Website Review

randombar

Please be gentle

http://www.mcemexam.com

It's for doctors, who from experience need things pretty simple!

Goodshape

Your 'sample' and 'administration' pages/links are redirecting back to the front-page.

The green menu links on the right are a little faint.

You should probably indicate which are the required fields in the registration page.

You need more of a hook.. Maybe some sort of graphical indication asto how much it costs and why I should pay it. Most people don't read web-pages, they scan them. Confronted with a page full of small text, like the frontpage, I'll scan through it for anything that looks important to me. If I don't find it, I'll probably move on. I got to your registration page without really knowing until I had filled it out that payment was required. As your 'sample' page isn't working, I don't really know what I'm being asked to pay for and that's the last you'll see of me.

6th

The header moves on each page and the little jump is a bit annoying.

The colours are good and the layout is clean but you should address Goodshape's comments.

As for a 'hook' I dont think you need everything on the website, looking at a small informative piece of print sent out to the relevant people is whats needed. Using a website to get them to the website isn't always the best plan.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Well it's not breathtakingly beautiful, but it's nice enough... functional, no nonsense, does the job... my kinda website
I think a few small tweaks would go a long way.
I think on the home page, the paragraph headers (h2) could be a bit more prominant/readable/important... and the background colour used in the <h2>'s could be different from the main body background... might look better.
Drop the right-click disable javascript, it's pointless, annoying and easily bypassed.
The green anchor text is a bit on the bright side for the background it's on... go a little darker to improve readability IMO.
I'd experiment with contrast in general... dropping the body background down a few notches might make the page a bit less flat and 'bleh' looking.

randombar

Thanks lads, ya the thing about the sample exam is I link it to the ip address (i create a temp user id) and you can only do one a day! Have to figure out another method!

The javscript i know you can work around it and all but remember it's doctors using this, half of them will be stumped with that!

DonkeyStyle \o/

GaryCocs wrote:

The javscript i know you can work around it and all but remember it's doctors using this, half of them will be stumped with that!

I'm a tad confused why you're using it at all though... it'll annoy people who have legitimate reason to use right click... or someone who accidentally right-clicks now has to click OK to a notify box... and it's trivial to work around, so offers bugger-all protection.
tbh it's one of my pet peeves.

Laslo

Don't ever, EVER disable people's right-click functionality using JavaScript. Ever.

randombar

Bloody hell??

I just dont want people selecting the questions and copying and pasting.

I know ctrl+c and all that but a lot of doctors don't (seriously I've asked!)

Just a small way of protecting my info.

What's so bad about it anyways?

Also does anyone have an easy way of only allowing a user sign on in one place at a time? Have an idea myself that means running a cron script to check if they have left the site without logging off?

Goodshape

Hate the right-click blocking nonsense. There's plenty of legitimate reasons to want to right-click on a webpage, and if I were actually doing it for evil purposes your bit of Javascript wouldn't hold me back.

Although - I'm using Firefox 2 on OS-X here and right-click is working just fine. Is it a Windows and/or IE only bit of javascript you've got? I'd say just get rid of it, tbh.

Goodshape

GaryCocs wrote:

I know ctrl+c and all that but a lot of doctors don't (seriously I've asked!)

What about Edit->Copy. I think most casual computer users would use that before right-clicking, and your javascript doesn't block it.

randombar

I dunno, I have honestly asked a lot of Doctors that I know, tested it with them too and they just leave it alone once they can't right click?

You'd be surprised how little the average user of a computer knows?

Of course a normal programmer / web hacker could take the site to pieces but the general joe soap couldn't?

I know it's annoying but I won't even be using the site myself, nor would a person who would like to view the source or right click it?

I know it seems tacky and stuff to a web designer but I can't think of another method of protecting the questions (thought of some kind of outomatic gif maker)

Oh by the way it's a windows javascipt i'm guessing cause it works on ff and ie on windows!

PixelTrawler

All you have to do is view page source and cut and paste your text.

The right click disabled script does nothing but annoy users. It offers zero protection.

For instance you are preventing users getting quick access to such links as print and add to favourites (one option you want to be as easy as possible to get to). Also you can't go right click and back, disabling a navigation method.

There are many other reasons. You very rarely see it disabled on sites for good reason.

If this is all original content and you have it copyrighted, its protected. If someone uses it without your permission you can go after them.

randombar

I don't know any doctor in the world that would click view source on a page? I don't know any non web designer that would even know how to do that!

Fair enough limiting users from print and favorites but this is a subscription based service, I'm not going on hits as the number one goal here I'm looking for subscriptions so adding to favorites doesnt do a whole lot unless they subscibe, and the less printing a user does the better for me (handing out print outs of the questions and so on!)

Fair enough I can go after people but I'm not going to get very far if a doctor in the uk or states passes out copies of questions on my site?

If someone has a better option for stopping users copying my data then fair enough but this is the best I can come up with.

Still have to figure out the limiting user to only one sign on at a time!

henbane

GaryCocs wrote:

If someone has a better option for stopping users copying my data then fair enough but this is the best I can come up with.

