How do you explain a social news site to computer noobs?
stern: I run http://cherrypeel.com and we are redesigning to solve a lot of the problems we had with people not understanding the site.You need to have a tag line right at the top saying: "my website does X". Check out http://99designs.com as they do a great job of this.Often people don't view the arrows as a voting button, so either change the icon to a heart or cute bunny etc or have some explanatory text describing how to vote or both. I've got feedback from people saying they thought the voting arrows were rising/falling icons, such as on the top 40 chart when they say; "this song moved up 6 spots".People don't understand why they should vote. Explain that the more then vote, the better the site becomes for everyone. You might need to give people incentives to vote, such as karma, a level system or special names based on involvement.Make the site look cute. The design doesn't say "this site serves up cute animals". I also wouldn't forward it on to my girlfriend as I don't think the cutness jumps out at you fast enough, which brings me to my next point.What about having a preview function? There are lots of sites that have lots of cute pictures so why would I want to visit one that each picture is behind a click?Have you check out the cute sub-reddit?I got off topic but I hope this helps.