Ask HN : Review My Web App

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=368173

by nanijoe • 18 years ago

14 15 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

www.blabify.com --- This is a live blogging application, and I will be the first to admit it is a bit rough around the edges in some places, but I could not think of a better place to find some brutal honesty to help improve the app.

truebosko2• 18 years ago

Well the first thing is when I go to your site, it looks more like a blog then a application I can download. I would re-structure the page so it makes it more clear.

When I click "Create Blog" it takes me to sign in .. but does not ask me if I haven't registered yet, confusing

Haven't tried out the app yet, but hopefully those two suggestions help for getting people to signup :)

jonknee• 18 years ago

An application you can download? Maybe I missed something, but it looks like a CMS for live content, not a desktop app.

truebosko2• 18 years ago

Er, That's a typo on my part. I simply meant "an application I can use online" .. :)

Bah can't edit my previous post, owell!

RossM• 18 years ago

I agree. I did my "2-second-glance" technique - something I use to see if I can gather what a site is about by looking at it for 2 seconds.

My first thought was that it was a personal blog - might be something you want to work on. Perhaps take jQuery/other's examples and state what the application is, in the center of the page?

rmaccloy• 18 years ago

Ditto on the 'Create Blog' / 'Sign in' confusion.

Actually, on the whole you have way too much administrative debris in there. I actually bothered to sign up, and it took 3 or 4 steps before I could actually do anything useful. Most people are not going to deal with that.

Here's my advice:

1. Let people create an event and start writing without signing up. If you must, make them give you an email before publishing it to the public, but let me drop in and demo it before I commit.

2. Get rid of the separate create event/invite/add steps and consolidate them into one app that lets you start blogging before setting a title, start date, tags, etc. Content is king-- the rest is just icing. Also, for the love of god, don't make any of those fields required, and don't have a text box I can only fill using a calendar picker.

3. De-emphasize the invite page drastically. The way it jumps up after blog creation makes me feel like you want to harvest my address book to spam people or something. Put it in the sidebar and make it AJAX, or whatever. Also, I had to look for a bit to find the link to skip past it and start editing.

4. When you post something, it shows up at the bottom of the page. The entire first screen is just title + metadata. This is dumb. Make the metadata smaller, at the top if you must, and put the commentary front and center. Also, consider inline editing.

5. Your graphics/JS on the edit page could use some polish -- seemed a little glitchy in Safari. Not a big deal.

6. This might seem like nitpicking, but have somebody do some copy editing for you. Aside from some grammatical/spelling/spacing errors, the front text seems pretty awkwardly written to me. Good copy is important. In your case, why not get rid of it entirely and just put an event stream or blog posting form in there?

m_eiman• 18 years ago

Minor thing: use something like feedback@blabify.com instead of blabify@gmail.com under "Have something to day?".

unohoo• 18 years ago

The 'create account' and 'create live blog' -- its confusing as to whats the difference between the two. Do I need to create an account or can I create a new liveblog without creating an account.

additionally, the site doesnt work well with chrome - few broken elements.

halo• 18 years ago

The actual 'liveblog' content is too low on the page - in fact, on my 1280x800 resolution, it's not even visible until I scroll down. When I visit a site, I want the main content to be the first thing I see and anything else should be secondary.

Neat idea though. I thought of a similar idea a few months back but, as ever, never got around to making it. I do wonder if having a desktop application is actually necessary though.

mikeyur• 18 years ago

Besides the sign up/sign in confusion, I would recommend checking out why your sign up emails go to spam. I signed up and it went straight into my Gmail spam folder - I haven't had this happen in quite awhile, so it may be the way you are sending it vs. other web apps since those usually land in my inbox.

Your button styles are really messed up when you create a post on a live blog - when you hover over a button the style changes, also the Start/Stop buttons weren't exactly clear (maybe they should be at the top and colored, green/red).

I also didn't get why there was a sports category thing right in the middle of the live blog creation, with only 2 sports listed. I think you should just get a bunch of categories together and categorize each live blog, ie. Internet/Technology, Sports, Entertainment, etc.

Also, embed? I was looking around and have yet to see a way to embed these live blogs onto my site. If I'm hosting a live blog, I'd like it to be able to post it onto my own blog within a post or on a page.

The design could also use a refresh, I agree with some of the other commenters when they say it looks like a blog when you first visit the site.

ashleyw• 18 years ago

1. Too much meta-data at the top of the live blogs.

2. The listing is kind of boring, and the 4 digit time is confusing at first, I would prefer "8:32pm".

3. blabify@gmail.com? Use your own domain, looks better.

4. "Create Live Blog" wants me to login? If a user isn't logged in, send that link to the register page, and dump the "Create Account" link altogether.

5. Personally, I hate the design, its just not inviting for me. And the fact its not customizable means I'm far less likely to invite people to read my live blog.

6. I cannot delete live blogs?

7. The "My Account" / user page looks highly unfinished.

8. Why do I need to see the "What is Blabify?" panel everywhere, when I have already signed up and logged in?

OK I'll refrain from re-factoring the above, they are raw thoughts as I was using your site! ;)

Like the idea and concept a lot, but I think you have a lot of work to do to make it more user friendly and appealing. Good luck! ;)

guruz• 18 years ago

to 2.: Well, not everyone lives in 2-digit-time-countries ;)

josefresco• 18 years ago

Needs a demo, or a video demo.

SingAlong• 18 years ago

It's a nice idea. The design is cool. But you could change the design for the blog pages. Coz these blog pages shouldn't be focusing more on the site and should focus on the content posted by the users.

On the blog pages, Just move the event details to the right above the what is blabify thing. So then you would get the space to move the user content to the top. Also take the way Blogger presents blogs as an example for blog pages. On the blog pages just remove the big logo and the big nav links and create a small navigation bar with those links (like the one you see on Ning networks or Blogger blogs). This could help user interface nicely.

Live blogging. This can be done thru twitter, blogger, or any other service or app. Try and be a bit different. When people have those guys out there, why do you think they will consider you? Directing my thought this way automatically gives me an idea. You could create a feature for users to auto-post to their respective services once they post on your service. This would also save time to those who have use other services. (And might be a killer feature).

"0844 : tes2"

what's that 0844?

Nice idea. Good luck!

P.S: I see Kiva ads already(?)

cabalamat• 18 years ago

I tried signing up for the service, the website said it would send me an email, and I never got it.

nanijoe• 18 years ago

Thanks for all the input..thanks especially to those who went thru the 'pain' of signing up and creating a liveblog. The feedback has been very helpful. I'll go back to the drawing board and will come up with something better, thanks to all of you.

@SingAlong , the kiva ads are for "charity"

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