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I'm trying to fix this with a user editable IMDB for everything: https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-m

I'm trying to fix this with a user editable IMDB for everything: https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh It's a hard problem to solve. Currently, I still haven't found product market fit yet - with TheyMadeThat's most apparent weakness being the lack of data, but I still can't fully let go because making people aware of who made their stuff matters. People know it's a problem and they like the idea of solving it. Unfortunately, people do not love my solution. Not enough people loved other higher profile solutions like Makerbase from Anil Dash and Gina Trapani either. I don't know to fix it. Interesting features aside from associating people with contributing to the "iPhones" of the world: * Seeing the relationships between different things i.e. -- evolution (predecessors/successors), -- variations (https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh/show_versions#focus_this https://theymadethat.com/things/6wy/apple-macintosh/show_ver...), -- parts (https://theymadethat.com/things/l1t/reddit/show_parts#focus_this https://theymadethat.com/things/l1t/reddit/show_parts#focus_...) * Who used what as tools Feedback is welcome. Feel free to not be nice. It tends to be the most useful feedback. Currently I'm using it to build a Ycombinator Census

synotic 8y ago
Since you're looking for feedback: 1. Seeing a list of people associated with a product is kind of useful, but I specifically want to know what their role was / what they did, vs. just a generic quote. 2. I like the idea of having versions under a larger high-level product (like Mac → Apple Macintosh 128K) but this doesn't seem to be expressed in the navigation anywhere when you're on a specific version. There should be some form of breadcrumbing / indicating the parent. 3. I'd reconsider the tabs as distinct pages vs. a single page, Wikipedia style where the tabs just act as anchors. Possibly use an accordion pattern with a preview for each section. Right now I have to click through 8 different tabs to see if there's possibly content which is usually pretty sparse. 4. Product pages should look distinct from the homepage. The hero section with the tagline / search field is really prominent (and autofocused) when you're looking at a specific product / version. The main focus should be the product title, and the header should be secondary. 5. Not crazy about the quotes as the lead-in for the product pages. It feels like it should be a succinct summary of what the product was. Information like release date, size of team, etc... should be above the fold. I think Wikipedia is again instructive. 6. As a more meta comment, lack of data is definitely an issue and at the same it seems tough to encourage people to contribute data to a (sorry) unknown entity. I tried to edit an article to see how the data's being captured but didn't want to create an account — are you familiar with Wikidata, RDF, Linked Data, etc...? If you can't find this data already in a structured way, I've spent some time parsing wikitext somewhat successfully and if you look at e.g. the Credits section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K#Credits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K#Credits you might be able to bootstrap some data (or at least provide draft pages that someone can then vet / fill out). 7. From what I understand, scraping LinkedIn is pretty challenging, but could you gather data from there / cross-reference to infer who worked on what products? LinkedIn specifically has "Projects" and "Creators", but I don't know what its adoption is like. Basically vs. just expecting me (the general user) to crowdsource this for you, what initial work have you put in.
- chaostheory 8y ago
  Really appreciate the feedback - this is useful > Seeing a list of people associated with a product is kind of useful, but I specifically want to know what their role was / what they did, vs. just a generic quote Yeah this is one of the changes that's on my todo list. The data is there for most people but you have to dig-in. I'll hopefully fix this soon. > I like the idea of having versions under a larger high-level product (like Mac → Apple Macintosh 128K) but this doesn't seem to be expressed in the navigation anywhere The reason that there currently isn't a breadcrumb is because things can be versions of more than one thing. Unfortunately I don't have an example on the top of my head. Not sure how to form navigation based on that yet. > Right now I have to click through 8 different tabs to see if there's possibly content which is usually pretty sparse Yeah this is another known problem. I'll experiment with your suggestion. > Not crazy about the quotes as the lead-in for the product pages. It feels like it should be a succinct summary of what the product was. Information like release date, size of team This is up to creator of the entry. I only chose quotes since it's a product description by the creator and it's easier to find and less generic > I tried to edit an article to see how the data's being captured but didn't want to create an account — are you familiar with Wikidata, RDF, Linked Data, etc...? I have versioning integrated but I did not expose it to the UI yet, until this changes or somehow a community forms I don't see myself removing the signup requirement anytime soon. > but could you gather data from there / cross-reference to infer who worked on what products? I've seen potential sources, however both the quality and quantity of data is lacking. After I fix the UI issues that you've mentioned, I may do more work on this area again one day. As for Linkedin and similar sources like Crunchbase, even if there weren't any issues related to data scraping; they still wouldn't be good enough to use. At best you just get a person's employment history and not what they actually worked on. The UI, especially for mobile, is a mess. Thanks for helping me fix it.

