6 ms·

Look at his main site: http://www.kalzumeus.com/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/. It's quite good looking and well designed.

irahul 15y ago
What about this one http://www.bingocardcreator.com/ http://www.bingocardcreator.com/ That doesn't look that good looking to me.
- melissamiranda 15y ago
  Right, but he made that years ago. He clearly invested a lot in design for kalzumeus.com, which he made much later. If anything, this is a case for figuring out that design does matter.
  - patio11 15y ago
    He clearly invested a lot in design for kalzumeus.com I love that it gives that impression. $99 logo, $70 wordpress template. Anyhow, as folks have noted, I'm not historically known for high-quality Web 2.0 design. I have vanishingly little design skill and poor taste, so I tend to do the minimum necessary to not scare away credit cards. I hope that the refresh on AR makes a positive impression on people, but making a positive impression on people who are not my customers is not super-high on my todo list.
    - eps 15y ago
      > I love that it gives that impression It doesn't, that's just your fan club talking. It looks like a run-of-the-mill WordPress theme. > Anyhow... What you just said translates into "Design doesn't really matter." There is a difference between doing minimum needed not to scare away customers, and refining the design to appeal to both existing and future audiences. Latter is the case of why design matters, former is not. Former is just the same common business sense that dictates to not be rude to your customers or not use green on red text.
      - irahul 15y ago
        > It doesn't, that's just your fan club talking. I think hostility(fan club) will only derail the conversation. Irrespective of whether the posters are fan boys or not, they are going to take offence, and then everything goes south.
        eps 15y ago
        It's not hostility, it's stating the obvious. patio11 as well as few other HN high-karmers get their most trivial comments routinely up voted to the top of every thread. It is reasonable to assume that this happens because a large number of people take triviality as revelations or insight because it comes from a person they really like. That's fanboyism. May not be the most neutral term, but it captures the essence of the problem - the lack of critical thinking. The comment about the website design (the one I took an issue with) had the exact same problem - if one removes the positive bias, the website looks bland at best. With regards to being an anonymous jerk - I like my privacy, but should it have been an in-person conversation I would've said the same thing and probably then some.
        semanticist 15y ago
        Comment sorting on HN is at least partly based on average karma values, so it's not necessarily a case of comments getting 'voted up to the top'.
        noahc 15y ago
        This is correct. I have a relatively high karma score on HN. When I post, I usually go to the top of the thread in either the #1 or #2 spot. This is an example of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, not some secret plan to up vote the Patrick.
        tptacek 15y ago
        What did your original comment contribute, other than expressing your displeasure that people pay attention to Patrick? You've managed, in the most irritating possible way, to tell us that you find Patrick's blog template bland. Does anyone find this helpful? I can say with almost total certainty, just based on the few words in your comments on these threads, that you care a thousand times more about Patrick's "HN karma" than he does.
    - melissamiranda 15y ago
      It's still a good looking site, and his copy is spot on. No one said design has to be very expensive or custom made, it just has to work. Ask anyone on the street if kalzumeus.com looks professional, and they'll say yes. That's what matters.
  - irahul 15y ago
    > He clearly invested a lot in design for kalzumeus.com, The site looks neat, and there is an attribution for wordpress and "woo themes" in the footer. Also, Patrick has posted below saying he didn't invest much in the ui(in terms of money or effort), which doesn't contradict anything. He said design matters; he didn't say one has to invest a lot of time and money.
- chc 15y ago
  Fortunately, you are not Patrick's target audience. He didn't say it had to make the design community swoon; just that it has to convey professionalism and draw your intended users in. I would bet the Bingo Card Creator website accomplishes these goals just fine for his core audience of middle-aged schoolteachers. Also, that site has not gotten a lot of attention for a while. His focus nowadays is on the much more attractive Appointment Reminder.
  - irahul 15y ago
    > He didn't say it had to make the design community swoon; just that it has to convey professionalism and draw your intended users in. That is a "no true scottsman" fallacy. When someone says design matters, it means having a pleasant design. BCC's design is not something that can be considered good. It still does business - that's great, but "it does business -> hence it has good design" doesn't hold.
    - anjc 15y ago
      """When someone says design matters, it means having a pleasant design""" 'Pleasant' to who? Myspace's design is/was pleasant to teenagers, for example. So surely design is tied closely to the audience. If the goal is, let's say, making money, and the site has been A/B tested extensively and this 'design' makes the most money from its audience, then it's presumably the best design. There are so many anomalously successful website designs that ye can't just say it's about 'pleasantness', unless your audience are graphic designers.
      - mattmanser 15y ago
        You're morphing the meaning of design that was conveyed in the article: A good looking, well designed website will convey credibility and professionalism. Even if you’re just two guys coding at a Starbucks, you can look like a big, well-known brand. Invest in design. BCC does not convey credibility and professionalism and is not good looking. It doesn't look like a Starbucks brand, it looks like some guy in his bedroom put it together. appointmentreminder.org, on the other hand, does follow that advice. So either Patio11's ignoring his own advice, the author misinterpreted it or Patio11forgot to add 'tailor to your market', which BCC might be.
- rmc 15y ago
  I think that page has been A/B tested up the whazoo. It's probably optimised as much as possible to sell that software. I'll bet patio11 can put dollar figures on the placements of certain buttons, or the value of certain words.
  - anjc 15y ago
    What does it mean that your comment is half gray? You're more than likely totally correct so i hope it doesn't signify 'downvotes' or something...
    - rmc 15y ago
      Yes, it means downvotes. When you start going below 0 it starts greying out. I dunno why people were downvoting that comment, but it's been upvoted now and is non-grey.
      - anjc 15y ago
        Thanks, how do you downvote though?
        gigawatt 15y ago
        You have to have a minimum karma score to be able to downvote. I'm not sure what that score is though.
        anjc 15y ago
        Thanks. To be honest, one of the things i liked most about HN was the lack of downvoting (I never realised it was possible...i thought the grey posts were caused by mods or something). I know in effect there's no real difference...but the whole place felt more 'community' like. Ah well.
        zacharycohn 15y ago
        The min threshhold I think is now 500 karma. It's a way to ensure that only people who have been around for a while and understand the community have the ability to downvote, and the rule is only downvote contentless posts (like memes, "+1"'s, etc).
- Joe_Knapp 15y ago
  The design is for conversion not aesthetics.
- OpenAmazing 15y ago
  Are you a female elementary school teacher?

