Ask HN: Review my new single service website
51 comments
You should make the cursor snap to the first text box upon loading of the page
Can you make it not autocomplete text in the text field? Eg, type UK and it fills in UKraine ... nicer if it only auto completes when I click a result / select with arrows and press enter/tab.
Make the error page (select 1 country and click submit) much nicer, ideally inline javascript.
I'd make the results auto generate above the text fields, this way I can easily enter another two countries to calculate simply by pressing tab a few times.
It's also too hard to return back to the home page (assuming you don't do the above suggestion) -- how about a little image at the end of the sentence which when clicked takes you back to the homepage?
thats all I can think of right now - cool app!
Can you make it not autocomplete text in the text field? Eg, type UK and it fills in UKraine ... nicer if it only auto completes when I click a result / select with arrows and press enter/tab.
Make the error page (select 1 country and click submit) much nicer, ideally inline javascript.
I'd make the results auto generate above the text fields, this way I can easily enter another two countries to calculate simply by pressing tab a few times.
It's also too hard to return back to the home page (assuming you don't do the above suggestion) -- how about a little image at the end of the sentence which when clicked takes you back to the homepage?
thats all I can think of right now - cool app!
Personally, I hate it when my cursor snaps to the first open text box. Maybe I'm the only one annoyed by it, but I'd suggest against it.
Great discussion. Will try some A/B testing here and test bounce rates.
One important point is missing: If I want to phone to Germany, I have to omit the first zero of the area code. Phoning to Italy I mustn’t omit it.
Make the result inline javascript. One page load less.
Additionally, wouldn’t it make sense to add some "dial this number now with Skype" or some related service?
Good service.
Make the result inline javascript. One page load less.
Additionally, wouldn’t it make sense to add some "dial this number now with Skype" or some related service?
Good service.
Great feedback.
You could also think about using geolocation to pre-populate the first box. They have a free database and API that would work for this application: http://www.maxmind.com/app/support
And use cookies so that the value in the first box is the same as it was last time.
While you're at it, why not expand the site so it contains more information about countries, e.g. include internet country codes. Include currencies for the from and to countries and currency conversions.
While you're at it, why not expand the site so it contains more information about countries, e.g. include internet country codes. Include currencies for the from and to countries and currency conversions.
Like the idea of keeping the previous values, though I'll try to see if I can do this without cookies.
In regards to the second idea, I'm trying to keep the site as simple as possible, and adding anything else will only hurt (imho).
In regards to the second idea, I'm trying to keep the site as simple as possible, and adding anything else will only hurt (imho).
I agree. Of course you can add a link to another single service site of you (or Wikipedia etc), that include that information.
Clickable link: http://www.simplecountrycodes.com/
On this Mac laptop, screen at full brightness in daylight, I can hardly see the grey text.
Although it says 'country' I can see a lot of people typing in cities. Any way to resolve those as well?
Also: trim whitespace. I typed in UK, hit space to remove Ukraine as a match, and it said no matches for "UK ".
Although it says 'country' I can see a lot of people typing in cities. Any way to resolve those as well?
Also: trim whitespace. I typed in UK, hit space to remove Ukraine as a match, and it said no matches for "UK ".
Good point. Will think about this one.
Perhaps include current time in the from-country and to-country? Perhaps, also let the user set when they plan to call, e.g., 5pm to-country time, and it gives the from-country time...and vice versa.
I really like the idea of showing the country times. I've been looking into ways to do this, but it isn't trivial. I will definitely keep keep thinking about this. I personally would find it really useful.
Is it getting-the-data which isn't trivial? You can write a crawler for wikipedia. Each country has their time zones in their entry (nicely formatted which makes it easy for parser to find), with daylight saving information too. Many countries, are, of course spanned across a few time zones, but that shouldn't matter.
The root page for your crawler could be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population, for instance.
The root page for your crawler could be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population, for instance.
One thing I'm finding that I didn't plan for is that I'm getting a lot of visitors from outside the US. Any advice on internationalizing the site?
Just put up a some simple text: "If you'd like to help translate this site into your language, please feel free to drop me a line at [email]. Thank you!"
Your (barely visible) footer "We hope all of the data here is accurate, but if you find that it is not please send comments/suggestions/bugs to @countrycodes."
what's the email ID again?
I'm sure you would've already seen it, but incase if not, try getting in as many features (OR NOT) from http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/dialing.html
It already supports abbreviations like USA and UK, but not UAE. Also auto-completion should come in only if I press the arrow or down keys. If I enter UK, it should not automatically assume UKraine.
what's the email ID again?
I'm sure you would've already seen it, but incase if not, try getting in as many features (OR NOT) from http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/dialing.html
It already supports abbreviations like USA and UK, but not UAE. Also auto-completion should come in only if I press the arrow or down keys. If I enter UK, it should not automatically assume UKraine.
Another comment.
Looking at Great Britain -> Australia, you say ::
... 00 + 61 + area code + phone number
There are only 7 such area codes. These correspond to an Australian State. Probably it would be worth listing some _example_ phone numbers in each State, with a label to each State. Often I have a local person give the phone number in an email, presuming I'm in the same State.
----
e.g
Victoria :: 00 + 61 + 3 + 9651 8911 (Vic Parliament)
New South Wales :: 00 + 61 + 2 + 9230 2111 (NSW parliament)
Looking at Great Britain -> Australia, you say ::
... 00 + 61 + area code + phone number
There are only 7 such area codes. These correspond to an Australian State. Probably it would be worth listing some _example_ phone numbers in each State, with a label to each State. Often I have a local person give the phone number in an email, presuming I'm in the same State.
----
e.g
Victoria :: 00 + 61 + 3 + 9651 8911 (Vic Parliament)
New South Wales :: 00 + 61 + 2 + 9230 2111 (NSW parliament)
Trying my best to stay away from all that manutia for now, at least until I can justify the amount of work necessary to do that. But agreed, could be really useuful.
Couldn't you just call directory assistance? Usually free the first few usages and most people aren't calling different countries enough that they won't remember the codes for the most recently called ones.
Is it possible to try and default to the country the person is actually in? That is, look at their IP address?
Very nice. How about if the result appeared inline below the "Lookup" button instead of on a new page?
Are single service websites the same as single serving websites?
Never differentiated the two myself
Simple enough!
The idea is to offer a completely painless way to find the country codes you need when dialing internationally.
What I'm looking for is ideas to make the process potentially simpler, easier to use, or more useful. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!