7 ms·

Ask HN: Review my startup - Lean Designs Website Builder

49 points by matt1 16y ago

matt1 16y ago
Hey guys -- I'd love to get your feedback on Lean Designs, a new web design tool for web developers. Some of you might be familiar with jMockups [1], a high fidelity mockup tool that was the precursor to Lean Designs. The overwhelming feedback that I received was that people wanted the ability to export their mockups to HTML/CSS. Lean Designs is the result. For additional details, check out the Lean Designs blog [2]. Thank you all for your feedback along the way; the app wouldn't be what it is without your direction. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1829657 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1829657 [2] http://blog.leandesigns.com/2011/04/introducing-the-lean-designs-website-builder/ http://blog.leandesigns.com/2011/04/introducing-the-lean-des...
bhousel 16y ago
Wow, that's a very good idea. If anything, I think you might be able to charge more. I think 3 free designs/month is very generous.
- matt1 16y ago
  Thanks -- I've received a lot of conflicting advice for how to price the app and honestly I'm not sure what direction to go so I'm leaving it as is for now. Might change it down the road (grandfathering in existing users) depending on the feedback. Thoughts? PS: It's a three design limit period (not per month).
  - sbhat7 16y ago
    Another approach could perhaps be charging for the number of designs instead.
  - dave84 16y ago
    The wording on the Sign Up & Pricing also lead me to believe that it's 3 designs a month for free. How about pay as you go pricing? I'm not going to pay monthly if I only need it every now and then, but I'd happily pay $15 per design on a non-recurring basis.
splatcollision 16y ago
You should show the interface of the editor on the marketing pages somewhere. Also, the "view the source" links don't work for me in Safari Mac.
- matt1 16y ago
  You can see the editor a bit on the homepage, but yeah, it's hard to see. I'll probably add a "Tour" section at some point, where I'll definitely include more detailed screenshots. Re: view the source -- got it. It's a shame that Safari doesn't support it; I removed it for now and will look at alternatives later. Thanks again.
mgkimsal 16y ago
Not sure if I'd given my feedback on jmockups earlier, but this is the sort of thing I was wanting jmockups to be. Monthly pricing - I don't know how often I go through periods where I need to design sites, so paying $240/year for the few times I'd need this is a little on the steep side, but I understand others might want/need more. The core system looks nice - congrats. EDIT: couple of thoughts: change "examples" to "templates", then have an 'examples' link later with examples that people have built using the tool. lastly, I'm slightly confused by the diff between a 'layout' and a 'mockup' (and then I also have 'designs' that I did). This is still confusing to me.
- matt1 16y ago
  Howdy -- pricing this is an area that I need help with so thank you for your input. Examples to templates. Great idea -- done. Layout vs mockup vs designs: probably not as clear as it should be; agreed. Layouts are high level (regions and text only) and you can export them; mockups are detailed and you can't export them. Designs are mockups and layouts. I'll work on the copy :)
random42 16y ago
Do a demo video showcasing the application, so that users can get idea whether the product meets their requirements. Compelling offering otherwise.
boundlessdreamz 16y ago
Will you be adding more css frameworks like blueprint ?
- matt1 16y ago
  Maybe; depends on the demand.
cjkundin 16y ago
Does the builder require a HTML5 browser or does it output HTML/CSS that requires a HTML5 browser? I'm guessing the former, but that wasn't clear to me from the homepage and I'm not sure you want more text there to describe/confuse the user... Actually, I might even leave that off. Your number one goal is to get them to click the button. The more committed they are, the more they'll stick with it and maybe download chrome just to use your product.
- Maro 16y ago
  You should explicitly list which browsers your app works on. I use FF4, is it HTML5 compliant? I don't know.
- matt1 16y ago
  Thanks and good idea -- I see now that it was a bit confusing so removed it.
atacrawl 16y ago
Don't be afraid to charge people money for your service! Your free plan is way too generous. Personally, I would replace the free plan with a working demo, so people can kick the tires. But definitely lower the free plan to one design. I think you need to address the line that says "Requires an HTML5 compliant browser." For one, it's not clear enough whether you mean the builder needs HTML5 or the output requires it. In any event, I think you should frame it by telling the user which browsers will work -- those are terms they'll better be able to understand, especially considering you're aiming for the market of people who don't know what they're doing online. Anyway, there's my two cents. Good luck.
