There's not enough information on the front page to entice me to sign up. I suggest you add a bit more description as to what users can do on the site.
Also, I suggest the usual HN advice: let users do as much as possible before requiring them to sign up.
Just so you don't ignore it, I second the idea that you should make users sign up later rather than earlier. This was my leave-point for the site - "ooh, that looks nice, let's add that. Bah, not nice enough to sign up for anything close"
I couldn't figure out what the goal of the site was. Now that I've clicked around more, it seems a little like 43 Places (http://www.43places.com/), but even now I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to build a collection of places (cause of the "I've been there!" links), learn more about interesting places through comments, share/tag photos ala Flickr, or what. You can possibly be all of those things eventually, but the homepage needs a clearer call-to-action.
Also, minor nit, if I click on Register or Login but change my mind, there's no way to close the dialog.
(Note #1: I hope I don't come across as too critical mate, I'm just trying to be helpful!)
I just had a little play around with the site and I was a little confused to what it actually did for a few moments (even though I did read the tagline, it more or less blended into the toolbar up the top) Perhaps an "About Us" type box between the second signup section that is in a contrasting colour to draw your attention to it? Perhaps a light turquoise or light yellow background to ensure it is well defined in the layout of your pages. This would also give you the opportunity for another signup call to action.
So I think you really need to change a couple of design elements to make it clear what the site is about.
Some other design elements I would look at (and I'm just being picky now, but trying to be honest aswell) would be caption under each picture could perhaps not be in that little black box underneath each image? Whitespace is a wonderful thing so I'd use it wherever possible. Ensure the flag is there in the whitespace too - It's just right now each image gives me the impression it looks like Google Adsense
- Perhaps less boxes for places on the frontpage too? You don't really want to overwhelm your new users with too much information. Maybe try some sort of large gallery that shuffles through various locations and pops up it's location underneath (I'm trying to remember the name of the open source thing you can use, but have a look at http://graphpaperpress.com/demo/monochrome/ and you will see what I mean) ... I think with the larger cycling gallery and an about us box, you could essentially shorten and shift the grey text under your tool menu, ie make it a plain tagline "for remembering and discovering places to visit." and leaving it under the sitename above the tool menu, which would also neaten up the design.
- Perhaps explain to users what your features actually mean (the majority of users of websites don't know terms like KML)
- The sidebar has a weird amount of extra margin on the right of it, making the whole page seem shifted to the left.
- Perhaps you could combine the Login/Signup into one large box by joining them together and where the whitespace is in the middle add the word "or"... it would reduce the amount of hot pink as I think that comes across as distracting. Maybe the addition of a closing option to close the window again?
(Note #2: I hope this came across coherently, I've been up & coding/doing math on and off for the last 30 hours and I'm about to go to bed)
Good but frustrating to add places. Maybe it's me but I'd rather either:
- entry box like twitter to enter location
and how do you enter the street address of a mountain?
- so a pin button locator where you can fine tune the placement on the map itself
A geeky way would be allow users to also enter Geolocation, lat/lon. But that's not important. The entry works but adding entry to the front page removing the requirement to add an add-on will increase usage.
It has no purpose. Once again, let me be the bad guy because nobody else will: it's not useful!
The idea you have behind it is good, but you have done a shoddy work of communicating it.
Think of it from the perspective of someone external to the page. I open it and see a bunch of pictures of beaches. I could go to google images and type beaches and I'd see the same thing. I'm never going to go to Turtle Island, I never heard of it, and I'm not interested in it.
So, what would be useful to me then? Imagine I could go there, and then click on my own city. Then I see a bunch of photos of obscure bars and fun places (and not the monument in the center of the city) then it would be useful. If I knew I was going to New Zealand in december, I could click on christchurch or something, and I'd instantly see the cool places to go to, then that would be useful.
