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Ask HN: What makes a great Web app home page?

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Re: Ask HN: What makes a great Web app home page?

#11

Post by ElbertF »

What you need is a catchy heading and a brief explanation of the app, not more than a few lines of text (graphics can help too). You want to get your visitors interested enough to click through and not be overwhelmed by to much information. Don't clutter your front page with social media buttons and other needless stuff. Don't show a huge list of features either, you may think it's awesome but most people don't care.

Showing recent activity on the front page might be a good idea if it helps explaining the app (the way Twitter does it).

Re: Ask HN: What makes a great Web app home page?

#12

Post by access_denied »

jasonkester wrote: post #10

What should you be thinking? Simple: "I have 5 seconds of this guy's time." ... and then only if you're lucky. Once you realize that, everything else follows easily. Your first goal is to answer "what does this website do" in six words and stick that message in a place the user can't miss. Next up is a clear call to action. A "Solve My Problem Now" button that takes up a third of the screen and can't be missed or mis…

Excellent. Can't support it enough. One minor caveat: you can do all this right and yet completely destroy it with a messed up layout (aka graphic design). The layout has 2 functions:

1) make the points of the Parent 'work (readability and such)

2) instill trust in your business (first impression by well done design)

Re: Ask HN: What makes a great Web app home page?

#13

Post by loewenskind »

jasonkester wrote: post #10

What should you be thinking? Simple: "I have 5 seconds of this guy's time." ... and then only if you're lucky. Once you realize that, everything else follows easily. Your first goal is to answer "what does this website do" in six words and stick that message in a place the user can't miss. Next up is a clear call to action. A "Solve My Problem Now" button that takes up a third of the screen and can't be missed or mis…

Your Spanish teaching thing is really cool. Can you do one for French? There are some countries in Africa where you can probably take advantage of similar wage differences.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a great Web app home page?

#14

Post by loewenskind »

loewenskind wrote: post #13
jasonkester wrote: post #10

What should you be thinking? Simple: "I have 5 seconds of this guy's time." ... and then only if you're lucky. Once you realize that, everything else follows easily. Your first goal is to answer "what does this website do" in six words and stick that message in a place the user can't miss. Next up is a clear call to action. A "Solve My Problem Now" button that takes up a third of the screen and can't be missed or mis…

Your Spanish teaching thing is really cool. Can you do one for French? There are some countries in Africa where you can probably take advantage of similar wage differences.

One nit though: I had to go through a few links before I found out if it had voice or not. I don't believe in learning by reading (how old were you when you learned to read your native language?) and all I saw on the first page was text. Maybe I should have assumed it would have voice but so many people are hung up on learning a language from reading that that's never a good assumption to make.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a great Web app home page?

#15

Post by jasonkester »

loewenskind wrote: post #14
loewenskind wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your Spanish teaching thing is really cool. Can you do one for French? There are some countries in Africa where you can probably take advantage of similar wage differences.

One nit though: I had to go through a few links before I found out if it had voice or not. I don't believe in learning by reading (how old were you when you learned to read your native language?) and all I saw on the first page was text. Maybe I should have assumed it would have voice but so many people are hung up on learning a language from reading that that's never a good assumption to make.

Thanks for that. I'll try to cram that onto the homepage someplace. If it's not obvious to you, it won't be to anybody else.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a great Web app home page?

#16

Post by jasonkester »

loewenskind wrote: post #13
jasonkester wrote: post #10

What should you be thinking? Simple: "I have 5 seconds of this guy's time." ... and then only if you're lucky. Once you realize that, everything else follows easily. Your first goal is to answer "what does this website do" in six words and stick that message in a place the user can't miss. Next up is a clear call to action. A "Solve My Problem Now" button that takes up a third of the screen and can't be missed or mis…

Your Spanish teaching thing is really cool. Can you do one for French? There are some countries in Africa where you can probably take advantage of similar wage differences.

French might well be the next vertical.

The plan for now though is to focus on just doing one thing really well. There are plenty of sites that have poured lots of money into doing online tutoring in the general case, and there are plenty of smaller sites that do online Spanish tutoring acceptably. But everybody with funding has thus far gone the way of being generic, so there's a gap waiting for a really good site doing just Spanish.

At some point, we'll outgrow it (hopefully), and "French by Moroccans and Guyanans" might be the next one.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a great Web app home page?

#17

Post by loewenskind »

jasonkester wrote: post #15
loewenskind wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One nit though: I had to go through a few links before I found out if it had voice or not. I don't believe in learning by reading (how old were you when you learned to read your native language?) and all I saw on the first page was text. Maybe I should have assumed it would have voice but so many people are hung up on learning a language from reading that that's never a good assumption to make.

Thanks for that. I'll try to cram that onto the homepage someplace. If it's not obvious to you, it won't be to anybody else.

Yea, that's why I decided to mention it. I think it's a great idea and really important for learning a language.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a great Web app home page?

#18

Post by honopu »

jasonkester wrote: post #10

What should you be thinking? Simple: "I have 5 seconds of this guy's time." ... and then only if you're lucky. Once you realize that, everything else follows easily. Your first goal is to answer "what does this website do" in six words and stick that message in a place the user can't miss. Next up is a clear call to action. A "Solve My Problem Now" button that takes up a third of the screen and can't be missed or mis…

Great info.

I have noticed this set of graphics on various websites, not necessarily the same characters, but it has the same general style. Are these available as a set somewhere?

Re: Ask HN: What makes a great Web app home page?

#19

Post by jasonkester »

honopu wrote: post #18
jasonkester wrote: post #10

What should you be thinking? Simple: "I have 5 seconds of this guy's time." ... and then only if you're lucky. Once you realize that, everything else follows easily. Your first goal is to answer "what does this website do" in six words and stick that message in a place the user can't miss. Next up is a clear call to action. A "Solve My Problem Now" button that takes up a third of the screen and can't be missed or mis…

Great info. I have noticed this set of graphics on various websites, not necessarily the same characters, but it has the same general style. Are these available as a set somewhere?

Indeed. Ever the ones for brand originality, we're using artwork from iStockPhoto. At some point, I'll probably commission an illustrator to redo it all, but for now it works OK.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a great Web app home page?

#20

Post by honopu »

jasonkester wrote: post #19
honopu wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great info. I have noticed this set of graphics on various websites, not necessarily the same characters, but it has the same general style. Are these available as a set somewhere?

Indeed. Ever the ones for brand originality, we're using artwork from iStockPhoto. At some point, I'll probably commission an illustrator to redo it all, but for now it works OK.

Ah I wasn't implying you were unoriginal, I was just unsure of the source of these things. Thank you for the information :)

For the sake of others searching, my first similar styled result found: http://www.SeanJamesInteractive.com/portfolio_illustrations....

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