5 ms·

Ask HN: Please Test my New Project by Voting

20 points by BenSchaechter 16y ago

ecaroth 16y ago
Small suggestion... you should make the vote option text a label. Very annoying when you try and click it but realize you cannot, and are forced to click the actual radio button.
- BenSchaechter 16y ago
  Good suggestion. I'll add that in.
kevinburke 16y ago
Hi, I just voted and your site has been "Processing my vote...." for the last minute or so. The map is blank.
- BenSchaechter 16y ago
  I believe I just fixed this. Sorry about that. But just to be sure, which browser are you using?
  - kevinburke 16y ago
    It was chrome 9.0.something
ses 16y ago
Looks nice, although I'm not in the states...
- BenSchaechter 16y ago
  We're adding support for other countries currently. I believe Germany and France are in there right now...but that is something that is definitely on the list. The maps are made with SVG and I make them on my own so they suck up a good amount of time. edit:typo.
drewse 16y ago
It looks like it's a good idea and the website has a nice design, although I've never understood how online surveys can be unbiased considering the fact that the population of voters is definitely biased. Do you have any plans for making the data more reliable that you're using with the site (e.g. asking users for how they found the site)?
- BenSchaechter 16y ago
  We track where users voting come from so you can segment by particular referrers. For example, you could segment votes by Facebook users or Twitter users. Mostly, we aim to work with larger websites/companies with large amounts of website visitors, Twitter followers or Facebook fans to easily aggregate what their users think. I'm not positive we'll be able to eliminate bias though. Its on the to-do list =)
Wilduck 16y ago
If you click vote without selecting any of the options, it looks like it's processing your vote, but never does anything. There should probably be some message telling you to choose something, rather than make you think that there's something going on when you submit a blank vote. Other than that, cool interface.
- BenSchaechter 16y ago
  Ah, awesome. Nice find. I'll get this fixed. Thanks!
Dobbs 16y ago
When I mouse over a state if it has votes then it stays black after mousing over another state. If it doesn't have votes it returns to white. Let me know if you need more details. Safari 5.0.2 Mac OS X 10.6.5 Also when casting a vote I'd like it to tell me what city/state it recognized me as. I'm from Provo but there where no votes there, so I'm assuming I'm the one in Salt Lake.
- BenSchaechter 16y ago
  Yes, this mouseover problem has been confusing me as of late. I'm using JQuery + Raphael to interact with the SVG map objects. I need to figure out this bug (which I believe is something particular to Raphael) by diving into some docs a bit more. The geolocation is only as great as your ISP allows. I hope to allow people to change their region if they're logged in. If anyone happens to know a good geocoding service, please let me know. I'll try to get something worked into the interface to show this.
alextp 16y ago
Skipping questions shouldn't be that hard. I don't care for either Peet's or Starbucks, nor do I care for Ke$ha or Kate Perry.
- BenSchaechter 16y ago
  So right now there are 3 polls I think. And I have very odd polls that I've made. So that is part of the problem. I hope to make something in the future where you can follow topics and get emailed polls that interest you. But I think you're right. Skipping should be easier. I'll try to figure out a good solution for this.
Groxx 16y ago
Starbucks edit(+"coffee") isn't coffee.
- drewse 16y ago
  "Do you prefer Starbucks or Peet's Coffee?" implies the following: "Do you prefer Starbucks' [coffee] or Peet's Coffee?" From what I've learned, this title is grammatically correct. Here is an explanation: http://www.kerryr.net/webwriting/gpwu_punctuation.htm#q5 http://www.kerryr.net/webwriting/gpwu_punctuation.htm#q5
  - Groxx 16y ago
    Hah xD Didn't realize it could be interpreted that way. Correction: Starbucks "coffee" isn't coffee.
    - drewse 16y ago
      My bad, didn't realize you were joking =]
      - Groxx 16y ago
        One should not joke about serious matters such as coffee. I meant what I said. Starbucks makes black, coffee-smelling crud and really tasty caffeinated-crud-added super-sugary high-fat drinks. :)
blakerc 16y ago
Nice app. I like your implementation -- particularly how you encourage users to make their own polls with the orange notification. I recently built a surprisingly similar polling application. Check it out below: Is Starbucks coffee better than Peet's coffee? Yes: http://grok.io/yuc http://grok.io/yuc No: http://grok.io/nuc http://grok.io/nuc
- BenSchaechter 16y ago
  We should chat. Feel free to shoot me an email listed on my profile.
- mkjones 16y ago
  I think the "take another poll!" call to action is a good idea for keeping people engaged, assuming there's content. Grok.io needs that - so far it's more concentrated on answering a question accurately than surfacing more questions for a user. The map is cool too - it'd be even neater if you inferred location based on IP address. (I've worked with Blake on grok.io a bit.) Shall we try: Is grok.io's forecasting model going to be more successful's than gopollgo.com's consensus model? Yes: http://grok.io/yuS http://grok.io/yuS No: http://grok.io/nuS http://grok.io/nuS
  - BenSchaechter 16y ago
    Yup. Once we actually are public and people are making polls, I think "take another poll!" will be very interesting. We actually do infer location based off of IP address and a few other things. Grok.io is cool. I like the look and feel of it.
IncroyableTI 16y ago
What if, when the poll results were shown, and you did a mouse over on the map, the percentages would show in the map?
csouth 16y ago
I'm guessing the map is for me to put in my location. If so, 2 things. 1 the area I live in is labeled wrong (email me and I'll point you to it if you want to fix it), also when I hit take another poll it takes me out to country level, it should stay.
- BenSchaechter 16y ago
  Actually, your location is determined automatically based off of your IP address. The map displays the majority votes for their respective regions. I'll email you about the misspelling, though. Thanks.
  - ecaroth 16y ago
    Ben, that interactive map that zooms in with all the counties in a state is pretty friggin nifty. Did you make that from scratch with a n ip-to-location data set, or use some kind of location API??
    - BenSchaechter 16y ago
      I built everything myself from scratch in regards to the maps. This includes all vector paths (you wouldn't believe how much work this is), JQuery & Raphael interaction. There is also some websockets goodness. 90% of everything is handled in the background then pushed to browsers via websockets (for browser which support them). To get location I do a variety of things mostly based off of the IP address of a user. However, I've built up a lot of meta data around locations which I may release later on down the road. Happy to talk more if you want to email me.
vgurgov 16y ago
Hey Ben, As i mentioned on FB - I like your design and implementation. One thing that i noticed just now- when i click "vote", would be cool if "take another poll" would appear somewher near so i dont have to move mouse along whole screem. i believe its your major call to action once i voted, right? small thing, but its quite annoying and slows my voting process which i believe is quite fun by itself. good luck with this!
- BenSchaechter 16y ago
  Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to best solve this problem without complicating the UI. I've thought about making everything ajax so you can use your arrow keys to navigate through polls much easier. The overhead for that would take some time. I believe we may launch publicly launch as is (after bugs are fixed), then go from there. I'll keep you updated though.

