Peer Review #2 thespotless-mind.com
This is a peer review of thespotless-mind.com (A clean slate of love, lessons and life) by Kat Perez. I believe this blog is meant to be like a diary of sorts. One that encourages positive thinking and self reflection. I think the landing page is quite beautiful with the aerial ocean view. There is quite a bit of content that is missing from the site in terms of assignments and weekly posts but besides that I like the theme that they have chosen. I think the quote on the page is nice and relevant. I think that Kat can really do a lot with this site!
I believe that the homepage/welcome page is also Kat’s “About Me” page. I think that if she is wanting the homepage to also be her About page, she should put a bit more info about who she is in this section. There are currently 3 buttons on the top menu that link you to the home landing page which I think is a bit redundant. These are the top logo, Home and Welcome buttons. I think that if she had more menu options it could help with being able to find content more clearly. I might suggest using categories so that only certain posts live on one page, keeping each page relevant to their specific heading. At the moment some mini assignments show up on the page of “Think Pieces” which I think is where the main posts are meant to be (though I could be wrong).
I really like that each post has a featured image. I think this looks great and grabs a viewers attention. I also love the titles for the posts because I think they make a reader curious and want to read more. For example this post made me have to read on because I wanted to know “Why does she think I should meditate too?”. I think the amount of media on each post is also really good.
I feel like the site is very top to bottom meaning the content is mainly in the middle with little to no relevant links on the sides. I think linking to other sites or resources is a good idea for sites that speak to mental health. This doesn’t mean that she must add sidebar widgets but maybe it is something she may want to try out. At the moment, I think the site is mainly aesthetically pleasing. But I’m not 100% sure on what the theme for her blog is. I think it would be best to make that more clear on the homepage.
I would remove the Welcome menu option. I would suggest adding a PUB 101 menu option and maybe within that have different dropdown options like one for process posts or one for mini assignments. I think it helps to keep that separate from the main content that you are trying to share which I think is the blog posts or “Think Pieces”.
There is an instagram account that is linked to the site but I don’t think it has been recently updated. It does seem to have some poetry and posts that seem related to the purpose of the website. I think it’s super relevant these days to have social media linked to blog pages so I think that it is great that this is available on her page.
To sum it all up here are some recommendations that I have for thespotless-mind.com:
- Change menu options so that posts can be separated appropriately and organized more clearly.
- Add maybe some more external links or things that might be related to the posts.
- Try to encourage site visitors engagement by asking questions at the bottom of posts.
- Try to narrow in on the purpose of the blog so that visitors can know what to expect while they are on the site.
I think this is a really beautiful site that comes across very real which I think is a very rare and great thing to have in this day and age. 💙
