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Ask HN: Feedback on my web app please (BuyersVote.com)

20 points by barmstrong 16y ago

DirtyAndy 16y ago
Nice start to your app. I had a similar idea a few years ago which I never acted on. One thing you might want to do is categorize things by price. When I thought about this idea it was because whilst if I am going to buy an espresso machine I go out and research all the details and then make a decision based on many factors, most of my friends ask me "what is the best espresso machine under $500" etc. Whilst that doesn't apply to some things you have like banks, it does for most things people will buy. Good luck, hope it works.
- barmstrong 16y ago
  Thanks for the encouragement. Yep - I like the idea of free form lists like that because it does allow anyone to create niche type lists that aren't predefined in certain categories. So if someone did want to start a "Expresso Machines Under $500" list it would be fine. Then there oculd be some discussion in the comments for whether it should be merged into another list etc, like Wikipedia, and some tool to merge them if needed (although I haven't built that yet). Anyway - thanks for the feedback. The hardest part right now has been getting critical mass. So we'll see what happens with it!
rezrovs 16y ago
1) on the actual reviews page you could probably save space by not displaying a whole row for an upvote with no text review 2) if users have the ability to add their own items to the list, you are going to need a way to monitor the lists for duplicates or items that are not specific enough - (example, iPhone) or items that are wrong (iPhone Blackberry). Since you are starting with a clean slate in terms of products, it will be most useful to you to ensure that the product names are kept as clean as possible, this will make it MUCH easier to integrate with a price service if you plan to monetize it that way in future. 3) I'm not sure what the 'revisions' button is supposed to do (not technically, I mean in terms of usefulness to the site). I was able to rollback someone else's review to a previous version. 4) Product lists can grow to be quite diverse and you will need a way to categorize the lists the same way that products are grouped into lists. For example, you may need an Electronics category where all PC's, cell phones and GPS's are listed. And futher on you may need to break the cell phone category into 'Smart Phones' and 'Cell Phones'. Advice for this is that if you do plan to monetize by connecting with a price service then map your categories to that of the price service because it will be easier to sync up your products later (unless they really don't match your categorization in which case you will need a way to match them up behind the scenes.) 5) Don't know how you would approach this one, but when I went to 'Blogs for Entrepeneurs' and clicked on 'Paul Grahams Blog' I could see that the response was positive so I would want to check out this blog. If I didn't know who Paul Graham was I would need to then google his name to find his blog. It would be nice for items like that if the person who creates the item could add some text or blurb about it. But I'm not sure how that would translate when adding an actual product that is not a blog. Hope that was useful :) Good luck with it! [edit: spelling]
- barmstrong 16y ago
  Great feedback! Agreed, the naming and duplicates are an issue. I was planning on doing this like StackOverflow with a "did you mean?" type suggestion box, but haven't built it yet. Yeah the revisions might be useful in a wiki way if people try to hack it, but aren't really right now. For categorization - I thought about this but it kept making the UI more complicated to pick a category first. I was definitely trying to go for a Twitter-esque bare minimum approach and solve the overwhelming amount of data with search instead of categories (like wikipedia). I'm not sure yet if this will work though. And Google has yet to index all the pages so the Google custom search I have setup is not 100% functional yet. On Paul Grahams blog, it does have a link to the "external site" at the top: http://buyersvote.com/items/paul-graham-s-blog-reviews http://buyersvote.com/items/paul-graham-s-blog-reviews But it's probably not that obvious. Thanks for the help!
mrcalzone 16y ago
I can't point out a specific reason, but for me the front-page has a bit of a "sedo-parking" look to it. Maybe it's the top-menu and the logo, I'm not sure. Sorry for being so vague, but this was my first thought when I clicked the link.
- AlexMuir 16y ago
  +1 I think it's the single colour scheme and Arial font.
  - kranner 16y ago
    I think it's the ".com" at the end of "buyersvote.com" that did it for me.
- levirosol 16y ago
  Agreed. At first glance, that's what I thought. Trying to figure out why, I think for me it's the list on the left and its use of blue followed by grey. it looks like a google ad. I'd also say it's due to the logo being the only color on the page (+1 for the monocolor comment), and the super huge font with no effects (add a shadow maybe?) and the word "best"
- barmstrong 16y ago
  Ok great feedback - thanks for letting me know about that :) Totally hadn't occurred to me but I think you're right. Design isn't my strong suit.
  - barmstrong 16y ago
    I added a drop shadow to the Logo (webkit css). Played with coloring the main link on the homepage to the orange, but it didn't look very good. I think I need a real designer to give it an overhaul, or to borrow another free wordpress theme. :)
netmau5 16y ago
Cool idea, I've always wished there was something like this when shopping in a category. My process always breaks down into cross-referencing several items on cnet, amazon, ign, etc and a vote would give me a quick top 3 to narrow down my choices and save me some time. Feedback: 1) Is there a way to cross-post an item to multiple lists? There are many categories that are simply subsets of others, ie HP Pavilion 1234 might be in "Computers", "Desktop Computers", and "Gaming Machines." It would be nice to collate votes and comments from many sources too. 2) I agree with AlexMuir on the color scheme, and you already have an alternate color available on the home page in the orange. You've worked this color in on other pages but not on the homepage. I'd suggest using an orange-scheme for the list links since those are something you'd probably want to draw attention to anyway. 3) On the comments page, I tried to click the up/down arrows before realizing they were just symbols of how a user voted instead of a vote itself. To make it more clear, I'd suggest using a +1 or -1 icon there instead of a different colored arrow. 4) You may be able to fill in some blank lists and items by reading through Amazon metadata or the like. It takes alot less inertia to upvote something than it does to enter a list or item, so I think that makes it more likely to get user involvement.
- barmstrong 16y ago
  Wow...great feedback. Yep you nailed the exact same pain point I had. When I would sometimes do "best *" type searches on google before buying something, I'd get back crappy results with old forum posts or affiliate link filled ezine articles. On adding an item to multiple lists, I thought about this but decided against it just because an item could have different ratings for different categories (iPhone is a great computer, not as good at making phone calls), and it would make the UI simpler. Good feedback on the up/down voting. When you say Amazon metadata what are you referring to? Not familiar with that.
michaelfairley 16y ago
What exactly is the etiquette for posting a "Review my Startup/Webapp" as an ask or rather as an actual link? I've seen it both ways an I'm wondering if one is preferred over the other.
- jasonlotito 16y ago
  I much prefer direct linking. It allows me to click open the site/app in a new tab, and I can click in to allow me to view the comments. We are smart enough here to know how to do that.

