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Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

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Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#161

Post by mikegreenberg »

jreposa wrote: post #56

Is this easy to use? Your goal is to open a new savings account. http://www.mybanktracker.com/savings We just launched our new style of rate tables, but we need more testing. It would be great to have your opinion.

So, i agree that the page is a little busy. Maybe I'm dense, but the "Cash to Save" was ambiguous and couldn't decide if you meant "The end amount of cash I'd like to have after X months" or "How much I have now that I can move to this account".

On the "Learn More" page after clicking a bank, the slider occasionally mis-renders. (The handle will render under the textbox which requests my deposit amount.) This is usually if I max out the Cash slider on the first step. (OS X 10.6.8, Chrome 14)

This seems pretty straight-forward to me. And pretty helpful. I think you're moving in the right direction.

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#162

Post by mikegreenberg »

snikolic wrote: post #27

Mike, this is an awesome gesture. I just filled out your survey. If you have a few spare moments, I'd love UI feedback on http://flock.fm (no big deal if you're overwhelmed with requests and don't have time)

Sure!

- It's not immediately clear how this is suppose to work. I see a stream on the left and details on the right. I spent some time to realize this was my currently playing queue. The right side is suppose to show detail of the song playing. I wonder if there's a way to make this more obvious without beating a user over the head about it.

- This has a Twitter styling and was expecting to get details of another song when clicking on it. Surprised when it started playing instead.

- Clicking a tag seems to hide currently playing queue. I'm not sure how to get back to it at this point. Having an anchor back to your current queue might be helpful.

- Why are you hiding the Non-Facebook login at the bottom of the page? This comes across as sneaky.

- I think the interface is not so obvious until playing around with it for a few minutes. Maybe give a new user a "Quick Start Guide" overlay that they can later hide.

Overall, this is pretty cool! Streaming is solid. The playlists are relevant. The selection seems broad. A+ :)

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#163

Post by mikegreenberg »

nickknw wrote: post #64

Hi Mike! In your first post you say "I've got great aesthetics and design sense". I could definitely use your advice on my personal website - http://nickknowlson.com My skills are those of a developer much more than a designer, but I tried to make it fairly clean. Thanks for doing this!

This looks awesome! You did everything simply and with purpose. My only gripe is with your line-spacing under the "Latest" heading on the "Home" page. Increase the line-height and indent the paragraph content by a bit. Sample CSS to do this...

    div.blockylist {
      line-height: 2.5em;
    }

    div.blockylist div {
      margin-left: 1em;
    }
And I would add some tracking to the site. Metrics are important to know if people like what you're showing them or not. Even if you don't care now, it's nice to see how your site grew. Google Analytics or GetClicky (which I use) are perfectly fine and have free plans.

Great work!

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#164

Post by mikegreenberg »

GICodeWarrior wrote: post #103

Hello Mike, Who would you target this product at? http://goo.gl/Oue0b (the top one) How would you reach that audience? All feedback is welcome. Thanks :-)

This page is far too busy. Filter your primary value proposition into a few lines, tops. "Add a simple-to-manage wiki to your Google Apps domain!" Drop everything else. You can add the "Why" and the "Coming Soon" to other parts of the page that you can offer to the visitor. Give them the value proposition and the call-to-action first. Then, politely to the side, offer alternative ways for them to learn more while still driving them toward your primary call-to-action.

Marketing isn't my forte, but this sort of thing lends itself to large organizations. (The ones who typically use Google Apps.) I was try to optimize the channels that Google provides for App deployment. Attend Google related events and talk to as many people as possible. Your audience will likely be quite diverse in their needs. But there should be a few features that would add value in a way that satisfies many of them. (i.e.: Simple setup, simple code base, easy customizability, etc.) Try to identify what that feature is and work toward it.

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#165

Post by mikegreenberg »

ameyamk wrote: post #93

Hi Mike. You are making this thread really interesting. Can you give us some feedback on http://www.tringify.com ? we are still in beta phase, but would love to have some feedback.

