Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Contacts storage the way it should be done.

useadd.com

21–30 of 49 posts

Re: Show HN: Contacts storage the way it should be done.

#21
I am desperate for a good contacts solution

Your page does nothing to focus on my pain or tell me how you can fix it

I (and I am guessing My pain is pretty common) want

1. The same contact list on my email, Skype, mobile 2. That's it

Tell me how you solve that - iPhone and android integration, outlook and gmail will capture what 75% of the market?

I will leap through fire if you can then give me reports on who I talked to, who I skyped and rang and emailed Nd for how long.

But really I do not know what you do, what of my problems you solve and how you do it - even after glancing at the how page.

Sorry for the Downer but there is a big market out there with pretty simple requirements.

Re: Show HN: Contacts storage the way it should be done.

#22
post #18
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a useful remark.

I assume you are being sarcastic? I believe it is useful information for the owner of the web site. Whether you like it or not, people make decisions based on seemingly irrational factors, such as the design of the web site. It is particularly regrettable in this case, as the main design idea of the site is fine, but there are some glaring errors in the implementation. It would be simple enough to fix and could make…

You need to take the bare minimum ten seconds or so to go into some actual detail in order for a comment like that to be useful. This is why you also have a reply from the creator prompting you for further detail. If you're really busy, at least give some impression of your screen size. If you have more time, maybe link to a screenshot. Vague criticism alone is worthless though.

Personally I'd say that the font weights are far too low on much of the text. Thin text is in vogue and often looks great, but it's a bit overdone in this example. The phrase "Address book storage you can trust" at the top practically bleeds into its own red background. The sentence below is less readable still. And the text in the two buttons below that isn't vertically centered at all.

(http://i.imgur.com/U9N3hLo.png)

Re: Show HN: Contacts storage the way it should be done.

#23

I am desperate for a good contacts solution Your page does nothing to focus on my pain or tell me how you can fix it I (and I am guessing My pain is pretty common) want 1. The same contact list on my email, Skype, mobile 2. That's it Tell me how you solve that - iPhone and android integration, outlook and gmail will capture what 75% of the market? I will leap through fire if you can then give me reports on who I talk…

Hi lifeisstillgood,

We obviously haven't made it clear enough on our site.

1. I would need to know a bit more about your setup - but if you are on a Mac, we have integration with your email, the Skype app and syncing to iPhone/Android.

If you are on Windows, then it's a bit more complicated and depends on what you use.

Drop me an email at hi@useadd.com if you want with your setup and I'll see if it will work, now or in the future.

Regards

Re: Show HN: Contacts storage the way it should be done.

#24
post #12

You really need to iterate a bit over the design. It looks like a train wreck on my screen.

Useful comments and suggestions more than welcome - hi@useadd.com

Just some quick observations. I like the general minimalistic monochrome theme. It's just the execution that lacks.

Logo - The simple wordmark is fine, but you should render it with a bolder font - That thin looking plus looks cheap. Also, the rendering should be antialiased - right now there are some really rough jagged edges in the logo text. Make sure it's evenly positioned (There's more padding under than over it as of now).

The font looks great, but you need a better fallback. You haven't linked the web fonts in properly, because some in places it renders as intended, but in other places it falls back to the browser default, which is a serif-font in most cases. It looks hideous in contrast to the very modern typeface.

The hero-block should have text positioned a bit further down (Same issue as with the logo). Also, consider bolding the first line to add contrast to the subheading.

The buttons in the hero bar have the fonts positioned wrong. This might be down to my system not picking up the same font as you have used. I would suggest to just use plain helvetica for buttons and main text and leave special fonts for headings.

The columns in the main section are too wide on my screen. I would suggest that you set the page in a fixed width grid - it's simpler to control the layout. Also, the gutter is way too big, to the point of having less margin on the sides than gutter between columns, which makes the layout look cut in half.

On the front page, you have two links between columns, that are centered. They look strange like they should have gone together with the left column, but have drifted too far to the right. At least put a horizontal ruler above, to separate from the columns above.

Hope that helps.

Edit: Just noticed. If you resize the page under a certain size, the menu jumps down below the logo, which is fine. But since the text is white and the background is an unrepeated image, it becomes white text on white background. Related - on the shorter pages (Such as contact), the footer ends before the screen does (on a large resolution anyway), which means that the white background comes after the dark red colour. Just set the same dark red colour as body background.

Re: Show HN: Contacts storage the way it should be done.

#25
post #19

before I would use a service like this I would need MY data to be encrypted on your servers so NO ONE but me can read it. Even you. I can't quickly/easily see if this is how the data is stored. There is no way I'm giving you my social graph even if you say you wont sell it or give it away. You might be bought or the government might ask for it. Looks good though, good luck.