- matt1 16y ago
  Thanks for your feedback, especially on the pricing. As I mentioned below, I know its due for a change, but have received wide range of advice so I'm holding off for now. I removed the "Requires an HTML5 compliant browser" -- It sounded fancy at the time, but agree that it's confusing. Appreciate it --
  - dpcan 16y ago
    I can see someone going in here, modifying one design about a 100 times, exporting them all, and then just keeping those archived. You may want to allow the ability to create unlimited designs for free, but you only get to hit the export button 3 times :)
    - matt1 16y ago
      Yeah, that's an option too. But again, what's the pricing model? $19/month for unlimited exports?
      - dpcan 16y ago
        Maybe. Who is your customer? How many designs a month does your typical customer create? If it's an independent designer / web developer, then they may create 2 websites a month for $2k - $4k per month per customer, and that's only 2 designs. Then there are people who just slap up websites for $300 a piece, and may do 5 or 6. But who's the customer? Sure, you might say that if I'm making $2k to $4k per website, and do about 2 a month, then I should be able to "afford" $20 per month, but that's really not the way a developer thinks. Everyone wants $20 per month from us. It seems like everything is becoming a service. I also don't know if I'll do a single website for ANYONE next month. BUT, I can sure tell you that I'll do 10 before the year is up, so if I could just buy a 10 pack, that would make sense to me. Lastly, I ran into some frustrating bugs while using the demo. I couldn't subscribe at this point because I couldn't do something as simple as line up 2 blocks side by side. I try to drag them so they touch each other, but it keeps bouncing back and leaving a space. Something as simple as this becomes a deal breaker at the moment. The tool itself is still broken.
sklivvz1971 16y ago
I am confused: is it a mock up tool? I don't see any design in the examples, just mockups. You should make more clear what is it that you are offering.
edw519 16y ago
It appears that your browser does not support LeanDesigns. Wow, one of the few "Review my startup" posts for something I'd actually use, and I hit a roadblock on the first click. I understand that you want to use the latest and greatest technology, and do you part to drag the rest of us kicking and screaming into the 21st century, but does mounting a roadblock in front of legitimate prospects really serve your best interests? Is HTML5 a "must have" or a "would be nice"? I on a work desktop right now, so I'll have to wait until I'm on my own later to try this out...if I remember. Sigh.
- matt1 16y ago
  Hey Ed -- what browser are you using? Most modern browsers with the exception of IE8 should work; if not there's something wrong on my end. The majority of my market uses an HTML5 compliant browser, so it hasn't been a major issue in the past. I would love to get your thoughts though. If you don't remember, you can expect an email from me later today :)
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    Why not simply support IE8? It's not any harder than, say, supporting FireFox. Cross browser stuff is really really easy now that you don't have to worry about IE6 anymore. Give it a shot.
    - matt1 16y ago
      Yes, it is harder than supporting Firefox. Lean Designs makes heavy use of the canvas element and it would be impossible to implement on a browser like IE8 that doesn't support it. There are libraries like excanvas which help, but they're very limited (no toDataURL() and the like). In order to support IE8 I'd have to severely limit what the app can do. Since this isn't an issue for 95%+ of the people visiting the site, it doesn't make sense to support it.
  - keen 16y ago
    I can sympathize with not wanting to support IE 8, but I reckon in almost all cases it's worth it.
jefflinwood 16y ago
Hi, You've obviously put a lot of work into this, but what's the advantage of using your lean designs web site builder over Boks (a free Adobe Air App grid builder) for Blueprint CSS? Also I like that you've left your jMockups code in as the high-fidelity mock-up builder, but it might confuse new users who aren't familiar with the history behind jMockups. Hope this helps!
- matt1 16y ago
  Hey -- I agree that the whole jMockups & Lean Designs app in one is confusing. Without spinning Lean Designs off into its own app, supporting the high fidelity mockups (though not marketing it) seemed like the best option for now. I haven't tried out Boks, but it may be a viable alternative to this. Long term you'll be able to design an entire site with Lean Designs, which I don't think any other tool does well right now. On that note, are there any features that Boks doesn't support that you'd like to see with Lean Designs?
  - jefflinwood 16y ago
