Ask HN: Review our webapp (Sproost); team met on HN

Not Bad.

I wasn't sure what it was all about until I actually completed the quiz and started looking at "rooms". You may want to fix that somehow.

Also, I found some issues with the way the room objects were displayed (after you have a style)... seemed a little mish-mashed.

Looks like a good thing to present to Architecture digest or House and Home or one of those magazines... timing might not be the best with the recession though.

Good luck to you!

Why did you choose a lightbox for sign-up/login?

I too wasn't sure what it was all about, but (and most sites should take a hint here) you made it very easy to figure it out. I clicked the button and off it went.

I'm curios as to why you went with two different styles though. When I start I have radio buttons and a submit on the right of the picture, then you go to the voting blocks on the left of the picture. Why the change? It would maybe be better to go with the more familiar (Hot or Not) style of selections below the picture.

Now I know it wouldn't occur to most of the people on here but when I tried to take the quiz with IE7 the site hung as soon as I answered the first question. So 80% of your visitors will never know what it's all about.

  "So 80% of your visitors"
  

I liked it a lot.

But I did stop at entering my email address.

Sites like HN have spoiled me with their fast and easy signup. I'd make giving one's email optional.

Remember signup is one of the biggest hurdles any website has. The easier you make it the more people will do it.

Especially if someone is just playing around and has not created dozens of rooms, the worst that could happen is they take the test again.

And I must say the test is fast, short and fun, perfect.

P.S.

Browsed around some more and came back to add to my comment.

If I'm going to be buying furniture over the internet I am going to need A LOT of technical information.

And A LOT of pictures, not just different angles of nicely made bed, but the assembly process as well.

P.P.S.

Bug?: http://www.bobbyberkhome.com/product/bedroom/19393/modloft-w...

Good implementation!

I ran it past my gf (who watches a lot more home decoration shows than me), she didn't like the quiz results. She felt that they were all over the place and a bit contradictory.

I felt that the quiz was too long :p I was also a bit confused about how many more questions there were - I didn't really understand the potential/eliminated stuff.

I agree with run4yourlives, the objects in the room were really mish-mashed. Having it as a simple 2D representation of the furniture isn't very satisfying - the most jarring example being that the rug is just an upright rectangle...

I'm not part of the target audience, but I think you have something pretty interesting.

I liked how I could immediately start using the StyleEngine. The navigation was great and I had no trouble using it. I thought the 'ruled out' could be a little more prominent so I could see my progress. Definitely a slick site though. Best of luck!

Nice implementation, good concept. My only suggestion you should not force people to take the quiz to get to the point of what is that the app does.

One thing surprising is not the fact that the team met on HN, it is the fact that only David is a hacker. I didn’t know that HN was also a meeting spot for interior designers. Really good to know : - )

I liked it - fun! Tweeted it

Is there a way to tell my friends my results? Not via email, I want a direct link to tweet/IM etc

In the style engine I would move the options (love it, like it, etc.) over to the right of the picture, or underneath it. And make it look more like clickable buttons.

The placement and design makes it look like a menu.

This is clever, and I think it gets a pretty good read on me, but my real style (as judged by actual purchases) is cheap and/or used--so I'm probably not a target consumer here.

In the room display (which is odd, but the problem is hard), my apache area rug showed up somewhat smaller than my great plains porcelain table lamp, and a throw pillow dwarfed a sofa. Giving some better sense of scale is the only definite improvement I can think of. That and don't let pictures almost completely overlap, as some candle holders do on a leaf bowl the second time I loaded the page.

ETA: Clicking to buy a "Deep River Rectangle Cocktail" table went through the affiliate program link and to the retailer, but it dropped me on the front page.

Very nice. Excellent design. The quiz was fun and easy to complete.

I would like to see a list of specific styles and their representative pictures though. That way, I can see the names of other styles that I might like or dislike.

Like biohacker42, I stopped at the signup.

I thought it was confusing how the quiz controls changed after I answered the first question.

You should make that consistent.

Otherwise nice work.

Wow, I really like this site. Some of the graphics leave a little to be desired (the logo and the greater than sign on the "see your results" page). But, I really liked the flow and interaction. It did take me a second though to figure out what was going on when I started the quiz, because the buttons jumped from the right of the image to the left and were replaced with a bunch of text on the right. I thought I had been taken away from the quiz and was a bit confused.

Very sweet though. I'm going to pass it on definitely.

Pretty great, it was spot on with me.

Lovely site.. well done

Great start!

I've got a few comments:

First, as someone pointed out, you should not switch your quiz interface between the first question and the latter questions. I don't see that you gain anything by switching and it is a little confusing. I would stick with the first question layout, because it is simple.

Second, I'm not sure that you need the "Most recent results" feature. The investment your seeking from potential users is so small, I don't think I that you need to prove that you have traffic, and I don't really see this as morphing into a social app (if it does, I think you are straying too far away from what will make you money). Further, I think it detracts from the point, which I assume is to get people to take the quiz and click through to buy products. Removing it will make the interface cleaner.

Third, as someone has stated, I would make it clear how many images have been rated and remain. A simple "1 of 10" would do the trick.

Fourth, if you go with the second layout for the quiz interface, I would do away with or hide the "How to take the style quiz" text, like you do the "like or hate something."

Fifth, after the quiz, I would take people right to the "room" of stuff that they can click and buy. As it is, you are going to have a lot of people navigate away at the end of the quiz and they will never even see your money page.

Lastly, I noticed that you are using some magazine images. Although you will likely fly under the radar, that is copyright infringement. I see that you source it at least, and that may be enough to get them off your back.

All in all, good start for sure.

Every one of these rooms is so much more expensive than my living room that I'm finding it hard to judge.

I went to signup, but your application would not permit it. The '+' character is valid in an email address.

Love it. I'm about to buy a fixer upper and this would be really valuable. Also, it's an excellent market for advertising (lucrative niche).

Seems also very valuable for remodeling-- not just furniture. The most commonly remodeled rooms are kitchens and bathrooms.

The site is agonizingly slow. You are serving up 200k+ images scaled down in HTML. Seriously? Make it as fast as hot or not and you have a winner.

I'd also break it down by room. Kitchen, Living Room, Bedroom, etc.

Of course, as with many sites-- there's no build in marketing. How are you going to get visitors?

I recommend you use the Polyvore model. Let people pick items from different categories and create their own furnishing style. You are definitely in the right space.

I really like it. But I have no interest in your topic of furniture.

I also got tired of looking at pictures.. perhaps a little more reward after going through 5 or 10 images?

Can you take your engine + make it work with different categories?

Just wanted to post a quick message - very cool! I don't have time to go into details, but the site is very slick, and strangely enough, something I would use.

Well done! I'll try to add some more details later.

I usually don't fancy those quizzes (e.g. for music and movie tastes), but yours was actually interesting. Very good pictures, fun to look at, but they took too long to load to keep me involved til the end.

Scaling of fonts / liquid layout could be improved, looks a bit funny on FF/Ubuntu. Layout could use more white space for clarity.

I still like the idea. Good start, keep it up!

Yes nice that you allow use of the site right away which then takes you further into the site.

I kept answering like, hate and what not for like 20 rooms, but then got tired.

I thought it would stop, analyze the rooms I liked and give me a personality or the app would design my perfect room with perfect furnishings.

good job and good luck!