Your data is already out there on the open Internet. I could probably find your blood type based off your HN account.

If you can, please drop me an email with mine.

Re: Show HN: Contacts storage the way it should be done.

#26
post #18
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a useful remark.

I assume you are being sarcastic? I believe it is useful information for the owner of the web site. Whether you like it or not, people make decisions based on seemingly irrational factors, such as the design of the web site. It is particularly regrettable in this case, as the main design idea of the site is fine, but there are some glaring errors in the implementation. It would be simple enough to fix and could make…

A more constructive response would have been your browser version and a screenshot of what the train wreck looks like.

Re: Show HN: Contacts storage the way it should be done.

#27
post #9

Here is my take on it. For me, it's either use something like Google Contacts, or use something like add. They both have several features: * Stores your contacts * Synchronize across multiple devices * Works on all my mobile devices as well as web (I'm giving add the benefit of the doubt here) * Respects my privacy (Google has a good reputation here) * Allows me to export my data Google contacts has several advantage…

Agreed completely with most of your points - as I've already mentioned this is just the start and some of the things in the pipeline will easily surpass Google's relatively stagnant option. However, I don't think Google does respect your privacy [1] [2]. That is a massive issue and is becoming greater over time and is something Add was created to directly counter. Hopefully we can prove you wrong and still be here in…

I do agree that there might be some privacy concerns over google, but for contacts I actually don't really care.

Lets say I use your service instead of Google, I will protect my contacts from getting into Google's hands (this is only if I don't use gmail/google voice/google plus, which I do so they get my contacts anyways). Now I have protected my contacts, against google. But I have 173 friends/family that also use Gmail. This means that every single one of them probably has my email/phone/address and uploaded it too into Google Contacts. And if I haven't uploaded my contacts, someone else will do it. There is no way of protecting yourself against this sort of social network.

Re: Show HN: Contacts storage the way it should be done.

#28
post #22
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you are being sarcastic? I believe it is useful information for the owner of the web site. Whether you like it or not, people make decisions based on seemingly irrational factors, such as the design of the web site. It is particularly regrettable in this case, as the main design idea of the site is fine, but there are some glaring errors in the implementation. It would be simple enough to fix and could make…

You need to take the bare minimum ten seconds or so to go into some actual detail in order for a comment like that to be useful. This is why you also have a reply from the creator prompting you for further detail. If you're really busy, at least give some impression of your screen size. If you have more time, maybe link to a screenshot. Vague criticism alone is worthless though. Personally I'd say that the font weigh…

Thank you Henry. Much appreciated - check back in a few hours and hopefully it will be sorted.

Re: Show HN: Contacts storage the way it should be done.

#29

It sounds cool, but I'm not really sure what it does?

Hi Holger, OK, so Add is a replacement for your contacts syncing and storage (of Gmail/iCloud etc.) for people who care about their privacy and believe that paying for a product means you are the customer, not the user or worse, the product being sold. Does that make it clearer?

First of all I agree with gf - the site does a horrendous job in explaining what it is. Add screenshot, actual content. People aren't looking for "simple", "familiar", etc. We're looking for what problem does this solve me with my contacts.

And oh I've got a few. First is that I contact people in different ways - phone, email, gtalk. I want it all unified in their card (Google does a meh job with this with their "linking" feature, but still misses obvious doubles). Not only that but I want a unified history - not a call log, not a message log. I want to see when I last contacted the person, not how.

Secondly - reminders. People need to be contacted sometimes. I need to call my mom later today, email a future client in a few hours etc. Not only that but as a good son I want to call my mom every day, unless she already called me. This is easy to check and to implement and I have no idea how it not standard. There is an Israeli android app called "Assistive" which kinda helps with this but not really enough. It basically sets reminders for missed calls. This needs to be taken further.

Just these two features will practically revolutionize the way I communicate with people, but I can keep on going on other things I want. You've chosen to do contact syncing which is a nice feature my phone already has for free.

Re: Show HN: Contacts storage the way it should be done.

#30
post #22
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you are being sarcastic? I believe it is useful information for the owner of the web site. Whether you like it or not, people make decisions based on seemingly irrational factors, such as the design of the web site. It is particularly regrettable in this case, as the main design idea of the site is fine, but there are some glaring errors in the implementation. It would be simple enough to fix and could make…

You need to take the bare minimum ten seconds or so to go into some actual detail in order for a comment like that to be useful. This is why you also have a reply from the creator prompting you for further detail. If you're really busy, at least give some impression of your screen size. If you have more time, maybe link to a screenshot. Vague criticism alone is worthless though. Personally I'd say that the font weigh…

Fair enough. I just assumed it was obvious, which is probably a bit hasty.
Post reply on HN