Ask HN: Please review my webapp.
9 comments
Fair warning: Most of this is criticism (constructive, I hope). I'm American and not much of a baseball fan, so I'm certainly not your target audience, but I can give feedback on my impressions. I'm not trying to tear it up - I just want to be helpful. I'm a developer more than a designer, so take my design feedback with a grain of salt.
Initial impressions: I'm not wild about the color scheme. The green background in particular sort of messes up the contrast of the rest of the design. The "learn more" link is barely visible on that yellow background, which is probably going to cause conversion problems. Try something like this: http://colorschemedesigner.com/#2v51T2GtNw0w0
You're billing this as a social tool, but you're missing the biggest potential social leg-up - logging in with Facebook/Twitter. You get social connections and reach baked in with that; doing Yet Another Proprietary Login is going to hurt conversions and make mapping your own piece of the social graph harder than you need to.
Paddings are inconsistent - the "Predict/Join" button is indented more to the right than other elements relative to box edges. "Overall Standing" has more padding up top than similar elements. This leads to it feeling a bit sloppy.
I've got a horizontal scroll bar at 1920x1200, but can't figure out why. Minor annoyance. Sidebar boxes are different widths, which detracts from the page layout.
Inconsistent fonts - serif in some places, sans-serif in others - are distracting.
From a code perspective, the page is littered with inline styles - you'll find it a lot easier to manage moving forward if you do all your styling in a CSS file via class selectors. I highly, HIGHLY recommend Compass + Sass for this - it will streamline style management like you wouldn't believe. It'll also get you a 960 grid to work on, which can help address a lot of your alignment/padding issues.
I have no feel for the market for this sort of thing, but my hunch is that if you can really drive home the social aspect of it - friendly competition between friends - you might have a neat app on your hands. Add in some trophies or badges or ranks or something - you are solidly in "gaming mechanics" land here, capitalize on them to really make the product fun and addictive.
Initial impressions: I'm not wild about the color scheme. The green background in particular sort of messes up the contrast of the rest of the design. The "learn more" link is barely visible on that yellow background, which is probably going to cause conversion problems. Try something like this: http://colorschemedesigner.com/#2v51T2GtNw0w0
You're billing this as a social tool, but you're missing the biggest potential social leg-up - logging in with Facebook/Twitter. You get social connections and reach baked in with that; doing Yet Another Proprietary Login is going to hurt conversions and make mapping your own piece of the social graph harder than you need to.
Paddings are inconsistent - the "Predict/Join" button is indented more to the right than other elements relative to box edges. "Overall Standing" has more padding up top than similar elements. This leads to it feeling a bit sloppy.
I've got a horizontal scroll bar at 1920x1200, but can't figure out why. Minor annoyance. Sidebar boxes are different widths, which detracts from the page layout.
Inconsistent fonts - serif in some places, sans-serif in others - are distracting.
From a code perspective, the page is littered with inline styles - you'll find it a lot easier to manage moving forward if you do all your styling in a CSS file via class selectors. I highly, HIGHLY recommend Compass + Sass for this - it will streamline style management like you wouldn't believe. It'll also get you a 960 grid to work on, which can help address a lot of your alignment/padding issues.
I have no feel for the market for this sort of thing, but my hunch is that if you can really drive home the social aspect of it - friendly competition between friends - you might have a neat app on your hands. Add in some trophies or badges or ranks or something - you are solidly in "gaming mechanics" land here, capitalize on them to really make the product fun and addictive.
Thanks for detail insight. Will keep me busy during the holidays.
Integration with Facebook is definitely in pipeline.
Was thinking of rewarding the winners but wasn't sure if it would be legal. Had asked HN few days back and currently it is on hold. The discussion is at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2017757
The scrollbar you get is because the footer's width. It's set to 110%. Probably a typo by the creator of the stylesheet.
Could use a designers touch. Lots of little things, mostly.
Does anyone else see Facebook api stuff as a blight on pages? As soon as I see that stale light blue...
Does anyone else see Facebook api stuff as a blight on pages? As soon as I see that stale light blue...