synotic 8y ago

Since you're looking for feedback: 1. Seeing a list of people associated with a product is kind of useful, but I specifically want to know what their role was / what they did, vs. just a generic quote. 2. I like the idea of having versions under a larger high-level product (like Mac → Apple Macintosh 128K) but this doesn't seem to be expressed in the navigation anywhere when you're on a specific version. There should be some form of breadcrumbing / indicating the parent. 3. I'd reconsider the tabs as distinct pages vs. a single page, Wikipedia style where the tabs just act as anchors. Possibly use an accordion pattern with a preview for each section. Right now I have to click through 8 different tabs to see if there's possibly content which is usually pretty sparse. 4. Product pages should look distinct from the homepage. The hero section with the tagline / search field is really prominent (and autofocused) when you're looking at a specific product / version. The main focus should be the product title, and the header should be secondary. 5. Not crazy about the quotes as the lead-in for the product pages. It feels like it should be a succinct summary of what the product was. Information like release date, size of team, etc... should be above the fold. I think Wikipedia is again instructive. 6. As a more meta comment, lack of data is definitely an issue and at the same it seems tough to encourage people to contribute data to a (sorry) unknown entity. I tried to edit an article to see how the data's being captured but didn't want to create an account — are you familiar with Wikidata, RDF, Linked Data, etc...? If you can't find this data already in a structured way, I've spent some time parsing wikitext somewhat successfully and if you look at e.g. the Credits section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K#Credits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K#Credits you might be able to bootstrap some data (or at least provide draft pages that someone can then vet / fill out). 7. From what I understand, scraping LinkedIn is pretty challenging, but could you gather data from there / cross-reference to infer who worked on what products? LinkedIn specifically has "Projects" and "Creators", but I don't know what its adoption is like. Basically vs. just expecting me (the general user) to crowdsource this for you, what initial work have you put in.

chaostheory 8y ago
Really appreciate the feedback - this is useful > Seeing a list of people associated with a product is kind of useful, but I specifically want to know what their role was / what they did, vs. just a generic quote Yeah this is one of the changes that's on my todo list. The data is there for most people but you have to dig-in. I'll hopefully fix this soon. > I like the idea of having versions under a larger high-level product (like Mac → Apple Macintosh 128K) but this doesn't seem to be expressed in the navigation anywhere The reason that there currently isn't a breadcrumb is because things can be versions of more than one thing. Unfortunately I don't have an example on the top of my head. Not sure how to form navigation based on that yet. > Right now I have to click through 8 different tabs to see if there's possibly content which is usually pretty sparse Yeah this is another known problem. I'll experiment with your suggestion. > Not crazy about the quotes as the lead-in for the product pages. It feels like it should be a succinct summary of what the product was. Information like release date, size of team This is up to creator of the entry. I only chose quotes since it's a product description by the creator and it's easier to find and less generic > I tried to edit an article to see how the data's being captured but didn't want to create an account — are you familiar with Wikidata, RDF, Linked Data, etc...? I have versioning integrated but I did not expose it to the UI yet, until this changes or somehow a community forms I don't see myself removing the signup requirement anytime soon. > but could you gather data from there / cross-reference to infer who worked on what products? I've seen potential sources, however both the quality and quantity of data is lacking. After I fix the UI issues that you've mentioned, I may do more work on this area again one day. As for Linkedin and similar sources like Crunchbase, even if there weren't any issues related to data scraping; they still wouldn't be good enough to use. At best you just get a person's employment history and not what they actually worked on. The UI, especially for mobile, is a mess. Thanks for helping me fix it.