Solve 50 problems in 50 days

http://50problems50days.com/

by bhaveshdhupar • 14 years ago

107 35 14 years ago

50problems50days.com

earwolf• 14 years ago

crashes chrome

alx• 14 years ago

interesting map dataviz

NanoWar• 14 years ago

Wow, that looks gorgeous!

welcomebrand• 14 years ago

I love this site, it's pretty slow under load but some of the solutions are great in their simplicity.

yitchelle• 14 years ago

This is an interesting take. Applying the simple ideals of Kaizen[1] to our daily lives.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen

dansingerman• 14 years ago

I know that this is a bit snarky, but I can't help feeling, "Solve 50 problems in 50 days with design" is not a million miles away from "Solve 50 problems in 50 days with great hair"

Tarks• 14 years ago

This is awesome, sure most of the solutions have extra hurdles to overcome but that's not the point, it reminds me to keep my eyes open and remember things that I accept as unchanging might not be as rigid as I assume.

Very inspiring.

sparknlaunch• 14 years ago

Don't totally get it but good luck. Site looks good.

xlance• 14 years ago

Overengineering 50 solutions in 50 days.

robfitz2• 14 years ago

Folks are apparently down on this. Why in the world? It's awesome!

How cool to spend 50 days digging into people's problems, travelling, and putting it all out there. I'd bet anything that his 50 days of travel have led to more advancement, opportunity and insight than almost any other use of 50 days.

Be happy and supportive for someone who is breaking convention and being prolific!

cheatercheater3• 14 years ago

A puppet account on HN? Can't be, can it?

Petersmart3• 14 years ago

A puppet account created 1933 days ago...

masterzora• 14 years ago

Not everybody with whom you disagree is a puppet.

moconnor• 14 years ago

I liked some of the problems, but really I'm much more interested in the guy's experience. There doesn't seem to be a story, a real narrative I can follow here :-(

Petersmart3• 14 years ago

If you ever want to find out more (and some of the crazy things that happened), just drop me a line. Always happy to chat

nadam• 14 years ago

"I'm on an adventure - to explore the limits of design's ability to solve social problems, big and small."

Cool. On the other hand I am on an adventure to explore the limits of my brain's ability to solve problems, mostly small. Even solving one medium-sized problem very well would set me financially for my whole life. I am working on this not for 50 days but my whole life... :)

raheemm2• 14 years ago

From his site: Design is at it's best when its simple - when people understand it intuitively. Design that tells great stories cuts through the clutter and finds a special place in the hearts and minds of those who listen.

I found the site to be unintuitive, cluttered and lacked the full narrative. He should redesign because he seems talented and I'm still curious about the 50 problems.

czzarr• 14 years ago

this was exactly what I thought. Plus I don't know if it is the HN effect or not, but it's hella slow and unusable right now.

andr• 14 years ago

Click Grid and it's much easier on the eye.

zainny• 14 years ago

It's also completely unusable on mobile. I tried to visit it from my Android ICS device while having the morning coffee and gave up very quickly.

akg• 14 years ago

Problem and Solution number 42 is a genius way to help the less fortunate. I do hope that the more metropolitan cities adopt that in their transit systems.

darkmethod• 14 years ago

I was blown away at the simplicity and effectiveness of that solution in particular. It needs to be made known and implemented on a larger scale.

dsolomon• 14 years ago

Problem # 51: His site design

arvindsinghy• 14 years ago

The design looks beautiful, but it is really difficult to navigate.

Petersmart3• 14 years ago

My name is Peter Smart. I am the creator of this project.

Thanks for all your constructive thoughts and comments so far. I am 23 and this was a university project that has generated a lot of interest. Apologies it's so slow right now - apparently that the HN effect.

Thanks for your thoughts on the site design. The site has won Site of the Day at Design Taxi and Awwwards. This was really unexpected as I agree there is still more to be done in terms of making the site as intuitive as possible.

However, the most important thing isn't the site design. It's the premise. What can design do - if anything?

