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Show HN: I built a website that simplifies Congress and its activities
31–36 of 36 posts
Re: Show HN: I built a website that simplifies Congress and its activities
#32Nice work. But unfortunately in the "post factual" world this will be of use to a few people. People care about noise, not facts anymore.
Re: Show HN: I built a website that simplifies Congress and its activities
#33Why do I have to sign up to use it at all? You want people to get involved in the process but you add friction. My guess is, your bounce rate is high. I'm sure there are plenty of features that require an account - but I'd imagine there are still ways of displaying and sharing the public information you've gathered within your tool without getting people to give you their e-mail address and generate yet another passw…
I think the problem is the "Get Started" button leads directly to a sign up page. I'd find it more useful if it used my geolocation to go straight to my representatives. After getting engaged and wanting to follow them, I would then be more inclined to sign up in order to follow updates.
Yes I was a little put off by getting asked for that directly
Would be nice if the front page had some more info about what you are trying to do and how why I want to use it (What's in it for me). There is more text explaining the site in the comments thread that I could find on the site.
Would like to have my view of Congress simplified.
I followed H.R. 1301 and your site doesn't have that it passed or what the bill is about. On top of that you have this scary picture of multiple huge dish antennas. I was a home owner and the ham next to me said "Hey, go look up H.R. 1301" and I saw that picture I'd be in a full panic.
Good luck, I bookmarked it, I'll come back and see if things are any better in a few weeks.
Re: Show HN: I built a website that simplifies Congress and its activities
#34Is it 4us.com or 4usxus.com? You need to get this straightened out.
Re: Show HN: I built a website that simplifies Congress and its activities
#35Love this. I wanted to build this exact thing a few years ago. Did a little work on it and then saw a squirrel and jumped to the next new shiny thing I saw. Really happy to see that someone else had the same thought and executed it much better than I ever could have hoped to.
Re: Show HN: I built a website that simplifies Congress and its activities
#36I'm the Legislative Director for a nonprofit and my first observation of this tool is that I have no clue what it does. I just spent five minutes poking around and it's not obvious what this does, or why I would need it. The map populated with dots that did not seem to have function, and the state issues seemed a little off as most state legislatures are now out of sessions. How does it compare to the free service Go…
First of all 4us.com is completely free. We've been working on this site for the last 2 years and have been funding this entirely from our pockets. If you have some free time on your hands please signup to check out some of the stuff you've been missing out. The basic idea behind 4us is that you can: - Browse all bills, voting records and members of Congress (kind of what GovTrack does) - Get notified (email and site…
Awesome website and idea, I really hope it succeeds. Here are some pointer to perhaps improve it.
- User Angular's ng-cloak to hide your variables while the controller is loading. The {{item.display}} makes the site look amateurish
- Don't do nested left panels. Have the options for bills or representatives on the same page that has the trending bills instead of a second left panel
- The dashboard page tries to show too many things at once. I know you're using an admin bootstrap template and that is not a good choice for what you're trying to do. Try to have the main dashboard page focus on a specific topic (trending stories, users, discussions)
- Hire a UX designer instead of using a generic bootstrap template.
Here are some things that I think you're doing really well:
- The search works really well. Are you using ElasticSearch?
- You're doing a good job of showing what I need to know about a specific bill or a representative. The details pages for bills and representatives are complete and well structured good job!