    Boks gets you to the same point as Lean Designs - a grid-based layout you can customize. I run into problems taking the layout from Boks and making it not look flat - rounding corners, adding shading, using good fonts, picking colors that go well together - all the little tricks that make a well-designed page look good. What if you integrated with Adobe Kuler or a similar color-picking tool to generate a CSS file?
    - mgkimsal 16y ago
      FWIW, Boks doesn't seem to come with any templates at all - I think that's a real value-add with leandesigns.
saturdayplace 16y ago
I've had this EXACT idea brewing in my head for a while. As fodder for the eternal debate: execution matters. Time to get off my sorry tail.
aksbhat 16y ago
I tried it and found it really useful. It is especially useful for people like me who aren't very well versed in CSS. I guess you should market it as WYSIWYG CSS template builder.
- matt1 16y ago
  Thanks, glad you found it useful. The tool as it exists now is a template/layout builder, but long term the goal is to export complete and styled websites. A kind of automated PSD2HTML service that doesn't suck. Marketing it now as a website builder vs a WYSIWYG CSS template builder serves that end.
Sakes 16y ago
I like it a lot. I am working on something similar, but you definitely have a better distribution plan than I have. Good luck to ya!
jasonkester 16y ago
I tried to click past the signup form so that I could try it out, but it gave me this: 10 errors prohibited this user from being saved There were problems with the following fields: Password can't be blank Password is too short (minimum is 6 characters) Password is too short (minimum is 6 characters) Password confirmation can't be blank Login can't be blank Login is too short (minimum is 3 characters) Login use only letters, numbers, and .-_@ please. Email can't be blank Email is too short (minimum is 6 characters) Email should look like an email address. Or, translated: These 10 arbitrary barriers just cost us a potential customer. You guys offer a Free plan, fer cryin' out loud. Let us try your thing without filling in a form. It looks like a cool product, but it's 2011 and people stumbling in off the Internet have zero attention span and zero tolerance for hassle. If I can't get to a working demo with a single click from your homepage, I'm gone. And so is a hefty fraction of your potential userbase.
- keen 16y ago
  "If I can't get to a working demo with a single click from your homepage, I'm gone." Agreed. I think I'll make this a rule for my future projects.
- matt1 16y ago
  Thanks -- a demo of the export tool is definitely something I'd like to implement, but doing so would have postponed the launch by a week or two. I made the decision to launch without it and that's that. Appreciate the feedback as it helps me prioritize what to work on next.
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    Why would it take any more time? If you absolutely need to have user accounts behind the scenes, you can just point your "Try It Now" button to a page that creates a dummy user record "guest6772343/dummypassword" and logs in as that user. Forward to the application, and you're done. You can have this up and working 5 minutes from now. EDIT: For an idea of why this is important to do, and how important it is to do it (in terms of how many more users you'll unbounce), here's a writeup of the day we accidentally launched Twiddla, and the consequences of going through the quick 5-minute login-bypass exercise I describe above: http://www.twiddla.com/blog/2007/04/1000-signups-on-day-one.html http://www.twiddla.com/blog/2007/04/1000-signups-on-day-one....
MatthewB 16y ago
Good idea in theory but I won't sign up to try it out for the first time. You should give a sandbox to play with but to export make a user sign up.
BasDirks 16y ago
I like your idea, but be "warned" :D -> I'm building something like this for free. (And there are many others who are getting into these kind of website apps). Sent you an e-mail.
- matt1 16y ago
  I'm not too worried - we'll see in 10 years who still exists :)
  - BasDirks 16y ago
    I sure hope you will, it's a great concept.
frankdenbow 16y ago
Nice job. More templates and integrate some color scheme templates and you've got a winner.
volandovengo 15y ago
Nice job! This will make building sits a lot faster :). I would love a demo video on the homepage rather than needing to try it out myself.
vinautomatic 15y ago
Matt looks good I just signed up - I'll have time to tinker around with it this week. Very promising. I'm very interested in these tools and your competition (psd2cssonline.com, divine, etc.) in this field. I just moved away from Boston to Florida after 25 years but I'll be up there frequently and maybe we can catch coffee and chat.
bgriggs1 15y ago
Have an actual designer take an hour and spruce up your design. If your target audience is designers light on coding (and likely high on aesthetics) a quality design will go a long way in getting them to stick around.

