22 June 2007
SuTree - Tutorial Videos
Reviewed by oVan
SuTree is a giant library of video tutorials and how-to guides that are submitted by the users and - in the spirit of Web 2.0 – evaluated and rated by the community.
Currently there are over 5000 lessons online in more than 20 top categories like arts & crafts, kids stuff, money & finance, languages, etc. The site is divided in a 3 columns: categories on the left, a list of videos in the middle, and a sidebar on the right with various items:
- Clicking on any of the categories on the left side will refine the list of categories into available subcategories, and update the selection of videos matching the chosen category.
- The list of videos in the center of the screen is sorted by any of the 4 methods at the top of the list: most recent additions, most viewed videos, top rated videos and sorted alphabetically. At the bottom of the list you have controls to see the next pages that match your selection.
- In the right bar you can type keywords to search for, there’s random lesson with preview image and a list of top contributors.
The Good Stuff
The interface is well designed. Although not a typical Web 2.0 design, the colors are light and fresh and the layout is not cluttered despite the many information on the first page. The left-to-right flow starting with the categories feels very natural and the list of videos are clear and inviting. The information included with every video is clear and includes the source link.
The variety of available videos is fantastic. You can learn to create Simple Sherry Vinaigrette or the numbers 1 to 20 in British sign language, to name a few. Because of the approval & rating system, you won’t encounter junk videos, a big problem on sites like YouTube. Because the categories are well chosen, you’ll quickly find what you’re looking for. This can be a big problem on other sites where instructional videos are buried down deeply in the site, or on video blogs where you need to scan the whole archive to find a video.
The advertisements are unobtrusive, in fact you’ll probably not notice them at all in the beginning.
Critiq’ed
There’s nothing major to complain about, just a few small quibbles:
Design: Although the interface is nice and clean, it doesn’t look very dynamic. I find it a bit boring, especially for a video site. A simple redesign with fancy header and a few gradients might do wonders.
Usability: When you are looking at the detail page of a video, the category list on the left shows the top categories instead of the selected subcategories. Another small problem is that you can’t see how much search results resulted from your query. You get an indication by the number of pages with results, but a simple line of text at the top would’ve been better. Searching for a 1 character query doesn’t work, even though no error message is displayed. Finally, the number of pages with videos available should also be visible at the top of the list, currently you need to scroll down every time to navigate the list.
Perhaps the only real problem I see with SuTree is that the content is coming from a variety of external sources. This has two drawbacks: even though they have a rating and judging mechanism, SuTree has no real control on the quality of the videos or subjects. The second drawback is that every time you watch a video, you’re introduced to a new website with videos and perhaps you’ll find the grass greener on the other side?
Judgement
A solid web service, SuTree gives you direct access to thousands of (potentially) interesting video tutorials in a clean and uncluttered interface. Downloading is free, and a simple registration is enough to start contributing. The videos are judged and rated by the community, resulting in a low rate of junk and joke-videos.
A design make-over might give that extra bit of schwung this site needs to attract more visitors and even more content. Also, publishing the Top-5 contributors is probably not enough to spark that community feeling.
Great review oVan. I really like the idea behind SuTree and I’m keen to see them progress and grow!