I took a risk and set out into the unknown to answer that question. Some days I failed, some days I succeeded. The most important thing is that I dared to try (and when I failed - got up and tried again). It was an incredible experience so I hope you continue to enjoy it.

Pete

cheatercheater3• 14 years ago

Peter, I have gone to your site to be presented with something I don't understand.

Please make a splash page which explains exactly what is clickable, and how to use the website, and what the workflow is.

That should be your first UX job. Have fun.

raheemm2• 14 years ago

Consider adding some of what you just said to your site's 'about' page? It provides really good context. It also will make the audience more forgiving :)

The basic premise of your site - 50 problems in 50 days, is interesting. But the navigation is not suitable. When I first load the site on my screen (1366 x 768) it shows the map with problems 29 and 30 centered. The first 20 or so problems are completely cut off. So it starts off confusing.

Make the grid view the default instead of the map view. Its more user-friendly.

The Narrative button is mislabeled. Call it quotes?

Your site's heading is "Solve 50 problems in 50 days". Reading that I expected to find 50 problems and 50 solutions. As I explored, it became clear that you offer some solutions, but in other cases you share insights about problems (using sweater to hold hot bowls). Which is fine. Its valid to examine the way we look at problems and solutions. But its not the same as you designing a bowl that can be held with bare hands when hot. So maybe get rid of the "solve" part?

robfitz2• 14 years ago

The whole project is super awesome and I love it. Really nice work and am excited to see what you do in the future with this ethos!

millerfung• 14 years ago

I am sure with some configuration the site will look gorgeous! Looks good on my iPad currently.

agentultra• 14 years ago

Is this a joke or something?

Day 20: This padlock was too small for my locker. I'll wrap a metal cable around it and lock the cable.

Day 24: Wet socks. I stuck a towel under the door. It failed.

Is this really representative of what "designers" do? Just looks like jury-rigging to me. Slap some duct-tape on it and get on with your life.

jamessb• 14 years ago

Some of the problems that aren't completely trivial are very hard. These aren't "solved" - instead, there are just very preliminary sketches of potential solutions, which other people have already progressed far further with. For example:

- Day 1: Communicating with someone by voice is hard if you lack a shared languages. The proposed solution is "Integrating voice translation into Skype". This isn't a solution so much as it is a problem, with Voice Recognition and Machine Translation as sub-problems. But it is already done reasonably well by the Google Translate iOS app.

- Day 45: People forget PINs. There's been a lot of work on graphical/gestural passwords (see http://www.acsac.org/2005/papers/89.pdf), on the memorability and security of passwords in general (https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-500.pdf) and customer chosen PINs in particular (https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~jcb82/doc/BPA12-FC-banking_pin_sec...), and on a physical device to replace all passwords/PINs (https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~fms27/papers/2011-Stajano-pico.pdf).

Others seem slightly odd:

- Day 39: Personalize post-card by covering up a large portion of the image with a scratch off map. Since the front of a post-card is exposed in transit, wouldn't more be scratched off? And is the recipient is expected to be able to interpret a small section of map for an area they may have never visited themselves? An alternative solution is to mount an integrated camera and printer at a scenic location, so users can easily print a postcard that includes them (Post-Me: http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/news/stories/2010/design_show/)

blyuher• 14 years ago

Solution for the problem #47 perfectly suits Google glasses.

mhewett• 14 years ago

Have a couple of kids and you can learn to solve 150 problems in 50 days.

room271• 14 years ago

Wow - people on HN are unforgiving. The site design is great. Yes, it is dog slow at the moment, but otherwise it is fun and beautifully made with some nice mapping etc.

People seem to be criticising it on UI terms (it's confusing/hard to use) but I think it works because the site isn't trying to market a product (like most HN sites) but tell a story, so it is not unreasonable to expect/encourage the user to explore.

Basically, I think it is more interesting even if it is harder to use.

Solve 50 problems in 50 days

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