49 points by matt1 16y ago

matt1 16y ago

Hey guys -- I'd love to get your feedback on Lean Designs, a new web design tool for web developers. Some of you might be familiar with jMockups [1], a high fidelity mockup tool that was the precursor to Lean Designs. The overwhelming feedback that I received was that people wanted the ability to export their mockups to HTML/CSS. Lean Designs is the result. For additional details, check out the Lean Designs blog [2]. Thank you all for your feedback along the way; the app wouldn't be what it is without your direction. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1829657 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1829657 [2] http://blog.leandesigns.com/2011/04/introducing-the-lean-designs-website-builder/ http://blog.leandesigns.com/2011/04/introducing-the-lean-des...

bhousel 16y ago

Wow, that's a very good idea. If anything, I think you might be able to charge more. I think 3 free designs/month is very generous.

matt1 16y ago
Thanks -- I've received a lot of conflicting advice for how to price the app and honestly I'm not sure what direction to go so I'm leaving it as is for now. Might change it down the road (grandfathering in existing users) depending on the feedback. Thoughts? PS: It's a three design limit period (not per month).
- sbhat7 16y ago
  Another approach could perhaps be charging for the number of designs instead.
- dave84 16y ago
  The wording on the Sign Up & Pricing also lead me to believe that it's 3 designs a month for free. How about pay as you go pricing? I'm not going to pay monthly if I only need it every now and then, but I'd happily pay $15 per design on a non-recurring basis.

splatcollision 16y ago

You should show the interface of the editor on the marketing pages somewhere. Also, the "view the source" links don't work for me in Safari Mac.

matt1 16y ago
You can see the editor a bit on the homepage, but yeah, it's hard to see. I'll probably add a "Tour" section at some point, where I'll definitely include more detailed screenshots. Re: view the source -- got it. It's a shame that Safari doesn't support it; I removed it for now and will look at alternatives later. Thanks again.

mgkimsal 16y ago

Not sure if I'd given my feedback on jmockups earlier, but this is the sort of thing I was wanting jmockups to be. Monthly pricing - I don't know how often I go through periods where I need to design sites, so paying $240/year for the few times I'd need this is a little on the steep side, but I understand others might want/need more. The core system looks nice - congrats. EDIT: couple of thoughts: change "examples" to "templates", then have an 'examples' link later with examples that people have built using the tool. lastly, I'm slightly confused by the diff between a 'layout' and a 'mockup' (and then I also have 'designs' that I did). This is still confusing to me.

matt1 16y ago
Howdy -- pricing this is an area that I need help with so thank you for your input. Examples to templates. Great idea -- done. Layout vs mockup vs designs: probably not as clear as it should be; agreed. Layouts are high level (regions and text only) and you can export them; mockups are detailed and you can't export them. Designs are mockups and layouts. I'll work on the copy :)

random42 16y ago

Do a demo video showcasing the application, so that users can get idea whether the product meets their requirements. Compelling offering otherwise.

boundlessdreamz 16y ago

Will you be adding more css frameworks like blueprint ?

matt1 16y ago
Maybe; depends on the demand.

cjkundin 16y ago

Does the builder require a HTML5 browser or does it output HTML/CSS that requires a HTML5 browser? I'm guessing the former, but that wasn't clear to me from the homepage and I'm not sure you want more text there to describe/confuse the user... Actually, I might even leave that off. Your number one goal is to get them to click the button. The more committed they are, the more they'll stick with it and maybe download chrome just to use your product.

Maro 16y ago
You should explicitly list which browsers your app works on. I use FF4, is it HTML5 compliant? I don't know.
matt1 16y ago
Thanks and good idea -- I see now that it was a bit confusing so removed it.

atacrawl 16y ago

Don't be afraid to charge people money for your service! Your free plan is way too generous. Personally, I would replace the free plan with a working demo, so people can kick the tires. But definitely lower the free plan to one design. I think you need to address the line that says "Requires an HTML5 compliant browser." For one, it's not clear enough whether you mean the builder needs HTML5 or the output requires it. In any event, I think you should frame it by telling the user which browsers will work -- those are terms they'll better be able to understand, especially considering you're aiming for the market of people who don't know what they're doing online. Anyway, there's my two cents. Good luck.

