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Show HN: Sleepio - how I cured my insomnia, turned into software.

sleepio.com

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Re: Show HN: Sleepio - how I cured my insomnia, turned into software.

#51
I’m impressed that the Prof pronounces your first name, if it’s one of the names he knows – it makes his talk feel a lot more personal. And he even knows my name, “Rory”, which is fairly uncommon. How many names did you record? How did you choose those names?

On the home page, the “How it works” three-page widget scrolls too slowly when I click one of the three page circles. That speed is fine for the automatic page-turning every 8 seconds, but if I click a circle, I want to see that page right away – the animation should be about 5 times faster. I was slightly annoyed by the slowness when I tried to go back to the first page, which you don’t want.

It also might help to stop that widget from scrolling until the user has scrolled far down enough that you think they have started reading it, so they can read the first step first, and aren’t forced to click on the first-page circle to go there themselves. Perhaps you don’t care which page the user reads first, but the chronological ordering of the pages contradicts that idea.

When I read https://www.sleepio.com/sciencebehindsleepio, I was impressed that you said you had done experimental trials, and I couldn’t see any sign of obvious bias in the experimental design, but I was still a bit skeptical and worried that the experiments were biased. I just realized that an addition that would have convinced me a lot more strongly would have been a LaTeX-formatted scientific paper about the experiment, typeset in Computer Modern. The paper would not promote Sleepio, but just describe the experimental method and results. I don’t know if LaTeX supports exporting to a web page with the Computer Modern font embedded – if not, you’d have to link to a PDF, which you’d have to work hard to convince me to open.

Re: Show HN: Sleepio - how I cured my insomnia, turned into software.

#52

I’m impressed that the Prof pronounces your first name, if it’s one of the names he knows – it makes his talk feel a lot more personal. And he even knows my name, “Rory”, which is fairly uncommon. How many names did you record? How did you choose those names? On the home page, the “How it works” three-page widget scrolls too slowly when I click one of the three page circles. That speed is fine for the automatic page-…

Thanks for taking the time to look at it and give such thorough feedback.

The name thing is the one thing that always seems to delight people; it's indicative of the care/attention we pay (hopefully) to the user throughout the programme. To arrive at names we started with census records of top baby names going back 50 years, and now periodically add to them with names people enter that we don't have. It degrades gracefully though if we don't know your name!

Noted re: speed of transition. We're adding paddles today too. We decided to keep all animations in synch, but that's a good call on waiting til viewed. We'll look at it.

If we can get permission from the journal we supplying the original paper would be a great idea, although a more accessible format might be better. You can read abstract on pubmed here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22654196

Re: Show HN: Sleepio - how I cured my insomnia, turned into software.

#54
post #53

This site is the perfect example of why HTML 5 won't replace flash anytime soon. Because, this site pushes the perks of using Flash to its fullest. Beautiful illustration, excellent animations and simply awesome...Keep it up guys.

Thanks neya! Very kind. Although...we have an HTML5 version running concurrently; try it on iPad...

Re: Show HN: Sleepio - how I cured my insomnia, turned into software.

#55
post #54
post #53

This site is the perfect example of why HTML 5 won't replace flash anytime soon. Because, this site pushes the perks of using Flash to its fullest. Beautiful illustration, excellent animations and simply awesome...Keep it up guys.

Thanks neya! Very kind. Although...we have an HTML5 version running concurrently; try it on iPad...

Why do you use the Flash version on desktop instead of the HTML5 version?

Re: Show HN: Sleepio - how I cured my insomnia, turned into software.

#56
post #47
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that you provide as little friction as possible to getting people to sign up. For example, with your current button I was reluctant to press it because I would assume there would be a big form on the other side. However, I'm more likely to sign up for more info if it's only an email required.

You've inadvertantly highlighted a UX failing of ours - that's not actually a sign up form! We ask for your first name so you can meet The Prof; another thing we're wrestling with, how to introduce that (non-standard) experience in a clear way...

"All we need is your name to show you a preview", or "You won't need to enter anything else unless you purchase". Emphasise that the name is all you need, I think that would solve the issue.

Re: Show HN: Sleepio - how I cured my insomnia, turned into software.

#57
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks neya! Very kind. Although...we have an HTML5 version running concurrently; try it on iPad...

Why do you use the Flash version on desktop instead of the HTML5 version?

We built the main sessions in Flash first because it was the quickest way to discover what it was that we were building! So the Flash version has been around longest and is the most stable (and currently the slickest). Once we were confident of the functional requirements we built the HTML5 version, but that's still in beta so we display the Flash version by default if you have it installed/enabled. Quite a few technical challenges we had to overcome to chain videos seamlessly in HTML5 on iPad...we'll definitely be writing about it once the launch dust has settled...

Re: Show HN: Sleepio - how I cured my insomnia, turned into software.

#58

Why wouldn't you use sleep.io as the default?

Somebody was in the news the other day because their clever country-code TLD was taken away by the registry. All of the country code TLDs have weird restrictions with which you can easily fail to comply. Recourse for smaller registries can be harder to obtain.

In this case I'm not sure why they went with 'sleepio' if they weren't going to use '.io' other than perhaps it's trendy right now, but I think they probably made the right move getting the .com.

Re: Show HN: Sleepio - how I cured my insomnia, turned into software.

#59
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've inadvertantly highlighted a UX failing of ours - that's not actually a sign up form! We ask for your first name so you can meet The Prof; another thing we're wrestling with, how to introduce that (non-standard) experience in a clear way...

"All we need is your name to show you a preview", or "You won't need to enter anything else unless you purchase". Emphasise that the name is all you need, I think that would solve the issue.

Thanks, but I actually think we need to be even clearer. It should be obvious what to do without reading anything. And if high-functioning HN users are making that error, your average Boots customer almost certainly is.

Unfortunately there isn't an obvious affordance for this sort of interaction (that I've yet come across) - it looks like an email signup, when in fact it's more like 'play a game'...an interesting challenge...

Re: Show HN: Sleepio - how I cured my insomnia, turned into software.

#60
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"All we need is your name to show you a preview", or "You won't need to enter anything else unless you purchase". Emphasise that the name is all you need, I think that would solve the issue.

Thanks, but I actually think we need to be even clearer. It should be obvious what to do without reading anything. And if high-functioning HN users are making that error, your average Boots customer almost certainly is. Unfortunately there isn't an obvious affordance for this sort of interaction (that I've yet come across) - it looks like an email signup, when in fact it's more like 'play a game'...an interesting cha…

I'm just thinking out loud here. One approach is to replace the green Try It Now button with an image of the Prof, under which you say "Hi. I'm the Prof. What's your name?", following by text field and green button. Then experiment with what the green button says.

It would be interesting to see if a vague 'what's your name' approach, rather than a specific direction with a stated outcome, wins in a split-test.

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