I know you've had these ideas, the problem is that you presented the actual way to get to the useful stuff as very cumbersome and unclear. Instead, you're putting technical stuff on the front page like "tags", "tools", "KML feeds".
I have no idea what a KML feed is even though I'm a technical guy. And why in heavens name is OpenID the most important "feature" you support? Is that not a bit of a wrong setting of priorities?
"Cool Bookmarklet"? A bookmarklet that has a low temperature, or does this bookmarklet wear dark glasses and doesn't dance in the club?
Yes, I know I'm being rough on you here, but it's better to hear this stuff now before it becomes impossible to change.
You have had a great idea, but you need to communicate clearer. You're communicating too technically and you need to do it different. How you do it is up to you, I'm just making you aware of the fact.
You should mentally add "you idiot!" to the end of all your sentences. If the resulting sentence makes sense, rewrite it until it's so polite that adding those words doesn't make sense.
Your points here are somewhat valid, though. I'm just irritated at reading your rants, thinking "wow, this guy is kind of mean," and then looking up and seeing "maxklein" as the username.
I know I'm a bit mean, but someone has to be the mean guy. Personally, I dislike this fake politeness and niceness that people hide behind all the time. It makes life boring.
I'm just saying things the way I see them without sugercoating them at all, I'm not being mean for the sake of being mean. I'm just saying what's in my mind without trying to reformulate it such that the other guy does not get hurt.
When I demo my own project, I hope others do the same. Because that will make me improve and change till I can hopefully finally make something that is just frickin great. I care about this stuff here, this is not my job, it's my art. Art has to be aesthetically pleasing, and you would not criticize someone for saying his honest opinion about a crap piece of art, would you? And I'm not saying that the project above is crap, it's actually quite good, but there are some things that are not right in my opinion.
Niceness is overrated. If you're trying to make something great, then you need to feel the flames when you're small. That's what will mould you and make you into a hard mean money making machine. If everyone just pats you on the back and encourages you to "follow your dreams", then you'll end up making something that nobody wants.
When people tell you straight to your face what they don't like about your project without trying to be all diplomatic and sparing your feelings, you have an opportunity to look at other peoples perspectives and improve and change things.
I think that was the most objective critique one could ask for a startup like this. He got right to the point of each topic and didn't beat around the bush just too say something.
Once there was a man who went on vacation and left his neighbor to take care of his house while he was away.
One week into the vacation, the man phoned his neighbor. "How's it going?" he asked.
"Well," said the neighbor, "I'm afraid your cat is dead."
The man was, naturally, shocked and horrified. "That's terrible!" he said. "You shouldn't have just told me flat out like that. Couldn't you have broken it to me gently? You could have said something like, 'Well, your cat got stuck on the roof. We called the fire department to get him down, but the cat slipped and fell. He landed badly and was knocked unconscious. We rushed him to the vet, but there was nothing to be done, so I'm afraid we had to put him to sleep, and he went blissfully to heaven.'"
Two weeks later the man called the neighbor again. "How's it going?" he asked.
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Then the neighbor said, "well, your mother-in-law got stuck on the roof..."
---
Anyway, enough with the old jokes. What I'm trying to say is that I don't see anything wrong with maxklein's critique. It's not mean. It's just blunt. And it's barely even "Linus Torvalds blunt" -- it's certainly not "Philip Greenspun blunt", and it isn't even visible on the Steve Jobs bluntness scale.
Maybe it could have been more elegantly blunt. I certainly aspire to that, but it's still better to be inelegantly blunt -- it's better to be inelegantly blunt and completely wrong, so long as you're being honest -- than it is to just say "gosh, it sure is a website! great job, guys!" and let the poor folks run the risk of being schooled, quietly and politely, by the market as they bleed to death over the course of two or three years.
I was going to comment on Di fara pizza, but when I clicked post comment nothing seemed to happened. Only something did happen - post comment button is below the fold, but the login/register layer appears above the fold. I found it after clicked 5 or 6 times, giving in, and scrolling up to hit the site id for home.