I think sounds like a great service. But the million dollar question is, "Why isn't there a live demo?" :)

Everything else seems really good. (But you might want to tighten up your other slide images on the home page. Center them and put a white background behind it so it's consistent with the prior screen.

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#166

Post by mikegreenberg »

afunnyfunnyman wrote: post #58

Hi Mike, Thanks for the offer! If you wouldn't mind checking out some of the businesses I'm working on and letting me know what you think that would rock! www.digitalqcards.com www.myclouds.com

Sorry to reply so late, but could you ask for some specific feedback you're interested in?

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#167

Post by ido »

mikegreenberg wrote: post #159
mikegreenberg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+ The intro instantly made me want to play. (I love RPGs.) I'm certain you've seen enough Square titles to see how they make epic introductions to their games. I'm not sure what you built this with, but an epic intro is CERTAIN to get people to try your game out. As far as game interfaces are concerned, I need to understand the mechanics behind your game and spend more time with it than I'm willing to now. I'll spend…

Alright, I made it most of the way through the 4th floor, and then the monsters became a bit overwhelming... I'll try again later but I feel I have good handle on the game. - Harest part for me was the learning the hotkeys. Most game designers will layout the slots to mimic the location of the hotkeys on the keyboard. I note that the right-side spells start from hotkey 1 and the bottom quick-items continue where the…

Good points all around!

About your last point, that's already the case - you get gold when an item is destroyed, but maybe it could be conveyed better.

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#168

Post by GICodeWarrior »

mikegreenberg wrote: post #164
GICodeWarrior wrote: post #103

Hello Mike, Who would you target this product at? http://goo.gl/Oue0b (the top one) How would you reach that audience? All feedback is welcome. Thanks :-)

This page is far too busy. Filter your primary value proposition into a few lines, tops. "Add a simple-to-manage wiki to your Google Apps domain!" Drop everything else. You can add the "Why" and the "Coming Soon" to other parts of the page that you can offer to the visitor. Give them the value proposition and the call-to-action first. Then, politely to the side, offer alternative ways for them to learn more while sti…

Thanks!

I like your ideas for the website. I am not very good with design, but with this feedback I should be able to tweak it some more.

So far, most of my active customers (currently about 20 over any given week) appear to be small and medium businesses (3-50 accounts). I do need to work on my marketplace listing page (the "try it now" button goes there). They sorted things around recently and it looks even worse for my content.

Thanks again for your time. I appreciate it. :-)

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#169

Post by lancefisher »

mikegreenberg wrote: post #153
lancefisher wrote: post #76

Hi Mike, this is awesome! I'd love it if you could make a post on our website, and critique the process. Our site helps you find people to get stuff done. e.g. mow your lawn, build a fence. http://www.whocanhelp.com Thanks!

Lance! Great execution on this site. Very simple and straight-forward. I was not confused or lost at any step in the process. I'm pretty happy with the business model as well. I'm guessing you make a commission on the offer made by the service providers that bid on my jobs? Your website is clean and straight forward. No distractions. It would seem you're having a hard time getting service providers to give offers. I'…

Thanks, Mike! We are definitely better guessing some categories than others. We're improving that all the time. The suggestions are a feature we just added last week.

It's actually free for services providers to make offers. We charge for ads, and may charge for some other premium features in the future.

Thanks again for take the time to check it out!

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#170

Post by mikegreenberg »

GICodeWarrior wrote: post #168
mikegreenberg wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This page is far too busy. Filter your primary value proposition into a few lines, tops. "Add a simple-to-manage wiki to your Google Apps domain!" Drop everything else. You can add the "Why" and the "Coming Soon" to other parts of the page that you can offer to the visitor. Give them the value proposition and the call-to-action first. Then, politely to the side, offer alternative ways for them to learn more while sti…

Thanks! I like your ideas for the website. I am not very good with design, but with this feedback I should be able to tweak it some more. So far, most of my active customers (currently about 20 over any given week) appear to be small and medium businesses (3-50 accounts). I do need to work on my marketplace listing page (the "try it now" button goes there). They sorted things around recently and it looks even worse f…

My pleasure. :)
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