It might sound odd, but what catches my attention most on this site is it's title/header. It has a simple, but professional and stylish look and seems to fit right in place and to the background on which it resides. The rest of the site, however, is a little more like business as usual - a pleasant looking theme with a modified color scheme, but in this instance without teaser images and other eye catching goodies.

The color scheme mentioned is fairly conservative; black-gray with a bit of red. Reviewing other elements of the design gets me back to some of the observations I made for other sites using this theme. In short, teaser titles and text are cut off (sometimes in mid-word), search box could be put on the bar with the home link to free up header space and the pager on teaser listing pages could be adapted to the site's color scheme. These might seem like minor issues, but here they are.

On the article page there is a typical issue with ads, but since WhereDoes.org has a bit longer articles the two square ads seem to do a little less of a disruption and fit in better.

If I were ask for the biggest suggestion I could make regarding this site's design I would say: make it more unique and less like a theme that's been seen before. Of course, that is not to bash the design as it is from a simple usability point of view. Whether it looks similar to other sites or not does not indeed matter if it works. And yes, it does work, at least if the goal isn't to impress people with design (but rather content, presumably). There could be improvements, as mentioned, but it works.

Design Rating: 7/10

Focus:

WhereDoes.org is one of those sites with a name that sounds like an unfinished sentence, but it is that which makes its focus clear. Finish the sentence and you know all about what this site is supposed to offer. And chances are that by finishing the sentence you may have just spelled out the title of one of the articles published in it. This kind of strategy makes it hard to find any kind of a focus related fault as the site is pretty much an axis between its title and its content so there's no room for wavering.

While there could be various types of "where does" questions to ask it seems that all of the articles currently available on WhereDoes.org are about where do certain people live and categories apparently represent areas of these people's activity. An about page could be a useful mean to making this explicit as well as explain or affirm the reasons why this kind of content may be useful..

Focus Rating: 10/10

Content:

As mentioned all content on WhereDoes.org is about where do some people live and there is in fact 50 articles on this topic, that is to say, you can find out where do 50 of the well known people live, from Tom Cruise to Bill Gates to Paris Hilton. I have some doubts as to the usefulness of this information, but I can understand its "trivia" value and satisfying some casual curiosity.

However, this isn't all that these articles offer. After all there wouldn't be a need for articles if it was, but rather a simple database of addresses or locations. Articles on WhereDoes.org expand on the location information with a fairly comprehensive, albeit not too long winded, description of said persons, their career, properties they own and so on - a feast for those who like to track the lives of celebrities.

As such I suppose it has some entertainment value, at least, and might be a way to find a little bit more about the famous people than is typically known which I suppose can't be a bad thing. Overall, it's an interesting resource.

Content Rating: 10/10

Bright, eye pleasing and orderly, TellMeHowMuch.net doesn't seem to leave much to be desired in terms of look and feel. Logo isn't terribly impressive, but is clear, attractive and fitting. The top bar contains a date and feeds of news (to be assumed as latest articles) and comments displayed prominently so they're not easily missed. Same goes for the bar below the header with the main menu (only for home and about pages) and a search box. The sidebar blocks are positioned logically with email updates and latest entries on top and categories and ads on the bottom. There is however what seems to be an empty block in between them which just seems to add unnecessary clutter.

The main content area makes somewhat less sense. First of all the featured content block doesn't seem to be working as it just keeps animating the progress bar perpetually. Secondly, it's not clear what "R" in the teaser images represents as it doesn't have any obvious relation to the content or title of the site and a more logical thing to display, if anything, would be an image that is actually relevant to the article. Finally, albeit this isn't necessarily an issue and just an observation, there are three blocks for three categories of content and it's not clear why exactly these categories are picked out and not others. It might make more sense to display most viewed, recent or featured (of special interest) content instead.

Article view pages are quite decent, with no advertisements and clutter. There could be a little more margin or distinction between the date of publishing information and the "filed under" line or perhaps the "filed under" data could be displayed in the same line as the date of publishing. Below the article there is a "tags" line which doesn't seem to be displaying any tags (probably because articles don't use them) so this could safely be removed. There's also an extra empty block between the article and the comment form which is probably better removed. And finally, instead of just bold text it may be better for section titles in articles to use real heading tags which is probably a better SEO practice and looks better.

Design Rating: 8/10

Focus:

At first I thought this was a financial advice resource for some reason, probably because "how much" is what we typically ask when buying something or looking for a bargain. In that sense the title isn't entirely clear, but then again adding a slogan probably isn't a good idea given that the title already is essentially a slogan. Instead we can rely on the about page and the titles of content which quickly make it clear that the site is about answering various "how much" questions, not all of which have anything to do with finances.

There is only one problem though, and this really seems like a big miss. The about page is a default wordpress about page. In addition to neutralizing the value about page could add in terms of clarifying the site's purpose and encouraging people to check it out (or even contribute?) it gives an odor of being unprofessional. Needless to say that should be fixed ASAP.

That said, an obvious strictly on-topic nature of content saves the day. The site is about answering "how much" questions and each article does exactly that without fail and with the question in the very title.

Focus Rating: 8/10

Content:

Aside from the about page miss mentioned above there doesn't seem much to complain about with regards to content. Each of the 17 categories contains at least a few articles answering "how much" questions except the "Cars and Travel" category which has only one. Articles are long enough considering the specific nature of the question they're answering, but not too long and helped by the splitting into descriptively titled sections. They often also tell the reader how to find out the answer himself if it varies in time and place and offer additional information about the subject of the question.

Given the specificity of the question it might be a good idea to add a subtitle or a bold "quick answer" below the article just offering a numbers range if applicable. For instance if the question is "How much should a private tutor charge?" a quick answer may simply be: "From $10 to $150". This may be very helpful for skimmers looking for a quick estimation of something and aren't interested in any additional information.

