“You are Creative, Artistic, and We Love You” read the subject line from my latest email from scroll kit, a website creation service. If I had to rate them just on marketing alone, scroll kit would get five stars. Since when do website companies send affirmations to your inbox? Unfortunately, I also had to grade ScrollKit on usability and experience, which is where we run into some problems.
A new company, scroll kit aims to take the pain out of web design by removing even the most basic HTML coding through a clear and simple interface. Logging into the home screen, the first problem is evident: scroll kit only works in the Chrome web browser. It’s also a bit glitchy; I was frustrated at the interface, but then realized that there was some kind of error. One day, when I attempted to use the “click to type” feature, it would not respond at all. A couple days later, it worked like a charm. Also, the interface is not as intuitive as I would like. I tried to use the draw feature, but was stymied on how to delete one part of the drawing. If I wanted to tinker with it for 15 more minutes, I probably would have figured it out, but the usual items I would look for (an eraser, or being able to highlight just that part of the drawing) were nowhere to be found.
scroll kit competes with about.me, another simple website generator currently embraced by people too busy to mess with their own personal websites. But about.me is even more streamlined. I was able to get up and running in less than five minutes, and the default backgrounds were polished and professional looking. While more tinkering is required there as well to truly make the page appear the way you’d like, the experience was literally about 10 clicks of the mouse until I was happy with the result.
Both services require some fiddling to add in the finer details and customization. And while both were intriguing, if I am going to spend the time to really learn an interface, I should invest that time in a CMS like WordPress.
Verdict
Overall, while I like the idea of scroll kit, it doesn’t compel me to put more time and energy into just another webpage.