Early Quora Design Notes

http://artypapers.com/ap.log/thread.php?346

by danzuri • 14 years ago

43 20 14 years ago

Do people outside the start up / technology world really use Quora? I've never seen anything there that's of value to "real people", and worse, Quora pages seldom (if ever) are returned when I search for something on Google (while other Q&A sites like StackExchange and others come up all the time). I personally find Quora confusing and the content in there more on the navelgazing side. Not sure I get it.

timjahn2• 14 years ago

My thoughts exactly. Not sure what the point of Quora is and don't see it being around in a year or two personally.

killahpriest4• 14 years ago

I vehemently disagree. You could say the same of HN, Reddit or any other site. The value is in the users and the content. Where else on the internet can you ask any sort of question and expect high quality responses?

Yahoo Answers has terrible answers. Reddit is full of trolls. HN is technology only and requires a lot of effort to get attention, most submissions die at one or two points. StackExchange's model is great for technical and highly specific questions, but its approach doesn't work well for the sort of questions Quora does.

Where else on the internet can you ask and get great responses to these questions?

- How can I explain SQL injection to my grandmother? http://www.quora.com/SQL-Injection/How-can-I-explain-SQL-inj...

- How can Delhi be made safe for women? http://www.quora.com/New-Delhi-India/How-can-Delhi-be-made-s...

- What should I do to get over my fear of public failure? http://www.quora.com/What-should-I-do-to-get-over-my-fear-of...

- Is there a physical, theoretical limit to how accurately one can measure the speed of light? http://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-physical-theoretical-limit-t...

riffraff• 14 years ago

The question gets asked all the time quora is discussed, my 2c:

I guess it's hard to tell, but I don't know anybody who isn't a techie who is on quora.

On the other hand, I don't know anyone non-techie using *.stackexchange either.

And TBH, I don't even know anyone using yahoo answers, but judging by the number of results from YA I still get in random google searches, I'd assume way more people find it useful than we may expect.

runemadsen• 14 years ago

I find that the Quora email digest is the only newsletter I'm looking forward to reading EVERY time it's in my inbox. I can't come up with anything that is as insightful, interesting, and fun on the internet. It takes the enlightenment of a TED talk and removed the bullshit. That alone makes for Quora to be a survivor.

VonGuard• 14 years ago

Yeah, thing is though, YA allows people to ask absolutely retarded questions. It's basically a place where teenagers with ultra-religious parents can ask questions about their illegitimate pregnancy. Quora specifically tries to be above such rabble, and thus, misses the meat of this "market." Quora and other Q/A sites are for people who don't know how to use Google if the answer is not on the first page. Unfortunately, Quora thinks it's far above such an assessment, and is therefore nothing to no one.

muratmutlu• 14 years ago

I think Quora has improved loads, there's a real diverse set of users (including San Quentin Prisoners) I wrote about it last month

http://www.mobileinc.co.uk/2012/12/quora-initiative-allowing...

fabian2k2• 14 years ago

Quora would make a better first impression if they didn't force users to sign up to be able to read more than the first answer.

I also find their real name policy annoying, as they disable your writing privileges if you use a name that doesn't look real enough.

jspthrowaway2• 14 years ago

That was a recent change, and undoubtedly one driven by a Growth team that wants to keep a certain graph going upward so another graph will as well.

OriginalSyn• 14 years ago

After having my account locked down because I didn't want to use my full name I closed my account, shortly after they turned into a more modern looking experts exchange and I wasn't so sore about not being able to contribute to the site.

samstave• 14 years ago

I was an early and very active user of quora. I deleted my account when they mucked with privacy settings among other things.

I had a number of issues with the site: I think the UI is horrid. The site admins are complete dicks and they have a heavy censorship hand with no recourse. The ability to find various topics is difficult (it got better - but in the beginning it was abhorrent).

They are arrogant. They kept patting themselves on the back exclaiming how amazing their UI/UX was and effectively told people who didn't like it that they were too stupid to understand their methods.

I recently recreated my account to specifically ask Yishan some questions about reddit, and quora censored that post as well.

Personally, I think they are too arrogant and I choose not to participate.

mnicole• 14 years ago

I'm just not impressed with Quora's design; I think her initial mockup (which was essentially a StackExchange clone) was better than where it's ended up. Every time I go there I get frustrated with something; having to click to read each threaded comment, having to manually remove new notifications because instigating the drop-down or just going to the notifications page aren't enough, clicking to expand a user's description within their own profile, no less on the answer pages.. just a lot of little annoyances combined with poor typography, consistency and use of color.

Early Quora Design Notes

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