matt1 16y ago
Thanks for your feedback, especially on the pricing. As I mentioned below, I know its due for a change, but have received wide range of advice so I'm holding off for now. I removed the "Requires an HTML5 compliant browser" -- It sounded fancy at the time, but agree that it's confusing. Appreciate it --
- dpcan 16y ago
  I can see someone going in here, modifying one design about a 100 times, exporting them all, and then just keeping those archived. You may want to allow the ability to create unlimited designs for free, but you only get to hit the export button 3 times :)
  - matt1 16y ago
    Yeah, that's an option too. But again, what's the pricing model? $19/month for unlimited exports?
    - dpcan 16y ago
      Maybe. Who is your customer? How many designs a month does your typical customer create? If it's an independent designer / web developer, then they may create 2 websites a month for $2k - $4k per month per customer, and that's only 2 designs. Then there are people who just slap up websites for $300 a piece, and may do 5 or 6. But who's the customer? Sure, you might say that if I'm making $2k to $4k per website, and do about 2 a month, then I should be able to "afford" $20 per month, but that's really not the way a developer thinks. Everyone wants $20 per month from us. It seems like everything is becoming a service. I also don't know if I'll do a single website for ANYONE next month. BUT, I can sure tell you that I'll do 10 before the year is up, so if I could just buy a 10 pack, that would make sense to me. Lastly, I ran into some frustrating bugs while using the demo. I couldn't subscribe at this point because I couldn't do something as simple as line up 2 blocks side by side. I try to drag them so they touch each other, but it keeps bouncing back and leaving a space. Something as simple as this becomes a deal breaker at the moment. The tool itself is still broken.

sklivvz1971 16y ago

I am confused: is it a mock up tool? I don't see any design in the examples, just mockups. You should make more clear what is it that you are offering.

edw519 16y ago

It appears that your browser does not support LeanDesigns. Wow, one of the few "Review my startup" posts for something I'd actually use, and I hit a roadblock on the first click. I understand that you want to use the latest and greatest technology, and do you part to drag the rest of us kicking and screaming into the 21st century, but does mounting a roadblock in front of legitimate prospects really serve your best interests? Is HTML5 a "must have" or a "would be nice"? I on a work desktop right now, so I'll have to wait until I'm on my own later to try this out...if I remember. Sigh.

matt1 16y ago
Hey Ed -- what browser are you using? Most modern browsers with the exception of IE8 should work; if not there's something wrong on my end. The majority of my market uses an HTML5 compliant browser, so it hasn't been a major issue in the past. I would love to get your thoughts though. If you don't remember, you can expect an email from me later today :)
- jasonkester 16y ago
  Why not simply support IE8? It's not any harder than, say, supporting FireFox. Cross browser stuff is really really easy now that you don't have to worry about IE6 anymore. Give it a shot.
  - matt1 16y ago
    Yes, it is harder than supporting Firefox. Lean Designs makes heavy use of the canvas element and it would be impossible to implement on a browser like IE8 that doesn't support it. There are libraries like excanvas which help, but they're very limited (no toDataURL() and the like). In order to support IE8 I'd have to severely limit what the app can do. Since this isn't an issue for 95%+ of the people visiting the site, it doesn't make sense to support it.
- keen 16y ago
  I can sympathize with not wanting to support IE 8, but I reckon in almost all cases it's worth it.

jefflinwood 16y ago

Hi, You've obviously put a lot of work into this, but what's the advantage of using your lean designs web site builder over Boks (a free Adobe Air App grid builder) for Blueprint CSS? Also I like that you've left your jMockups code in as the high-fidelity mock-up builder, but it might confuse new users who aren't familiar with the history behind jMockups. Hope this helps!

matt1 16y ago
Hey -- I agree that the whole jMockups & Lean Designs app in one is confusing. Without spinning Lean Designs off into its own app, supporting the high fidelity mockups (though not marketing it) seemed like the best option for now. I haven't tried out Boks, but it may be a viable alternative to this. Long term you'll be able to design an entire site with Lean Designs, which I don't think any other tool does well right now. On that note, are there any features that Boks doesn't support that you'd like to see with Lean Designs?
- jefflinwood 16y ago
  Boks gets you to the same point as Lean Designs - a grid-based layout you can customize. I run into problems taking the layout from Boks and making it not look flat - rounding corners, adding shading, using good fonts, picking colors that go well together - all the little tricks that make a well-designed page look good. What if you integrated with Adobe Kuler or a similar color-picking tool to generate a CSS file?
  - mgkimsal 16y ago
    FWIW, Boks doesn't seem to come with any templates at all - I think that's a real value-add with leandesigns.

