iRun Review: Ease of Use (3.5 stars)
Easy to Use Overall but Still Needs Work
Because iRun has a consistent interface, it's easier to learn and use than most builders. That being said, it still has some bugs, a few quirky interface issues, and customer support makes you work too hard to get help.
Interface Consistent Throughout Builder
While iRun’s interface is not our favorite one, it is certainly consistent throughout the builder. That means that once you’ve learned what buttons do what tasks, it’s easy to switch between its many tools seamlessly. This is something that a lot of builders fail at.
A Few Quirks but the Editor is Easy to Use
The text editing tools are clearly laid out making it easy to use. On the other hand, the buttons for saving changes are very confusing.
The editor's text editing tools are marked by clear icons along the top making it easy to manipulate text, add tables and other features.
The buttons on some pages are misleading or hard to find. The worst case of this is that some pages have both a “Save Changes” button and an “Update” button, making it hard to figure out which one to click to save your final work.
Which one is the “Save” button?
More frustrating than that, is simply trying to view your work. You have to open up a new window just to see the changes you’ve made using the editor. It doesn’t even open to the page you were working on; it takes you to the home page where you have to click to the page you want to see. It’s a real headache having to switch between the windows to see your work, especially if you have more than one Internet browser open.
Though you may have a few problems getting around to start with, you do get used to it quickly.
Adding Pages is a Smooth Process
The process of adding different kinds of pages is visually clear, making it easy to choose different layout options and/ or tools. When you set up tools like an online form or an event calendar, you simply have to fill out the form's fields and the builder creates the page fully formatted and ready for use.
Too Many Bugs and Errors
We encountered a number of errors/ bugs over the course of our testing. When we were doing the trial, there was an error when we selected the template with no indication as to what went wrong. We ended up restarting the trial process and it was fine the second time around. Once we got our site created, we had quite the bumpy ride navigating through lots of javascript errors. It was so bad that we had to turn off the error messages. Later on though we turned the error messages back on and we no longer got the javascript errors. It looks like they resolved the problem over the course of the testing.
There was also a runtime error when we tried to upload our own images. We were never able to resolve the issue, making it impossible to get our own images onto the website.
We also tried to set up a visitor poll area on the home page (one of their standard options) and whenever we clicked to edit the poll, the web browser would freeze up. We never did resolve this.
E-Commerce in Some Ways Easy and Other Ways Hard to Use
The e-commerce system is in some ways easy and some ways boggles the mind. Switching between shipping options and offering discounts is very simple to do, following the step-by-step set up system. But then attaching images to your products is a hassle requiring you to do it on different areas in the builder.
Hard to Find Customers Support, Takes Too Long to Submit a Question
The support system is enough to use though you have to fill out a few too many fields just to ask a simple question. It’s also not easy to find, all tucked away in tiny text at the bottom of the page.
Hand me my magnifying glass – I need to contact support!
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