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This could be an object lesson in how not to build a landing page. What is this? What is it for? I see a cartoon...but what the hell does any of it mean? Why am

This could be an object lesson in how not to build a landing page. What is this? What is it for? I see a cartoon...but what the hell does any of it mean? Why am I signing up? What am I signing up for? > Want all your applications on One Hostname? Uh...no? Should I? I have no idea! Oh look. Tiny, low contrast text at the very bottom of the page linking to an article that loses my interest before it gets to the point. This could have been 24 point bold arial black on white: "We made a service called Fly to help you convert subdomains into load-balanced subdirectories to strengthen your brand and improve[0] your SEO. yada yada yada..." [0] - citation needed, lol

fiatjaf 9y ago
Totally disagree. The landing page is nice, is pretty, it invites you to read and has two very useful links. If it was a black on white page I would have read it, acknowledge it and close, perhaps add it to Pinboard for later use and never look at it again. The way it is now I've clicked the links and read the whole article, almost.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
  It's very pretty, and it tells you absolutely nothing. Sorry. Correction. It tells you that you can sign up for...something.
- BartSaM 9y ago
  I, and I suppose a lot of people, give between 3-5 seconds to tell me what it does. If I am not able to find a reference to anything within this time - I will close the tab. I have scrolled whole website looking for one headline or enlarged text with one sentence explanation of what this is. Once I failed I turned in to HN comments. UX on this website is awful, but it has a possibility to be an amazing one. Just a few small changes and people will link to this page as an example of UI. But for now is pretty bad.
geekuillaume 9y ago
Got the same first impression. How can a link like this get to the first page of HN? Without any useful information without having to look on another page, wouldn't it just go into unnoticed?
patmcguire 9y ago
It's zany! It's fun! It's not one of the two possible websites https://twitter.com/jongold/status/694591217523363840 https://twitter.com/jongold/status/694591217523363840
mrkurt 9y ago
I think you're probably not in the target audience for a comic like this. It's meant to be light and fun, and appeals to people who already want to put all their stuff on one hostname. All the normal "what do you do? why? how?" questions don't really apply here, that's more what our homepage is for.
ahruygt 9y ago
HI there! Duly noted! Annie here (I drew the comic). This is a little "gift" that people will come across when they start their journey toward using onehostname. Sorry for the confusion since it's out of context. And your feedback is really helpful! I hope you enjoy the comic gift!
- tptacek 9y ago
  It's really great work. Are you attached to Fly.io or do you do work for other people?
- Jaruzel 9y ago
  I would suggest a 'skip the comic and go to the article' link at the top of the page (in the middle), not everyone is a visual learner.
dang 9y ago
Aw, come on. Not everything posted to Hacker News needs to explain itself in a commonplace way. There's a place for the playfully obscure too. Reacting with rage seems like a parody of the angry spoilsport. In the spectrum of HN consciousness there's a large chunk of rule-bound literalism. Part of the work of this community is for that to breathe a little and not need to impose itself everywhere. Then everything works better and life becomes more sparkly.
- peteretep 9y ago
  I found the page interesting and pretty, but had absolutely no clue what service it was offering. It's not so much that it needs to explain itself in a commonplace way, as ... explain itself at all!
  - dang 9y ago
    It's fine to leave some things as an exercise to the reader. We readers can use the exercise.
    - bbcbasic 9y ago
      Totally agree
- falsedan 9y ago
  > There's an honored place for the playfully obscure too. I get enough of this from work, thanks. There's a fine line between decoding twee whimsy and billable hours that most of these submissions stomp past obliviously. The first rule of writing is: respect your reader's time (or else they won't read you). I'm all for not taking things to seriously, but if I have to spend 5 minutes to work out if this is an entertaining flight of fancy that I might just learn something from, or an untargeted waste of marketing budget, then I'm going to Have Opinions that I want to Share Online.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    Also, fuck poetry.
goodroot 9y ago
Hehehe. This was a bit mean, but there's truth. I've adjusted the page based on the feedback here. Now it's "here's the article for more information" instead of "sign up for this mystery box". :)

fiatjaf 9y ago

Totally disagree. The landing page is nice, is pretty, it invites you to read and has two very useful links. If it was a black on white page I would have read it, acknowledge it and close, perhaps add it to Pinboard for later use and never look at it again. The way it is now I've clicked the links and read the whole article, almost.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
It's very pretty, and it tells you absolutely nothing. Sorry. Correction. It tells you that you can sign up for...something.
BartSaM 9y ago
I, and I suppose a lot of people, give between 3-5 seconds to tell me what it does. If I am not able to find a reference to anything within this time - I will close the tab. I have scrolled whole website looking for one headline or enlarged text with one sentence explanation of what this is. Once I failed I turned in to HN comments. UX on this website is awful, but it has a possibility to be an amazing one. Just a few small changes and people will link to this page as an example of UI. But for now is pretty bad.

geekuillaume 9y ago

Got the same first impression. How can a link like this get to the first page of HN? Without any useful information without having to look on another page, wouldn't it just go into unnoticed?

patmcguire 9y ago

It's zany! It's fun! It's not one of the two possible websites https://twitter.com/jongold/status/694591217523363840 https://twitter.com/jongold/status/694591217523363840

mrkurt 9y ago

I think you're probably not in the target audience for a comic like this. It's meant to be light and fun, and appeals to people who already want to put all their stuff on one hostname. All the normal "what do you do? why? how?" questions don't really apply here, that's more what our homepage is for.

ahruygt 9y ago

HI there! Duly noted! Annie here (I drew the comic). This is a little "gift" that people will come across when they start their journey toward using onehostname. Sorry for the confusion since it's out of context. And your feedback is really helpful! I hope you enjoy the comic gift!

tptacek 9y ago
It's really great work. Are you attached to Fly.io or do you do work for other people?
Jaruzel 9y ago
I would suggest a 'skip the comic and go to the article' link at the top of the page (in the middle), not everyone is a visual learner.

dang 9y ago

Aw, come on. Not everything posted to Hacker News needs to explain itself in a commonplace way. There's a place for the playfully obscure too. Reacting with rage seems like a parody of the angry spoilsport. In the spectrum of HN consciousness there's a large chunk of rule-bound literalism. Part of the work of this community is for that to breathe a little and not need to impose itself everywhere. Then everything works better and life becomes more sparkly.

peteretep 9y ago
I found the page interesting and pretty, but had absolutely no clue what service it was offering. It's not so much that it needs to explain itself in a commonplace way, as ... explain itself at all!
- dang 9y ago
  It's fine to leave some things as an exercise to the reader. We readers can use the exercise.
  - bbcbasic 9y ago
    Totally agree
falsedan 9y ago
> There's an honored place for the playfully obscure too. I get enough of this from work, thanks. There's a fine line between decoding twee whimsy and billable hours that most of these submissions stomp past obliviously. The first rule of writing is: respect your reader's time (or else they won't read you). I'm all for not taking things to seriously, but if I have to spend 5 minutes to work out if this is an entertaining flight of fancy that I might just learn something from, or an untargeted waste of marketing budget, then I'm going to Have Opinions that I want to Share Online.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Also, fuck poetry.

goodroot 9y ago

Hehehe. This was a bit mean, but there's truth. I've adjusted the page based on the feedback here. Now it's "here's the article for more information" instead of "sign up for this mystery box". :)