But it is very lame. In my experience, the people you think won't have the ability to get around this, usually use the Edit menu for Copy + Paste and Save Page As and indeed the Print button on their toolbars for these kind of functions. Ugly Javascript hacks won't stop those methods and will only frustrate the more web savvy people who use the context menu for navigation.

Also, preventing people who have subscribed to your service from using the info as they see fit for their own benefit (unauthorised redistribution aside) isn't exactly a good way to get repeat custom.

heggie

GaryCocs wrote:

If someone has a better option for stopping users copying my data then fair enough but this is the best I can come up with.

do that section in flash

squibs

You could obfuscate the text, or to put it another way: you could obfucate the text
I sometimes use this for obfuscating emails: http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/obfuscate_email.asp
Probably a script out there for obfucating text too.

daymobrew

The site looks very familiar.

we noted a paucity of quality MCQ's

'paucity' was new to me. I would have used 'lack' but you're dealing with doctors and some mad disease names that I couldn't even pronounce.

A once off secure

Should there be a hyphen: "once-off" or is it optional? (I didn't do very well in English in school)

DonkeyStyle \o/

daymobrew wrote:

The site looks very familiar.

Yeah, reminds me of something alright.

cgarvey

• Site is a standard template (used in many sites I've come across)
• Lack of graphical content to compensate & promote site
• Lime color of text looks completely out of place (even with green photo)
• You credit 101 Design for the template, but link to you own site for Web Design? Confusing at best, makes you look like a complete amateur at worst.
• About Us doesn't give any details about you/ye/yizzers, at all
• You provide no details to establish trust (you want me to hand out 40 quid to a mobile number and a template website?)
• The space around the full stop in the banner looks wrong
• The entire site (template) looks like something from 10 years ago, when <font color=xyz> became cool
• There is no connection between the template and medical science, examinations, etc., that I can see
• The forum is completely un-customised
• Duplicate nav in the Login/Logout links (surely it's one or the other?)
• If the content is really worth protecting (and certainly any public facing content doesn't appear to be), then using a web browser to deliver it is not the way to go. Disabling right-click serves no purpose. Incompetent users have been taught to select and Edit > Copy. The downside of disabling right-click is that you alienate users that have special tools to help them view your site. Your argument that they're only doctors is completely irrelevant as far as I can see.

Summary: A poor implementation of a poor template.

ianhobo

Do they think that you designed it, or did you volunteer the info that its a freely available design?

How many questions and what other data do you want to protect?
Basically, there is no one quick easy solution to it, its something often encountered. The only decent way is to have enough high quality questions with a sufficient question generator so as to not repeat them too much. Then that way there is no point copying them as they are less likely to come up in that combintion again. The flash is probably your best option

I'm not much up on PHP, but has it got something similar to a bitmap object in ASP.net of Java? you could make a server side graphics object very easily, you would just have to pass in the question as a string parameter and get one nice shiny image/jpeg/gif/png back to display. If you broke them up too, your average person would soon get well bored copying, saving and naming images

I too hate the right-click dissabling, however, is a test enviroment, it may be sufficient to warn users that as it is a test, some things are prevented and monitiored.

to copy a question is a multistep process - 1. select whats to be copied, 2. copy it. 3. switch to somewhere else to copy it 4. save/paste it 5. return to your page
You could detect when your doc looses focus (the user has switched to a word doc for example to perform a paste operation becausse they've copied something). Warn them this is not allowed, and if they do it again, kill the session, test over.
Lots of online job apps and aptitude tests do this.

forbairt

ianhobo wrote: »

You could detect when your doc looses focus (the user has switched to a word doc for example to perform a paste operation becausse they've copied something). Warn them this is not allowed, and if they do it again, kill the session, test over.
Lots of online job apps and aptitude tests do this.

I hadn't thought of this before ... quite cool though

di11on

Some observations on the look and feel aspects of the site:

1. Spaces: I dislike the spaces in, at the top: "MCEM Exam .com" and at the bottom: "MCEM Exam Guide . com" Actually... shouldn't they be the same?
If you want to use spaces, then leave out the .com. If you want it to be a domain name, then leave out the spaces.

2. Section titles: I don't like the indent in your section titles. Also, the font is too light - consider making it bold and removing the italics.

I got 60% in the sample... do I pass?

:-)

randombar

Thanks for the advice lads, changes are being made as we speak!

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote: »

Yeah, reminds me of something alright.

Mea Culpa

di11on wrote: »

I got 60% in the sample... do I pass?

Congrats Dillon you are now a doctor, degree in the post

randombar

ianhobo wrote: »

Do they think that you designed it, or did you volunteer the info that its a freely available design?