Articles could also use more links and references about the subject matters. For instance, "How Much Should A Man Weigh" article talks about the Body Mass Index (BMI) charts, but doesn't show or link to any.

Content Rating: 9/10

As someone browsing with a screen resolution of 1280x1024 pixels one of the first things that I notice when visiting AbsurdTrivia.com is that it seems a bit short and cornered to the left side of the screen. However, a redesign is planned which will focus on fixing this. With regards to that I can suggest fluid width design so the width of the site adapts to the screen resolution or browser size of the user.

Aside from that the color scheme of the site is pretty easy to look at, and somewhat diverse, combining blue gradients, black, gray, orange and light green. It seems to work alright, though maybe the light green elements could be made light orange, just to be a tad more consistent.

The logo is fuzzy (which seems deliberate and works well), cool and looks fairly brandable. However, the darker blue part of the background gradient makes the shadow and ".com" darker to discern from background. It may help if the darker end of the blue background gradient was made somewhat lighter.

The box just below the logo contains a prominent title and a brief description for each page. This is a nice touch, but it could be put besides the logo rather than below it, making the overall design much neater, especially in combination with a wider (perhaps fluid) width of the site.

Homepage neatly displays the top lists of trivia, however it seems somewhat disingenuous to have the space below the user menu on the right sidebar empty while the google advert is placed below the fold in a box. Just like the sub pages, an ad could reside in the sidebar.

Main menu looks good and works fine, leading to all the major types of trivia available on the site. Each section then allows browsing further by sub-categories, except the sub-categories of "TV shows", "Movies" and "Celebrities" are called "groups" and also allow browsing alphabetically. Also, only "TV Shows", "Movies" and "General" sections have a description in a green box while others don't. This seems a bit inconsistent. Alphabetical browsing and descriptions should probably be available in either all or none of the sections.

Each sub-category contains a "share this quiz category" block that allows the visitor to bookmark it in a browser or a social network, email a friend about it or grab a widget to put on your blog. The widget's colors and size can be customized. This is a great thing to have. Sub-category pages also have a "Browse back to" navigational pager which helps to know the hierarchical location of the page being viewed.

Trivia quiz listings (like this example) are easy to read and display the number of questions, difficulty and rating which helps the user make a quicker choice of what to try. The actual quiz page displays further interesting statistics. All quizzes appear to have both a standard version that doesn't require any plugins and a flash version, which is an excellent touch for those who might not have a working flash plugin or just prefer standard html.

I took one of the quizzes and it was enjoyable, (albeit it shows I need to brush up on my trek knowledge ;) ). One thing I would suggest is to make the score image much smaller and more compact, or perhaps offer multiple sizes. This way it is more likely that more people will embed them on their personal pages and blogs.

What is also great about AbsurdTrivia.com is that a user can also create their own trivia to add to the library. This requires registration, which is as easy as most sites' registration process. One minor complaint I do have though is that the registration page doesn't hide the password as it is typed.

Registered users gain access to the quiz manager where they can add and manage their own quizzes. It contains a link to the quiz creation manual. Each category of AbsurdTrivia.com contains a button that leads to the process of creating a quiz. It can be added to the current category or a new category can be searched for. Then the quiz title, description and player notes can be specified upon which the quiz is ready for adding questions. Four types of questions can be added, multiple choice, true/false, yes/no and an ordered list. This process is pretty straightforward and should make it really easy to create a new quiz.

Finally, the footer looks somewhat poor. The copyright notice could use a smaller font and a higher top padding (as well as perhaps, a change from the year display from "2007" to "2007 - 2009" assuming the site was started in 2007).

Design wise, AbsurdTrivia.com is a pretty well designed site aside from the issues mentioned, which when fixed will make it truly solid. It may not be quite smashing in terms of eye candy, but it's fairly simple and most importantly functional. This gives it a more than a passing rating.

Design rating: 7/10

Focus:

When the name "Absurd Trivia" is first heard it may make one conclude it is about a specific kind of trivia which is in some sense absurd. On the other hand it could simply refer to the triviality of the subject matter. Whatever the case may be, the sub title, description and main menu evident on the homepage sets things straight and makes it clear that this is about all kinds of trivia. Deep categorization, especially of TV shows and movies makes it easy for one to find exactly the kind of trivia wanted, and if that doesn't help the search box comes to the rescue (which is how I found the star trek trivia). Deep categorization also makes it easier for people to find what they want on search engines.

That said there really isn't much to complain about here. It's hard to get lost on this site.

Focus rating: 10/10

Content:

It would be nice if the site included a statistics block in the sidebar displaying how many of the trivia quizzes there actually are on the site. While I've encountered some categories with only very few trivia, judging from how many categories there are and the fact that I could easily find (using the search box) much of what I searched for suggests that there is plenty of quizzes to take. In fact, this site could probably entertain you for hours.

Speaking of content, the introduction on the homepage could use some polishing. There are a few apparent grammatical errors which could impair the perception of professionalism, such as "we'll" instead of "well", though the sentence in question might do well even without that word (leaving only "Absurd Trivia is packed full of them."). "Want to play a quiz on the sitcom "Friends" could be a separate question sentence, followed by the rhetorical answer after it. This may seem like nitpicking, but the idea is to convey the message in a professionally sounding way, so the criticism is well intentioned. Aside from that, the introduction text still does its job.

Another notable complaint is that once the user creates a new quiz, the link to the manual inside the quiz manager no longer displays, even though some people may still want to consult it for any reason. It may be prudent to have it still display somewhere.

Content rating: 8/10