Show HN: Zephyr – Collaboration for teams and freelancers

https://zephyrplatform.com/demo/login/?fname=hacker&lname=news&email=hn@zephyr.email

by gotzephyr • 11 years ago

14 19 11 years ago

gotzephyr10• 11 years ago

This is our first release, built to showcase the card based UI and platform command system, come and try packing and flipping our cards. Also modules for chat, pinboard and storage for you to play with.

As we roll out beta there will be further modules added for productivity and a suite of core enhancements, new command functions to push faster usage, the Zephyr analytics engine and more.

Would very much love to have you onboard, also any feedback you have. Thanks!

fragmede• 11 years ago

Does this have anything in common with the Zephyr instant messaging protocol designed in the 80's created at MIT as part of Project Athena? A quick look at the link didn't seem like it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_(protocol)

It's not the sexiest new protocol, but there are still pockets where it's still used, particularly SIPB.

No other product (save Zulip which used Zephyr on the back end anyway), has had the same notion of messages having both a class and instance which makes it hard to replace, so I'm stuck on screen + barnowl for the time being.

gotzephyr10• 11 years ago

Ha, no. It's just the same name.

tux2• 11 years ago

Yeah there is also Zephir Language > http://www.zephir-lang.com/ Same names is very confusing.

bshimmin• 11 years ago

I'll be honest - I find the UI impenetrable. It's dark and full of fiddly icons and I'm not sure what I can click, what I can drag, etc.

If there's any way you can find someone amenable who has no personal attachment to this project (ie. hasn't used it before, doesn't really know what you're trying to achieve) and has strong UI/UX sensibilities to take a look over this, I really think you should. Sometimes when you've built something and you're proud of it, it can be very hard to have an objective perspective on how usable something is.

junto2• 11 years ago

I didn't want to be negative, but I had the same impression as you.

As far as I can make out, something like Asana is their direct competition and from a UI perspective, it is so much cleaner: https://asana.com/product

gotzephyr10• 11 years ago

They're just further down the road than where we are, with more lots more money and a ton of engineers and designers...ha!

When we launch I would very much hope your opinion would alter, if you would like to join our beta you will be able to keep updated with our progress :-)

ericcholis• 11 years ago

The UI is quite jarring at first, and doesn't give any call to action or incentive to "try" anything. The "Join the Beta" window is overlaying the "Welcome to Zephyr" box, which is confusing.

The dark color scheme is nice for a workspace, but the font size is difficult to read with large quantities of text. This makes it harder to onboard a user.

Also, I took myself to the home page (https://zephyrplatform.com/) in hopes of a nicer pitch....and was presented with a sparse version of the demo.

gotzephyr10• 11 years ago

Good point on the overlapping cards, we're fixing that now. Thanks!

For our main website, soon as we release the full beta we will move that to a more detailed website. It's just a basic splash page for now.

gotzephyr10• 11 years ago

This is just our first demo, and our first UI colour scheme. We will have a light version rolling out. You will be able to switch between light and dark, also adjust colours across the platform to suit your preferences.

Equally we have a full onboarding experience so by the end you will know exactly what every icon and button can do. Help module too. Completely understand the need to learn before you can fully use, we just haven't rolled this out yet.

My aim for this is to start building traction with this first demo, and we will continually improve, if you can see where we are going and like that direction sign up for the beta and you will be able to try all the new features and improvements as we release them :-)

gotzephyr10• 11 years ago

Thanks for all the comments, massively appreciated! Just remember its a first demo release, we've still much more to do before we launch, especially on the UI.

Everything has to start somewhere, but you will see many improvements as each week rolls by, would very much love to see you all on our beta so we can show you what we can do and how Zephyr will be progressing.

chandika• 11 years ago

I'm struggling to understand the purpose of this compared to other collaboration platforms. Could you elaborate why this should matter to a team above and beyond other collab platforms out there?

gotzephyr10• 11 years ago

We're only around 20% of our final build functionality on this demo. It's just a little taste of what Zephyr can do.

Tasks, events, screenshare, integration with mail and other 3rd party systems, analytics and a lot more besides will be rolling out.

Basically you and your team will be able to create your data, visualise it how you want, analyse it and store it on Zephyr. All on one platform, across all your devices, fully secured.

This isn't our final product but if you do want to come onboard and see what we can do and how we will benefit you and your business, sign up to the beta as I would very much love your help in making Zephyr (even more) awesome ☺

almaspite• 11 years ago

Super cool, well done!

gotzephyr10• 11 years ago

Thanks! :-)

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