20 points by barmstrong 16y ago

Nice start to your app. I had a similar idea a few years ago which I never acted on. One thing you might want to do is categorize things by price. When I thought about this idea it was because whilst if I am going to buy an espresso machine I go out and research all the details and then make a decision based on many factors, most of my friends ask me "what is the best espresso machine under $500" etc. Whilst that doesn't apply to some things you have like banks, it does for most things people will buy. Good luck, hope it works.

barmstrong 16y ago
Thanks for the encouragement. Yep - I like the idea of free form lists like that because it does allow anyone to create niche type lists that aren't predefined in certain categories. So if someone did want to start a "Expresso Machines Under $500" list it would be fine. Then there oculd be some discussion in the comments for whether it should be merged into another list etc, like Wikipedia, and some tool to merge them if needed (although I haven't built that yet). Anyway - thanks for the feedback. The hardest part right now has been getting critical mass. So we'll see what happens with it!

rezrovs 16y ago

1) on the actual reviews page you could probably save space by not displaying a whole row for an upvote with no text review 2) if users have the ability to add their own items to the list, you are going to need a way to monitor the lists for duplicates or items that are not specific enough - (example, iPhone) or items that are wrong (iPhone Blackberry). Since you are starting with a clean slate in terms of products, it will be most useful to you to ensure that the product names are kept as clean as possible, this will make it MUCH easier to integrate with a price service if you plan to monetize it that way in future. 3) I'm not sure what the 'revisions' button is supposed to do (not technically, I mean in terms of usefulness to the site). I was able to rollback someone else's review to a previous version. 4) Product lists can grow to be quite diverse and you will need a way to categorize the lists the same way that products are grouped into lists. For example, you may need an Electronics category where all PC's, cell phones and GPS's are listed. And futher on you may need to break the cell phone category into 'Smart Phones' and 'Cell Phones'. Advice for this is that if you do plan to monetize by connecting with a price service then map your categories to that of the price service because it will be easier to sync up your products later (unless they really don't match your categorization in which case you will need a way to match them up behind the scenes.) 5) Don't know how you would approach this one, but when I went to 'Blogs for Entrepeneurs' and clicked on 'Paul Grahams Blog' I could see that the response was positive so I would want to check out this blog. If I didn't know who Paul Graham was I would need to then google his name to find his blog. It would be nice for items like that if the person who creates the item could add some text or blurb about it. But I'm not sure how that would translate when adding an actual product that is not a blog. Hope that was useful :) Good luck with it! [edit: spelling]