20 points by BenSchaechter 16y ago

Small suggestion... you should make the vote option text a label. Very annoying when you try and click it but realize you cannot, and are forced to click the actual radio button.

BenSchaechter 16y ago
Good suggestion. I'll add that in.

kevinburke 16y ago

Hi, I just voted and your site has been "Processing my vote...." for the last minute or so. The map is blank.

BenSchaechter 16y ago
I believe I just fixed this. Sorry about that. But just to be sure, which browser are you using?
- kevinburke 16y ago
  It was chrome 9.0.something

ses 16y ago

Looks nice, although I'm not in the states...

BenSchaechter 16y ago
We're adding support for other countries currently. I believe Germany and France are in there right now...but that is something that is definitely on the list. The maps are made with SVG and I make them on my own so they suck up a good amount of time. edit:typo.

drewse 16y ago

It looks like it's a good idea and the website has a nice design, although I've never understood how online surveys can be unbiased considering the fact that the population of voters is definitely biased. Do you have any plans for making the data more reliable that you're using with the site (e.g. asking users for how they found the site)?

BenSchaechter 16y ago
We track where users voting come from so you can segment by particular referrers. For example, you could segment votes by Facebook users or Twitter users. Mostly, we aim to work with larger websites/companies with large amounts of website visitors, Twitter followers or Facebook fans to easily aggregate what their users think. I'm not positive we'll be able to eliminate bias though. Its on the to-do list =)

Wilduck 16y ago

If you click vote without selecting any of the options, it looks like it's processing your vote, but never does anything. There should probably be some message telling you to choose something, rather than make you think that there's something going on when you submit a blank vote. Other than that, cool interface.

BenSchaechter 16y ago
Ah, awesome. Nice find. I'll get this fixed. Thanks!

Dobbs 16y ago

When I mouse over a state if it has votes then it stays black after mousing over another state. If it doesn't have votes it returns to white. Let me know if you need more details. Safari 5.0.2 Mac OS X 10.6.5 Also when casting a vote I'd like it to tell me what city/state it recognized me as. I'm from Provo but there where no votes there, so I'm assuming I'm the one in Salt Lake.

