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Ask HN: Rate my summer project - BookShout

19 points by haon99 16y ago

TamDenholm 16y ago
Personally i like the concept, i also like the animation aswell. I'd perhaps tone down the cartoonyness in the rest of the design though, remove the rounded corners and bold text etc. Pretty good though.
awfulcoder14 16y ago
Really cool idea. Only little detail that bothered me is the animation at the beginning- being unable to move it left/right. Other than that i'd definetly use it!
mdhv 16y ago
I really like it. A great idea. Personally, I think it would be better if the landing page had a search bar so you could just get down to business. And maybe random hot topics as well. Awesome idea, I can really see myself using this.
pghimire 16y ago
Great idea. You probably need to keep soliciting feedback to tweak specific areas of the site. Like awfulcoder14 mentioned I did not like not being able to scroll through the animation back and forth on hompage. One Bug: I could not login using FBConnect. Tried a few times, FB login popped up, logged in and when the page was trying to reload/redirect -> error.
sahillavingia 16y ago
Can I help you with the design? I'd love to spend a few hours. Email in profile.
Deejahll 16y ago
How is it different from http://www.librarything.com/ http://www.librarything.com/ ?
nhebb 16y ago
I've thought about this idea for a while, so it's nice to see someone implement it. Amazon tells you that people who bought A also bought B, C, D, ... But what they don't tell you is whether the people actually liked any of the items. This idea could be parlayed into similar music and movie sites.
rokhayakebe 16y ago
I love. I love your TOS.
long 16y ago
It'd be more coherent if fashion was actually a topic on the site.
araneae 16y ago
FB connect is broken ^-^ Cool idea though.
asanwal 16y ago
Really like this idea. Find Amazon recs for books that teach you about a specific topic are very hit or miss or you have to sift through lots of reviews to figure it out. Time suck. Some thoughts/ideas: 1. May be focus on really good recommendations on a handful of verticals to start. Always find focus in beginning is a good thing and see where those people/users take it. Speak from personal experience not having done this in my own startup (trying to be everything to everyone - not good). 2. What about different levels of learning? What if you're looking to learn about negotiation but you're not a beginner and so want 'intermediate' resources? I find this is also a pain point as it's tough to determine what is for beginners vs intermediate or advanced practitioners. Look forward to seeing how this evolves. Nice start.
sundarurfriend 16y ago
Another vote for a search box in the home page. I've so gotten used to one that it felt odd to be in a page without one, I was subconsciously searching for it for some time. Also, I was initially confused by the "find and recommend books about logic" line staring at me, wondering whether this was a niche site for logic books or something. Only because I gave it more time I realised it changes to other topics. There must be a better way to indicate that this is what is happening, that it's gonna animate to other topics, try to think of one. All the best.
talonx 16y ago
Maybe you should separate out search by topic and search by book title? On searching for something which is not there yet, how about an option to create (suggest) it? Good stuff, otherwise!
adammichaelc 16y ago
This is the sort of thing that I currently search certain sites for. Like if I'm looking for book recommendations on a certain programming language, I search HN (eg. site:ycombinator.com rails programming books) I could see this type of thing being really useful. Maybe you could partner with some of the online-learning sites to have the students and teachers rate books that are used for teaching/learning subjects... Good luck with the project!
Angostura 16y ago
Looks very nice indeed. The only thing I would suggest is to add a star-rating system, so that you can see the distribution of opinion. Currently you can only vote for "Good", there is no "despite what others say, this really sucks" function.

19 points by haon99 16y ago

Personally i like the concept, i also like the animation aswell. I'd perhaps tone down the cartoonyness in the rest of the design though, remove the rounded corners and bold text etc. Pretty good though.

awfulcoder14 16y ago

Really cool idea. Only little detail that bothered me is the animation at the beginning- being unable to move it left/right. Other than that i'd definetly use it!

mdhv 16y ago

I really like it. A great idea. Personally, I think it would be better if the landing page had a search bar so you could just get down to business. And maybe random hot topics as well. Awesome idea, I can really see myself using this.

pghimire 16y ago

Great idea. You probably need to keep soliciting feedback to tweak specific areas of the site. Like awfulcoder14 mentioned I did not like not being able to scroll through the animation back and forth on hompage. One Bug: I could not login using FBConnect. Tried a few times, FB login popped up, logged in and when the page was trying to reload/redirect -> error.

sahillavingia 16y ago

Can I help you with the design? I'd love to spend a few hours. Email in profile.

Deejahll 16y ago

How is it different from http://www.librarything.com/ http://www.librarything.com/ ?

nhebb 16y ago

I've thought about this idea for a while, so it's nice to see someone implement it. Amazon tells you that people who bought A also bought B, C, D, ... But what they don't tell you is whether the people actually liked any of the items. This idea could be parlayed into similar music and movie sites.

rokhayakebe 16y ago

I love. I love your TOS.

long 16y ago

It'd be more coherent if fashion was actually a topic on the site.

araneae 16y ago

FB connect is broken ^-^ Cool idea though.

asanwal 16y ago

Really like this idea. Find Amazon recs for books that teach you about a specific topic are very hit or miss or you have to sift through lots of reviews to figure it out. Time suck. Some thoughts/ideas: 1. May be focus on really good recommendations on a handful of verticals to start. Always find focus in beginning is a good thing and see where those people/users take it. Speak from personal experience not having done this in my own startup (trying to be everything to everyone - not good). 2. What about different levels of learning? What if you're looking to learn about negotiation but you're not a beginner and so want 'intermediate' resources? I find this is also a pain point as it's tough to determine what is for beginners vs intermediate or advanced practitioners. Look forward to seeing how this evolves. Nice start.

sundarurfriend 16y ago

Another vote for a search box in the home page. I've so gotten used to one that it felt odd to be in a page without one, I was subconsciously searching for it for some time. Also, I was initially confused by the "find and recommend books about logic" line staring at me, wondering whether this was a niche site for logic books or something. Only because I gave it more time I realised it changes to other topics. There must be a better way to indicate that this is what is happening, that it's gonna animate to other topics, try to think of one. All the best.

talonx 16y ago

Maybe you should separate out search by topic and search by book title? On searching for something which is not there yet, how about an option to create (suggest) it? Good stuff, otherwise!

adammichaelc 16y ago

This is the sort of thing that I currently search certain sites for. Like if I'm looking for book recommendations on a certain programming language, I search HN (eg. site:ycombinator.com rails programming books) I could see this type of thing being really useful. Maybe you could partner with some of the online-learning sites to have the students and teachers rate books that are used for teaching/learning subjects... Good luck with the project!

Angostura 16y ago

Looks very nice indeed. The only thing I would suggest is to add a star-rating system, so that you can see the distribution of opinion. Currently you can only vote for "Good", there is no "despite what others say, this really sucks" function.