barmstrong 16y ago
Great feedback! Agreed, the naming and duplicates are an issue. I was planning on doing this like StackOverflow with a "did you mean?" type suggestion box, but haven't built it yet. Yeah the revisions might be useful in a wiki way if people try to hack it, but aren't really right now. For categorization - I thought about this but it kept making the UI more complicated to pick a category first. I was definitely trying to go for a Twitter-esque bare minimum approach and solve the overwhelming amount of data with search instead of categories (like wikipedia). I'm not sure yet if this will work though. And Google has yet to index all the pages so the Google custom search I have setup is not 100% functional yet. On Paul Grahams blog, it does have a link to the "external site" at the top: http://buyersvote.com/items/paul-graham-s-blog-reviews http://buyersvote.com/items/paul-graham-s-blog-reviews But it's probably not that obvious. Thanks for the help!

mrcalzone 16y ago

I can't point out a specific reason, but for me the front-page has a bit of a "sedo-parking" look to it. Maybe it's the top-menu and the logo, I'm not sure. Sorry for being so vague, but this was my first thought when I clicked the link.

AlexMuir 16y ago
+1 I think it's the single colour scheme and Arial font.
- kranner 16y ago
  I think it's the ".com" at the end of "buyersvote.com" that did it for me.
levirosol 16y ago
Agreed. At first glance, that's what I thought. Trying to figure out why, I think for me it's the list on the left and its use of blue followed by grey. it looks like a google ad. I'd also say it's due to the logo being the only color on the page (+1 for the monocolor comment), and the super huge font with no effects (add a shadow maybe?) and the word "best"
barmstrong 16y ago
Ok great feedback - thanks for letting me know about that :) Totally hadn't occurred to me but I think you're right. Design isn't my strong suit.
- barmstrong 16y ago
  I added a drop shadow to the Logo (webkit css). Played with coloring the main link on the homepage to the orange, but it didn't look very good. I think I need a real designer to give it an overhaul, or to borrow another free wordpress theme. :)

netmau5 16y ago

Cool idea, I've always wished there was something like this when shopping in a category. My process always breaks down into cross-referencing several items on cnet, amazon, ign, etc and a vote would give me a quick top 3 to narrow down my choices and save me some time. Feedback: 1) Is there a way to cross-post an item to multiple lists? There are many categories that are simply subsets of others, ie HP Pavilion 1234 might be in "Computers", "Desktop Computers", and "Gaming Machines." It would be nice to collate votes and comments from many sources too. 2) I agree with AlexMuir on the color scheme, and you already have an alternate color available on the home page in the orange. You've worked this color in on other pages but not on the homepage. I'd suggest using an orange-scheme for the list links since those are something you'd probably want to draw attention to anyway. 3) On the comments page, I tried to click the up/down arrows before realizing they were just symbols of how a user voted instead of a vote itself. To make it more clear, I'd suggest using a +1 or -1 icon there instead of a different colored arrow. 4) You may be able to fill in some blank lists and items by reading through Amazon metadata or the like. It takes alot less inertia to upvote something than it does to enter a list or item, so I think that makes it more likely to get user involvement.

barmstrong 16y ago
Wow...great feedback. Yep you nailed the exact same pain point I had. When I would sometimes do "best *" type searches on google before buying something, I'd get back crappy results with old forum posts or affiliate link filled ezine articles. On adding an item to multiple lists, I thought about this but decided against it just because an item could have different ratings for different categories (iPhone is a great computer, not as good at making phone calls), and it would make the UI simpler. Good feedback on the up/down voting. When you say Amazon metadata what are you referring to? Not familiar with that.

michaelfairley 16y ago

What exactly is the etiquette for posting a "Review my Startup/Webapp" as an ask or rather as an actual link? I've seen it both ways an I'm wondering if one is preferred over the other.

jasonlotito 16y ago
I much prefer direct linking. It allows me to click open the site/app in a new tab, and I can click in to allow me to view the comments. We are smart enough here to know how to do that.