Blight is a strong word, but it definitely doesn't fit. The background is a different colour, it only has a border at the top (and it's differently coloured compared to the other borders), and it's a sharpened rectangle when all its neighbours have rounded corners. It does stand out a touch.
Thanks. Agreed on the design that it needs improvement. Could you please elaborate little more. Might be able to fix few.
Will replace the Facebook box with a button.
Color and layout were the biggest things. Pick some colors that work well together (Darks, lights, cool, warm, etc)
This looks interesting. Awesome name.
First things first: when you get so much "feedback" on design and almost nothing on the actual function of the app, your alarm bells should start ringing. You are either asking the wrong people for feedback (highly likely considering most people here don't know cricket) or you are not really offering anything interesting.
Get rid of the name fields on the registration form. Add Twitter and Facebook logins.
Have ONE call to action on the homepage. Tell me what this is and ask me one thing to click. Anything more is overload and distraction.
So after I logged in, I went to the HN test match page. I clicked on Cast/Change Predictions, selected my predictions and clicked on close. None of those got saved. When I clicked on Cast/Change Predictions again, they were all reset.
"Contest" doesn't sound like the right word. Think of something more relevant to cricket.
On your "Start a Contest" page, why don't you add Flags of countries which one can drag and drop to make a match. Over time, you could add a list of upcoming international, national and domestic league matches.
Have a look at http://smarkets.com and see what they are doing right. Use the site to see how it works. I used it during the football world cup and it was effortless. I had never used a betting site before.
This is a huge market, so you've done well to start. But try and talk more to hardcore cricket fans rather than us programming nerds.
First things first: when you get so much "feedback" on design and almost nothing on the actual function of the app, your alarm bells should start ringing. You are either asking the wrong people for feedback (highly likely considering most people here don't know cricket) or you are not really offering anything interesting.
Get rid of the name fields on the registration form. Add Twitter and Facebook logins.
Have ONE call to action on the homepage. Tell me what this is and ask me one thing to click. Anything more is overload and distraction.
So after I logged in, I went to the HN test match page. I clicked on Cast/Change Predictions, selected my predictions and clicked on close. None of those got saved. When I clicked on Cast/Change Predictions again, they were all reset.
"Contest" doesn't sound like the right word. Think of something more relevant to cricket.
On your "Start a Contest" page, why don't you add Flags of countries which one can drag and drop to make a match. Over time, you could add a list of upcoming international, national and domestic league matches.
Have a look at http://smarkets.com and see what they are doing right. Use the site to see how it works. I used it during the football world cup and it was effortless. I had never used a betting site before.
This is a huge market, so you've done well to start. But try and talk more to hardcore cricket fans rather than us programming nerds.
Thanks for the feedback.
You don't have to register to join the contest. The idea was to show a preview of the contest before joining, hence those extra clicks.
On your "Start a Contest" page, why don't you add Flags of countries which one can drag and drop to make a match. I think you meant "Start a Private Contest". This feature will help you create only instance of the current contest for your private network. You cannot add or delete matches.
On your "Start a Contest" page, why don't you add Flags of countries which one can drag and drop to make a match. I think you meant "Start a Private Contest". This feature will help you create only instance of the current contest for your private network. You cannot add or delete matches.
I didn't mind registering. In fact, I wanted to check out your registration process.
Sorry I misunderstood the contest thing.
Maybe you should add a slideshow or video demo to the site.
Sorry I misunderstood the contest thing.
Maybe you should add a slideshow or video demo to the site.
Sorry it was a mistake on my part. I saw that I was missing the word private before the contest. Will address it.
I have a reputation for being a bit harsh about design critiques, so before I say anything:
* Great work on taking the time to build something cool.
* Awesome work at keeping the functionality simple, intuitive and easy to use. Most people fail at pulling that off.
* Much props for asking for feedback.
...as for the design...
* Some boxes have sharp corners, some have round. Pick just one for a uniform look. You can put stuff like the Facebook fan widget inside a section with rounded corners.
* Doesn't fit in a width of 1024px.
* That green background is hideous and is causing me much gnashing of teeth.
* The logo doesn't seem to fit the rest of the page, in style or in size.