No I'm honest enough when it comes to this, I tell the customer where I'm getting the template from. I've no problems telling people I'm more a programmer than a web designer!

ianhobo wrote: »

How many questions and what other data do you want to protect?
Basically, there is no one quick easy solution to it, its something often encountered. The only decent way is to have enough high quality questions with a sufficient question generator so as to not repeat them too much. Then that way there is no point copying them as they are less likely to come up in that combintion again. The flash is probably your best option

I'm not much up on PHP, but has it got something similar to a bitmap object in ASP.net of Java? you could make a server side graphics object very easily, you would just have to pass in the question as a string parameter and get one nice shiny image/jpeg/gif/png back to display. If you broke them up too, your average person would soon get well bored copying, saving and naming images

Sounds interesting, would you have any examples or tutes on this?

ianhobo wrote: »

I too hate the right-click dissabling, however, is a test enviroment, it may be sufficient to warn users that as it is a test, some things are prevented and monitiored.

to copy a question is a multistep process - 1. select whats to be copied, 2. copy it. 3. switch to somewhere else to copy it 4. save/paste it 5. return to your page
You could detect when your doc looses focus (the user has switched to a word doc for example to perform a paste operation becausse they've copied something). Warn them this is not allowed, and if they do it again, kill the session, test over.
Lots of online job apps and aptitude tests do this.

That's another cool idea? I wouldnt know too much about how you'd monitor a site though? I also want to limit the user to allowing him to only log onto one computer at a time? Any suggestions?

ianhobo

ok,
As i said, im not too hot on PHP(In fact, i dont know any )
But, as an example for you c#:
(I've no documentation here with me, so its all from memory, you can mail me if you like, but this should be enough. I wrote a database graphical reporting tool/library in c# a while back, it analysed certain tables for values, performed calculations, and drew bar graphs and drew text based on this.)

In the System.Drawing namespace, there is a bitmap class.
You can instantiate this, and set its size, height by width.
You can create a pen object to draw whatever you want on it by specifying the coordinates.
You can then create a string object (size the bitmap based on its size)
You can then pass this string ( along with a pen object for color, and co-ordinates at which to draw) through the DrawString method.
and Viola, one bitmap of the string you passed in. you can save in temporarily in what ever format you want to.

have a look around these places:
http://www.thescripts.com/forum/thread231519.html
http://blog.paranoidferret.com/index.php/2007/08/23/csharp-snippet-tutorial-how-to-draw-text-on-an-image/

2. Regarding browser focus.

You can use the window.onblur and window.onfocus browser objects. Works with ie6/7 and firefox.
Make sure the user reads the instructions, once the test is started they cannot change or open ANY OTHER windows or it will cancel their test.
Calling these functions will allow you to monitor this.
You can give them one warning if you like:

var countNumberOfTimesWindowBlurred=0;
window.onblur = function() 
{
   countNumberOfTimesWindowBlurred++;

    alert("Warning......");
    if(countNumberOfTimesWindowBlurred == whatEverYouDecide)
   {
         alert("Test over");
        window.close;
    }
}

or something to that effect. Becareful with window.close. Some browers may not let you do that unless the created and therefore essentially own the wondow object. Anyway, that should get you started!

http://www.thefutureoftheweb.com/blog/detect-browser-window-focus

I wouldnt know too much about how you'd monitor a site though

What do you mean?

3. Preventing a user logging in multiple machines?
Have a table entry called isUserCurrentlyLoggedIn.
Set it to true when they log-in, and maybe record/log the time/date.
So if they attempt to log in on another computer, you can see if they have already logged again. Recording their ip address in the database at log in time may also help. When they log out, or times out, reset it. If you only want to let them try the test once before having to contact someone to reset dont, then just leave it as currently logged in.


ok, hope that helps, sorry, its not as detailed as I'd like! but it should help.
I can try route out that c# graphics code if you want.........but if you don't know c#, might not be of any use

Good luck!

randombar

Thanks for the help with that, very helpful with the browser onfocus malarkey will definitely give that idea to the site owners and see if they want that!

ya had that idea in my head about userloggedin set it to 1 etc, that's fine if they click log off but more often than not people just close the window, was thinking a way around this would be a cron job to scan if an account is inactive for 20 minutes? reset the userlogged in to zero?

Is there an easier way?

ianhobo

well, thats why the web gods gave us onunload()

<body onunload="myFunction()">

</body>

http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_onunload.asp
http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/tryit.asp?filename=tryjsref_onunload

im sure there are many other uquivelents/interfaces in php etc

You probably wouldnt want to just switch the state of a logged in flag, because the user could log out, go research a question, and log back in.
These sort of online tests are usually one attempt only. If you (the user) messes it up, you usually need to contact to contact something and explain. Maybe they'll let you take/resume the test, maybe not

ianhobo

by the way, all of these solutions so far have been based on the html document object model (DOM), so it might be worth your while checking it out......

http://www.w3.org/DOM/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Object_Model

randombar

Made a few of those recommended changes so if people have a chance let me know what they think.

1 - Will probably get rid of the forum all together as no one is using it or is there a better forum make that will fit into your own site?

2 - Will replace the disable right click if / when I get that "leaving the borwser window" option set up.


Thanks a lot for everyones opinion it's been a big help.