I edited your site to solve the issues and uploaded to imgur. (The matrix is from CrazyEgg, but take the idea). http://imgur.com/slYOb
Here is my walkthrough of the site:
1. Great, exactly what I am looking for: book on designing web applications.
2. Oooh look, Facebook, Freshbooks, and MailChimp use this, wait, no they do not. This is graphically implied by their logos and using an established user experience location, not happy about being tricked.
3. Jump to packages: $200! Good day, sir.
4. Wait, it cannot be that expensive, scroll down some more and find the book. Now I am worried about what I am purchasing as the person trying to sell this does not understand basic concepts of web design, tricked me, and wants a ton of money.
5. Head back to Hacker News to determine if anyone knows who Nathan Barry is and if he is a reputable person.
Place your layout of prices in a pricing, side by side. The scrolling down through the site is not helpful in making me feel better about purchasing a design book when one does not employ basic pricing structure layouts see this site for examples (http://bit.ly/lVPfr4). You could skip to a pricing matrix, then scroll down further to see more of it.
Recognizing that you are trying to present the highest price first to drive higher revenue, you need to reverse the order in the case of a scroll driven price change. Get the user to the first option, the book, then the user will see that there is more content on the page (scroll bar, images / graphics below book option). This teaches the user that there is more below each price mark and you would drive futher sales when a user sees the added benefit for each item.
Another item would be to have a try the book and buy more option later. This could be done in a constant contact format.
Piggybacking on this comment (because I agree with everything he said):
- After scrolling all the way to the bottom, I realized I had no idea how to buy the book. Scroll back up, back down. Where are the buying buttons? Oh, they are hidden as cutesy circles that display the price, that I only noticed when mousing over. Not easy to find. Slap a big "BUY NOW" button under the price.
- Not enough visual separation between packages. Content listings flow into the next package without a clean, obvious break. While quickly skimming it is easy to lose track of what attaches to what.
- Your "Buy a team license" is like a baby footnote and I didn't see it until I had skimmed up/down three times (aka more than someone will do before exiting).
-No big buy button at the bottom. Don't make me scroll back up to the package listing and hunt for the button. Give me an easy way to purchase when I hit the bottom
- IMO, too much text above the fold. I read the headline, one sub-headline then started skimming. The giant "Generic eBook" image doesn't do much for you either.
Not criticizing your book, I'm sure it has wonderful content. And landing page design is a unique beast, which is different from designing general UIs. I meant this criticism only to help :)
Goodluck with your book! I may try the eBook to see how it is.
I had the same reaction to the Facebook, Freshbooks, and MailChimp logo placement. Struck me as a little shady. The book sample is excellent though, and I'm considering the $199 package, primarily for the web app .psd.
Reading your comment, I asked myself "There was a sample?"
Another design issue of note, I had skimmed past that portion during the scroll down because it was not highlighted. There should be some sort of color change.
I'd mentioned something similar to #4 in a previous post about this project. With all due respect to Nathan's efforts and marketing throughout this process, I thought he was a developer trying to teach design rather than a designer, considering the layout of the page and the preview screenshot (doesn't look like an actual app, poor typography). And this might just be me, but I'm wary about a WordPress template for a simple one page site when we're talking about web development.
Taking screenshots of your [subjectively] favorite experiences and writing about why you think it's good UX (when there are more qualified resources for this), coupled with teaching people how to do some basic Photoshop [instead of actual code?] when we have endless resources for such isn't worth $200 for me, the assumed target market. Do you go over why you you the beveled aesthetic works, or do you just think it's cool? Because that's how I'm reading most of this PDF preview; that's just like, your opinion man.
As such, there should be tiers based on what I want out of this; the design, the UX or the interviews. Even then, ~$65 for interviews from people that write about their experiences on their own - for free - doesn't sell me. Sorry :/
Here is my walkthrough of the site:
1. Great, exactly what I am looking for: book on designing web applications.
2. Oooh look, Facebook, Freshbooks, and MailChimp use this, wait, no they do not. This is graphically implied by their logos and using an established user experience location, not happy about being tricked.
3. Jump to packages: $200! Good day, sir.
4. Wait, it cannot be that expensive, scroll down some more and find the book. Now I am worried about what I am purchasing as the person trying to sell this does not understand basic concepts of web design, tricked me, and wants a ton of money.
5. Head back to Hacker News to determine if anyone knows who Nathan Barry is and if he is a reputable person.
Place your layout of prices in a pricing, side by side. The scrolling down through the site is not helpful in making me feel better about purchasing a design book when one does not employ basic pricing structure layouts see this site for examples (http://bit.ly/lVPfr4). You could skip to a pricing matrix, then scroll down further to see more of it.
Recognizing that you are trying to present the highest price first to drive higher revenue, you need to reverse the order in the case of a scroll driven price change. Get the user to the first option, the book, then the user will see that there is more content on the page (scroll bar, images / graphics below book option). This teaches the user that there is more below each price mark and you would drive futher sales when a user sees the added benefit for each item.
Another item would be to have a try the book and buy more option later. This could be done in a constant contact format.