* What is that giant empty blue bar between the header and body of the front page supposed to be doing?
* Some of the small rounded boxes with text in them ("World Cup 2011 Contest coming soon") are center-aligned, but off-center.
* Heading on the left nav bar on the match page could use more uniform spacing so that the match name (sort of redundant) doesn't look like its trying to break free from its rounded div prison to re-join its slightly larger twin to the right.
Other than that, looks great.
* Great work on taking the time to build something cool.
* Awesome work at keeping the functionality simple, intuitive and easy to use. Most people fail at pulling that off.
* Much props for asking for feedback.
...as for the design...
* Some boxes have sharp corners, some have round. Pick just one for a uniform look. You can put stuff like the Facebook fan widget inside a section with rounded corners.
* Doesn't fit in a width of 1024px.
* That green background is hideous and is causing me much gnashing of teeth.
* The logo doesn't seem to fit the rest of the page, in style or in size.
* What is that giant empty blue bar between the header and body of the front page supposed to be doing?
* Some of the small rounded boxes with text in them ("World Cup 2011 Contest coming soon") are center-aligned, but off-center.
* Heading on the left nav bar on the match page could use more uniform spacing so that the match name (sort of redundant) doesn't look like its trying to break free from its rounded div prison to re-join its slightly larger twin to the right.
Other than that, looks great.
Thanks the encouraging feedback. Will work on fixing the UI.
"For reviewing this app, consider it similar to Baseball."
I suspect that, in particular when it comes to understanding scores, that fans of either game would be quite confused about the other.
Coincidentally this is my second comment in a row on HN that quotes an old Aaron Sorkin show (this time 'Sports Night', a two-series show from a decade ago that remains one of my all-time favourites), so apologies in advance:
And FYI, both baseball and cricket are great games, but from my experience... if you like cricket, go learn about baseball and watch a few games, it's fantastic. If, however, you're a baseball fan, you'll probably find cricket far too slow and subtle to keep your interest for long, though I'm sure there are people who've learned to love it.
I suspect that, in particular when it comes to understanding scores, that fans of either game would be quite confused about the other.
Coincidentally this is my second comment in a row on HN that quotes an old Aaron Sorkin show (this time 'Sports Night', a two-series show from a decade ago that remains one of my all-time favourites), so apologies in advance:
(talking about a player who took all ten wickets in an inning)
JEREMY It says if you compared it to baseball, it'd be like pitching three perfect games on three consecutive days.
CASEY Really?
JEREMY Not exactly.
CASEY Why not exactly?
JEREMY It says the final four batters scored 16 runs.
CASEY Doesn't sound good.
JEREMY It certainly doesn't sound perfect.
CASEY Right.
JEREMY In baseball, if the final four batters scored 16 runs, it's be hard to consider that perfect.
CASEY Right. Jeremy, I don't know how comfortable I am reporting a story I don't understand.
And FYI, both baseball and cricket are great games, but from my experience... if you like cricket, go learn about baseball and watch a few games, it's fantastic. If, however, you're a baseball fan, you'll probably find cricket far too slow and subtle to keep your interest for long, though I'm sure there are people who've learned to love it.
Cricket has also evolved. Now they have 20-20 which is fast and less time consuming. Also, test matches (5 day match) has more results than in the past.
Personally I'm not a fan of Twenty20, having been a cricket fan since I was young I grew up watching test matches, so it just feels like an Americanisation of a more traditional sport.
Slightly ironic given I'm actually a bigger fan of baseball than cricket now, but my order of preference would go baseball > test match > twenty20.
Side-question: What country are you from, i.e. where does your interest in cricket come from?
Slightly ironic given I'm actually a bigger fan of baseball than cricket now, but my order of preference would go baseball > test match > twenty20.
Side-question: What country are you from, i.e. where does your interest in cricket come from?
I am from India but currently in Portland, US. In the past I used to skip office to watch cricket match. Now I mostly follow it through cricinfo.
Click-able link: http://doosracricket.com/
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http://doosracricket.com/
For reviewing this app, consider it similar to Baseball. More details at: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket