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YC Facelift: Pebble

kyrobeshay.com

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Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#31

Post by superchink »

astrodust wrote: post #15
ericabiz wrote: post #8

A couple things about this one that didn't click with me: 1) You mention "iPhone" at the top. Sorry, I've already clicked "Back"--I'm an Android user. Except Pebble is the first thing I've ever funded via Kickstarter, and I'm ridiculously excited about it, so I'm clearly in their target market. 2) I don't get the "Beam your music, Scotty." part--it's not the biggest draw for me (and I'm not a Star Wars/Trek person, d…

It's interesting you say "I'm an Android user" instead of "I have an Android phone".

I'm pretty sure they are practically equivalent phrases. Having the phone would imply being a user of the phone, and vice versa.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#32

Post by superchink »

SomeComments wrote: post #23
SomeComments wrote: post #22

Gee, it sure would have been nice to see that the watch communicates with all these marvelous devices via bluetooth. I mean really. Why are we left to assume that it's a bluetooth watch? Why can't they just come out and say it? Are they shy or something? Do they themselves secretly believe that by stating that it is a bluetooth device that they some how lower the watch? Why do they insult their ostensibly budding (zo…

Seriously, the first place I could find where they explicitly state that the watch communicates via bluetooth was here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.getinpulse

Check out the kickstarter page for the product: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper... . It's very clear about Bluetooth being the method of communication.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#33

Post by dkrich »

justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

Or you could realize that you're talking about a hobby that has likely achieved his objective of getting some people to take notice of his work. What he's done is better than nothing, which is the default. Is it the best use of his time? Maybe, maybe not. But consider the alternative- he could have spent three weeks wondering what the best way to redesign a page would be and produced nothing. I tend to think this was better.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#34

Post by bmelton »

wdewind wrote: post #24
kyro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. You're not the first to suggest the need to include my reasons for design decisions I've made with these. I'll work on that for the next one.

It's not only that you need to explain your reasoning...it's also that you operate in a vacuum. The constraints of actual designers are rarely "you get a shittily designed page, do WHATEVER you want with it." (Not saying the current YC pages are shittily designed, in fact while some of them are not aesthetically pleasing they all look reasonably well thought out). I think all OP is saying is "beware, you're only gett…

I was about to post something similar, but saw this, and it's close enough to what I was going to say, so I'll piggyback.

First, let me start by saying that I think that in every case, Kyro's redesign has been superior to the original page in the broad sense.

Most of what I'm seeing as complaints have to do more with copy and content than the design, which for a designer should be a good thing, right? Maybe.

In my opinion, content and design are interlinked so heavily that it's impossible to separate the two. Good design accentuates the copy, and good copy accentuates the design. The design should visually reinforce the message at every step.

While I think these redesigns are great exercises, and are sure to benefit Kyro more than not, I think what they're missing is the key to good design, which is interacting with the product team, learning the message, figuring out how to surface hints of that message at every turn, but without beating users over the head with it.

The only other complaint is that yeah, these designs look a little stock. There's nothing to stop me from coopting this design as a WP theme and selling it to 100 other companies looking for a good product page. Nothing wrong with that, but a great design is unique, and can only work for the product it's for.

http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/ is a good example. There's almost nothing else that page could exist for. Nobody can steal that design because it's way too close to the product.

Anyway, I don't mean to sound like I'm coming down on anybody -- I think these designs are good, but since Kyro specifically mentioned that he's trying to improve, thought I'd offer some of what I consider to be important in design that isn't just aesthetic.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#36

Post by grey-area »

wdewind wrote: post #24
kyro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. You're not the first to suggest the need to include my reasons for design decisions I've made with these. I'll work on that for the next one.

It's not only that you need to explain your reasoning...it's also that you operate in a vacuum. The constraints of actual designers are rarely "you get a shittily designed page, do WHATEVER you want with it." (Not saying the current YC pages are shittily designed, in fact while some of them are not aesthetically pleasing they all look reasonably well thought out). I think all OP is saying is "beware, you're only gett…

I really don't think you can fairly characterise this as pure aesthetics - "an eye, but what an eye!". Clearly producing a new home page without knowing a company and with a superficial understanding of their products and requirements is quite a shallow exercise which does not encapsulate the totality of design practice. I'm sure the poster is well aware of that, but that doesn't mean it does not involve thinking about the products and requirements, and only focussing on aesthetics.

This is not design in the holistic sense, but that does not mean it is not a useful short exercise and potentially a useful collection of user feedback for non-designer founders who have neither the time, the money, nor the inclination to hire a designer - perhaps seeing a redesign will prompt them to think further on the designs they have, which probably grew organically with the sites.

In short it is only dangerous if you mistake this sort of exercise for a complete design process. No designers would, and no clients I'd want to work for would either. I think it's an interesting and useful thought experiment, though obviously limited in scope, and the designs so far have had some useful hints for the site concerned - I particularly liked the wave one, which humanised the product and neatly summarised it in one image.

On the Internet it is easy to criticise or run things down. This sort of exercise brings back constructive criticism which is so hard to do well - the sort of thing that starts conversations, not arguments. If you see it as only the start of a process (one of many possible starting points) perhaps it will come to seem less dangerous and more fruitful.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#37

Post by aaronblohowiak »

pbreit wrote: post #30
justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

Calling this effort "really dangerous" is a tad hysterical. The current Pebble page is OK, not great. This redesign is an improvement. While it would be nice to hear more about the thought process, etc, t's not always necessary to detail out what can be inferred from observation.

tip: the word "hysterical" is misogynist, having its origin in proto-psychology blaming being overly emotional on disturbance of the womb. i assume you didn't know this when you used it. now you know! 'melodramatic' would work just as well.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#38

Post by aaronblohowiak »

replicatorblog wrote: post #26
justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

This is a popular sentiment among designers, but it is equally dangerous. The flash, sizzle, and aesthetics are a HUGE part of design. People make judgements in fractions of seconds, well before they have a chance to experience interactions or any of the deeper level design issues. I've seen three of these redo's on HackerNews and each time the redesign is aesthetically much nicer. Sure there are some things that cou…

managing "flow" post-hoc visual design is a ux nightmare.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#39

Post by bmelton »

jenius wrote: post #21
justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

Justifying design decisions is often extremely difficult. Although there is a science buried deep behind design decisions, unlike programming, design decisions are often very subjective and opinion-based in a debate, unless you have done A/B tests extensively before said debate. Most of the time, a designer will do something because 'it looks better' or 'it feels right', and redesign something because 'it looks bad'.…

While I agree with the sentiment of your message, I think that the designer loses something when people give him props for a good looking page that doesn't work. "Not working" is a relative term of course, but assumptions should always be based on something, and decisions shouldn't be arbitrary.

I think it would be worth it to the designer to justify the decisions to himself, and let us try to tear them down, as that will further his learning. I'm assuming that by doing these exercises, he's trying to grow, and that puts him in an entirely different situation than with Bowman.

The flip side of that coin is that no design is proven until it's A/B tested. You can have awards for the site's beauty, but if a significantly uglier design increases sales, then you've lost the plot. Keats writes really great poetry. The writing is beautiful. I would no sooner put a Keats poem as my website copy than I would an Ansel Adams photograph as my website's visual design.

This is why website design is harder than people think. This is what separates the good from the great.

The designer is of course under no obligation to us to do this, but it may help himself. Even if he doesn't bother to justify things out loud, sometimes the act of thinking through justification in your head is enough to solidify (or compel change to) a design decision.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#40

Post by smanek »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #37
pbreit wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling this effort "really dangerous" is a tad hysterical. The current Pebble page is OK, not great. This redesign is an improvement. While it would be nice to hear more about the thought process, etc, t's not always necessary to detail out what can be inferred from observation.

tip: the word "hysterical" is misogynist, having its origin in proto-psychology blaming being overly emotional on disturbance of the womb. i assume you didn't know this when you used it. now you know! 'melodramatic' would work just as well.

tip: the original meaning of a word doesn't necessarily have any relation to it's current meaning. I assume you didn't know about the etymological fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy) when you used it. Now you know!

Seriously, stop being overly PC. You're just being annoying.

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