BenSchaechter 16y ago
Yes, this mouseover problem has been confusing me as of late. I'm using JQuery + Raphael to interact with the SVG map objects. I need to figure out this bug (which I believe is something particular to Raphael) by diving into some docs a bit more. The geolocation is only as great as your ISP allows. I hope to allow people to change their region if they're logged in. If anyone happens to know a good geocoding service, please let me know. I'll try to get something worked into the interface to show this.

alextp 16y ago

Skipping questions shouldn't be that hard. I don't care for either Peet's or Starbucks, nor do I care for Ke$ha or Kate Perry.

BenSchaechter 16y ago
So right now there are 3 polls I think. And I have very odd polls that I've made. So that is part of the problem. I hope to make something in the future where you can follow topics and get emailed polls that interest you. But I think you're right. Skipping should be easier. I'll try to figure out a good solution for this.

Groxx 16y ago

Starbucks edit(+"coffee") isn't coffee.

drewse 16y ago
"Do you prefer Starbucks or Peet's Coffee?" implies the following: "Do you prefer Starbucks' [coffee] or Peet's Coffee?" From what I've learned, this title is grammatically correct. Here is an explanation: http://www.kerryr.net/webwriting/gpwu_punctuation.htm#q5 http://www.kerryr.net/webwriting/gpwu_punctuation.htm#q5
- Groxx 16y ago
  Hah xD Didn't realize it could be interpreted that way. Correction: Starbucks "coffee" isn't coffee.
  - drewse 16y ago
    My bad, didn't realize you were joking =]
    - Groxx 16y ago
      One should not joke about serious matters such as coffee. I meant what I said. Starbucks makes black, coffee-smelling crud and really tasty caffeinated-crud-added super-sugary high-fat drinks. :)

blakerc 16y ago

Nice app. I like your implementation -- particularly how you encourage users to make their own polls with the orange notification. I recently built a surprisingly similar polling application. Check it out below: Is Starbucks coffee better than Peet's coffee? Yes: http://grok.io/yuc http://grok.io/yuc No: http://grok.io/nuc http://grok.io/nuc

BenSchaechter 16y ago
We should chat. Feel free to shoot me an email listed on my profile.
mkjones 16y ago
I think the "take another poll!" call to action is a good idea for keeping people engaged, assuming there's content. Grok.io needs that - so far it's more concentrated on answering a question accurately than surfacing more questions for a user. The map is cool too - it'd be even neater if you inferred location based on IP address. (I've worked with Blake on grok.io a bit.) Shall we try: Is grok.io's forecasting model going to be more successful's than gopollgo.com's consensus model? Yes: http://grok.io/yuS http://grok.io/yuS No: http://grok.io/nuS http://grok.io/nuS
- BenSchaechter 16y ago
  Yup. Once we actually are public and people are making polls, I think "take another poll!" will be very interesting. We actually do infer location based off of IP address and a few other things. Grok.io is cool. I like the look and feel of it.

IncroyableTI 16y ago

What if, when the poll results were shown, and you did a mouse over on the map, the percentages would show in the map?

csouth 16y ago

I'm guessing the map is for me to put in my location. If so, 2 things. 1 the area I live in is labeled wrong (email me and I'll point you to it if you want to fix it), also when I hit take another poll it takes me out to country level, it should stay.

BenSchaechter 16y ago
Actually, your location is determined automatically based off of your IP address. The map displays the majority votes for their respective regions. I'll email you about the misspelling, though. Thanks.
- ecaroth 16y ago
  Ben, that interactive map that zooms in with all the counties in a state is pretty friggin nifty. Did you make that from scratch with a n ip-to-location data set, or use some kind of location API??
  - BenSchaechter 16y ago
    I built everything myself from scratch in regards to the maps. This includes all vector paths (you wouldn't believe how much work this is), JQuery & Raphael interaction. There is also some websockets goodness. 90% of everything is handled in the background then pushed to browsers via websockets (for browser which support them). To get location I do a variety of things mostly based off of the IP address of a user. However, I've built up a lot of meta data around locations which I may release later on down the road. Happy to talk more if you want to email me.

vgurgov 16y ago

Hey Ben, As i mentioned on FB - I like your design and implementation. One thing that i noticed just now- when i click "vote", would be cool if "take another poll" would appear somewher near so i dont have to move mouse along whole screem. i believe its your major call to action once i voted, right? small thing, but its quite annoying and slows my voting process which i believe is quite fun by itself. good luck with this!

BenSchaechter 16y ago
Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to best solve this problem without complicating the UI. I've thought about making everything ajax so you can use your arrow keys to navigate through polls much easier. The overhead for that would take some time. I believe we may launch publicly launch as is (after bugs are fixed), then go from there. I'll keep you updated though.