20 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 92.3 ms ] threadAlso, I suggest the usual HN advice: let users do as much as possible before requiring them to sign up.
Good luck!
Also, minor nit, if I click on Register or Login but change my mind, there's no way to close the dialog.
Very nice-looking!
I just had a little play around with the site and I was a little confused to what it actually did for a few moments (even though I did read the tagline, it more or less blended into the toolbar up the top) Perhaps an "About Us" type box between the second signup section that is in a contrasting colour to draw your attention to it? Perhaps a light turquoise or light yellow background to ensure it is well defined in the layout of your pages. This would also give you the opportunity for another signup call to action.
So I think you really need to change a couple of design elements to make it clear what the site is about.
Some other design elements I would look at (and I'm just being picky now, but trying to be honest aswell) would be caption under each picture could perhaps not be in that little black box underneath each image? Whitespace is a wonderful thing so I'd use it wherever possible. Ensure the flag is there in the whitespace too - It's just right now each image gives me the impression it looks like Google Adsense
- Perhaps less boxes for places on the frontpage too? You don't really want to overwhelm your new users with too much information. Maybe try some sort of large gallery that shuffles through various locations and pops up it's location underneath (I'm trying to remember the name of the open source thing you can use, but have a look at http://graphpaperpress.com/demo/monochrome/ and you will see what I mean) ... I think with the larger cycling gallery and an about us box, you could essentially shorten and shift the grey text under your tool menu, ie make it a plain tagline "for remembering and discovering places to visit." and leaving it under the sitename above the tool menu, which would also neaten up the design.
- Perhaps explain to users what your features actually mean (the majority of users of websites don't know terms like KML)
- The sidebar has a weird amount of extra margin on the right of it, making the whole page seem shifted to the left.
- Perhaps you could combine the Login/Signup into one large box by joining them together and where the whitespace is in the middle add the word "or"... it would reduce the amount of hot pink as I think that comes across as distracting. Maybe the addition of a closing option to close the window again?
(Note #2: I hope this came across coherently, I've been up & coding/doing math on and off for the last 30 hours and I'm about to go to bed)
Having another look at the image, I'd probably even make the images below even more thumbnail like, perhaps a series of small tiles?
http://marklancaster.org/storage/weheartplacesquickmockup.jp...
Hope that helps mate.
Good but frustrating to add places. Maybe it's me but I'd rather either:
- entry box like twitter to enter location
and how do you enter the street address of a mountain?
- so a pin button locator where you can fine tune the placement on the map itself
A geeky way would be allow users to also enter Geolocation, lat/lon. But that's not important. The entry works but adding entry to the front page removing the requirement to add an add-on will increase usage.
One thing that does bug me and could be be a problem. It has to do with the restrictions on flickr images but there is a technical solution. I added this image ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/2803128286/ to my account ~ http://www.weheartplaces.com/users/bootload The image is mine so copyright is clear for my use. Others can use it as well, but if you ignore the licensing ~ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en by placing adverts you leave yourself open to a lot of flack. Eg: If you get big ppl will be able to enforce their license agreements. The technical solution is to use the flickr API ( flickr.photos.licenses.getInfo ) ~ http://www.flickr.com/services/api/flickr.photos.licenses.ge... to check the copyright permissions and respect them. Ignoring the licensing problem will become a problem ~ http://www.flickr.com/groups/api/discuss/72157601196183552/?... and http://www.flickr.com/groups/lawgroup/
The idea you have behind it is good, but you have done a shoddy work of communicating it.
Think of it from the perspective of someone external to the page. I open it and see a bunch of pictures of beaches. I could go to google images and type beaches and I'd see the same thing. I'm never going to go to Turtle Island, I never heard of it, and I'm not interested in it.
