feedback link; I've seen a lot of other sites that do this.
I do like the idea of making the design more minimal. I guess we are somewhat worried about the possibility of not explaining well enough what our product does.
I don't like floating elements like that; it's distracting. When I first load the page, it's just lined up with the 'H', 'w' and the sign-up graphic. That feels out of place. Personally, I don't like floating elements like that because it violates what a website is, to me. I want to navigate through information, and I bristle when information is forced on me like that.
Consider the amount of "special" things you have:
- Floating feedback link on the left
- "Sign Up" link/tab is highlighted red. (This also means I have to use some small cognitive effort to realize "Home" is black because I'm there, "Sign Up" is highlighted, and the rest are normal links.)
- "call you" in the blue banner is both bold and italic
- Lead-in text is bold
- "calls you" in lead paragraph is bold, italic and green
- green check marks for the features list
- Play button on your UI graphic
There's nothing inherently wrong with any one of these things, but they're all design elements that say "I'm important! Look at me!" But when I see seven competing things evenly spread out over the page saying "Look at me!" my first reaction is to give up and look at nothing.
I think it's possible to include the same amount of information, just presented in a clearer way. Personally, I think the star of your show are your UI pictures.
Of course, keep in mind I am, like you, a hacker, not a designer. But I'm taking the time to explain what I see because I think you've come up with a neat idea for what sounds like an untapped market, and I'd hate to see you run into problems because of simple presentation issues.
I agree with the positioning of the feedback tab.
It's not so much that it is "out of place" but rather its just in a bad place at the moment. It's right between "stop sleeping through outages" and the big green sign up button.
This is your headliner content, there should not be some flat rogue turned-sideways feedback tag conspicuously thrown over it.
As for the other points. Well this is clearly a 37 signals approach. If nothing else, it is good for SEO. I think most users will click on the video first anyway. So all the content acts to complement the video, which is a good thing.
I do like the idea of making the design more minimal. I guess we are somewhat worried about the possibility of not explaining well enough what our product does.