saturdayplace 16y ago

I've had this EXACT idea brewing in my head for a while. As fodder for the eternal debate: execution matters. Time to get off my sorry tail.

aksbhat 16y ago

I tried it and found it really useful. It is especially useful for people like me who aren't very well versed in CSS. I guess you should market it as WYSIWYG CSS template builder.

matt1 16y ago
Thanks, glad you found it useful. The tool as it exists now is a template/layout builder, but long term the goal is to export complete and styled websites. A kind of automated PSD2HTML service that doesn't suck. Marketing it now as a website builder vs a WYSIWYG CSS template builder serves that end.

Sakes 16y ago

I like it a lot. I am working on something similar, but you definitely have a better distribution plan than I have. Good luck to ya!

jasonkester 16y ago

I tried to click past the signup form so that I could try it out, but it gave me this: 10 errors prohibited this user from being saved There were problems with the following fields: Password can't be blank Password is too short (minimum is 6 characters) Password is too short (minimum is 6 characters) Password confirmation can't be blank Login can't be blank Login is too short (minimum is 3 characters) Login use only letters, numbers, and .-_@ please. Email can't be blank Email is too short (minimum is 6 characters) Email should look like an email address. Or, translated: These 10 arbitrary barriers just cost us a potential customer. You guys offer a Free plan, fer cryin' out loud. Let us try your thing without filling in a form. It looks like a cool product, but it's 2011 and people stumbling in off the Internet have zero attention span and zero tolerance for hassle. If I can't get to a working demo with a single click from your homepage, I'm gone. And so is a hefty fraction of your potential userbase.

keen 16y ago
"If I can't get to a working demo with a single click from your homepage, I'm gone." Agreed. I think I'll make this a rule for my future projects.
matt1 16y ago
Thanks -- a demo of the export tool is definitely something I'd like to implement, but doing so would have postponed the launch by a week or two. I made the decision to launch without it and that's that. Appreciate the feedback as it helps me prioritize what to work on next.
- jasonkester 16y ago
  Why would it take any more time? If you absolutely need to have user accounts behind the scenes, you can just point your "Try It Now" button to a page that creates a dummy user record "guest6772343/dummypassword" and logs in as that user. Forward to the application, and you're done. You can have this up and working 5 minutes from now. EDIT: For an idea of why this is important to do, and how important it is to do it (in terms of how many more users you'll unbounce), here's a writeup of the day we accidentally launched Twiddla, and the consequences of going through the quick 5-minute login-bypass exercise I describe above: http://www.twiddla.com/blog/2007/04/1000-signups-on-day-one.html http://www.twiddla.com/blog/2007/04/1000-signups-on-day-one....

MatthewB 16y ago

Good idea in theory but I won't sign up to try it out for the first time. You should give a sandbox to play with but to export make a user sign up.

BasDirks 16y ago

I like your idea, but be "warned" :D -> I'm building something like this for free. (And there are many others who are getting into these kind of website apps). Sent you an e-mail.

matt1 16y ago
I'm not too worried - we'll see in 10 years who still exists :)
- BasDirks 16y ago
  I sure hope you will, it's a great concept.

frankdenbow 16y ago

Nice job. More templates and integrate some color scheme templates and you've got a winner.

volandovengo 15y ago

Nice job! This will make building sits a lot faster :). I would love a demo video on the homepage rather than needing to try it out myself.

vinautomatic 15y ago

Matt looks good I just signed up - I'll have time to tinker around with it this week. Very promising. I'm very interested in these tools and your competition (psd2cssonline.com, divine, etc.) in this field. I just moved away from Boston to Florida after 25 years but I'll be up there frequently and maybe we can catch coffee and chat.

bgriggs1 15y ago

Have an actual designer take an hour and spruce up your design. If your target audience is designers light on coding (and likely high on aesthetics) a quality design will go a long way in getting them to stick around.