So, what would be useful to me then? Imagine I could go there, and then click on my own city. Then I see a bunch of photos of obscure bars and fun places (and not the monument in the center of the city) then it would be useful. If I knew I was going to New Zealand in december, I could click on christchurch or something, and I'd instantly see the cool places to go to, then that would be useful.
I know you've had these ideas, the problem is that you presented the actual way to get to the useful stuff as very cumbersome and unclear. Instead, you're putting technical stuff on the front page like "tags", "tools", "KML feeds".
I have no idea what a KML feed is even though I'm a technical guy. And why in heavens name is OpenID the most important "feature" you support? Is that not a bit of a wrong setting of priorities?
"Cool Bookmarklet"? A bookmarklet that has a low temperature, or does this bookmarklet wear dark glasses and doesn't dance in the club?
Yes, I know I'm being rough on you here, but it's better to hear this stuff now before it becomes impossible to change.
You have had a great idea, but you need to communicate clearer. You're communicating too technically and you need to do it different. How you do it is up to you, I'm just making you aware of the fact.
Your points here are somewhat valid, though. I'm just irritated at reading your rants, thinking "wow, this guy is kind of mean," and then looking up and seeing "maxklein" as the username.
I'm just saying things the way I see them without sugercoating them at all, I'm not being mean for the sake of being mean. I'm just saying what's in my mind without trying to reformulate it such that the other guy does not get hurt.
When I demo my own project, I hope others do the same. Because that will make me improve and change till I can hopefully finally make something that is just frickin great. I care about this stuff here, this is not my job, it's my art. Art has to be aesthetically pleasing, and you would not criticize someone for saying his honest opinion about a crap piece of art, would you? And I'm not saying that the project above is crap, it's actually quite good, but there are some things that are not right in my opinion.
Niceness is overrated. If you're trying to make something great, then you need to feel the flames when you're small. That's what will mould you and make you into a hard mean money making machine. If everyone just pats you on the back and encourages you to "follow your dreams", then you'll end up making something that nobody wants.
When people tell you straight to your face what they don't like about your project without trying to be all diplomatic and sparing your feelings, you have an opportunity to look at other peoples perspectives and improve and change things.
But it is possible to be tactfully honest. You're not.
One week into the vacation, the man phoned his neighbor. "How's it going?" he asked.
"Well," said the neighbor, "I'm afraid your cat is dead."
The man was, naturally, shocked and horrified. "That's terrible!" he said. "You shouldn't have just told me flat out like that. Couldn't you have broken it to me gently? You could have said something like, 'Well, your cat got stuck on the roof. We called the fire department to get him down, but the cat slipped and fell. He landed badly and was knocked unconscious. We rushed him to the vet, but there was nothing to be done, so I'm afraid we had to put him to sleep, and he went blissfully to heaven.'"
Two weeks later the man called the neighbor again. "How's it going?" he asked.
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Then the neighbor said, "well, your mother-in-law got stuck on the roof..."
---
Anyway, enough with the old jokes. What I'm trying to say is that I don't see anything wrong with maxklein's critique. It's not mean. It's just blunt. And it's barely even "Linus Torvalds blunt" -- it's certainly not "Philip Greenspun blunt", and it isn't even visible on the Steve Jobs bluntness scale.
Maybe it could have been more elegantly blunt. I certainly aspire to that, but it's still better to be inelegantly blunt -- it's better to be inelegantly blunt and completely wrong, so long as you're being honest -- than it is to just say "gosh, it sure is a website! great job, guys!" and let the poor folks run the risk of being schooled, quietly and politely, by the market as they bleed to death over the course of two or three years.
I was going to comment on Di fara pizza, but when I clicked post comment nothing seemed to happened. Only something did happen - post comment button is below the fold, but the login/register layer appears above the fold. I found it after clicked 5 or 6 times, giving in, and scrolling up to hit the site id for home.
This is in webkit, btw.
http://www.weheartplaces.com/places/108-jumbo-pass
It needs the zoom controls, and you should probably use the terrain mode.