What about this one http://www.bingocardcreator.com/ http://www.bingocardcreator.com/ That doesn't look that good looking to me.

melissamiranda 15y ago
Right, but he made that years ago. He clearly invested a lot in design for kalzumeus.com, which he made much later. If anything, this is a case for figuring out that design does matter.
- patio11 15y ago
  He clearly invested a lot in design for kalzumeus.com I love that it gives that impression. $99 logo, $70 wordpress template. Anyhow, as folks have noted, I'm not historically known for high-quality Web 2.0 design. I have vanishingly little design skill and poor taste, so I tend to do the minimum necessary to not scare away credit cards. I hope that the refresh on AR makes a positive impression on people, but making a positive impression on people who are not my customers is not super-high on my todo list.
  - eps 15y ago
    > I love that it gives that impression It doesn't, that's just your fan club talking. It looks like a run-of-the-mill WordPress theme. > Anyhow... What you just said translates into "Design doesn't really matter." There is a difference between doing minimum needed not to scare away customers, and refining the design to appeal to both existing and future audiences. Latter is the case of why design matters, former is not. Former is just the same common business sense that dictates to not be rude to your customers or not use green on red text.
    - irahul 15y ago
      > It doesn't, that's just your fan club talking. I think hostility(fan club) will only derail the conversation. Irrespective of whether the posters are fan boys or not, they are going to take offence, and then everything goes south.
      - eps 15y ago
        It's not hostility, it's stating the obvious. patio11 as well as few other HN high-karmers get their most trivial comments routinely up voted to the top of every thread. It is reasonable to assume that this happens because a large number of people take triviality as revelations or insight because it comes from a person they really like. That's fanboyism. May not be the most neutral term, but it captures the essence of the problem - the lack of critical thinking. The comment about the website design (the one I took an issue with) had the exact same problem - if one removes the positive bias, the website looks bland at best. With regards to being an anonymous jerk - I like my privacy, but should it have been an in-person conversation I would've said the same thing and probably then some.
        semanticist 15y ago
        Comment sorting on HN is at least partly based on average karma values, so it's not necessarily a case of comments getting 'voted up to the top'.
        noahc 15y ago
        This is correct. I have a relatively high karma score on HN. When I post, I usually go to the top of the thread in either the #1 or #2 spot. This is an example of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, not some secret plan to up vote the Patrick.
        tptacek 15y ago
        What did your original comment contribute, other than expressing your displeasure that people pay attention to Patrick? You've managed, in the most irritating possible way, to tell us that you find Patrick's blog template bland. Does anyone find this helpful? I can say with almost total certainty, just based on the few words in your comments on these threads, that you care a thousand times more about Patrick's "HN karma" than he does.
  - melissamiranda 15y ago
    It's still a good looking site, and his copy is spot on. No one said design has to be very expensive or custom made, it just has to work. Ask anyone on the street if kalzumeus.com looks professional, and they'll say yes. That's what matters.
- irahul 15y ago
  > He clearly invested a lot in design for kalzumeus.com, The site looks neat, and there is an attribution for wordpress and "woo themes" in the footer. Also, Patrick has posted below saying he didn't invest much in the ui(in terms of money or effort), which doesn't contradict anything. He said design matters; he didn't say one has to invest a lot of time and money.
chc 15y ago
Fortunately, you are not Patrick's target audience. He didn't say it had to make the design community swoon; just that it has to convey professionalism and draw your intended users in. I would bet the Bingo Card Creator website accomplishes these goals just fine for his core audience of middle-aged schoolteachers. Also, that site has not gotten a lot of attention for a while. His focus nowadays is on the much more attractive Appointment Reminder.
- irahul 15y ago
  > He didn't say it had to make the design community swoon; just that it has to convey professionalism and draw your intended users in. That is a "no true scottsman" fallacy. When someone says design matters, it means having a pleasant design. BCC's design is not something that can be considered good. It still does business - that's great, but "it does business -> hence it has good design" doesn't hold.
  - anjc 15y ago
    """When someone says design matters, it means having a pleasant design""" 'Pleasant' to who? Myspace's design is/was pleasant to teenagers, for example. So surely design is tied closely to the audience. If the goal is, let's say, making money, and the site has been A/B tested extensively and this 'design' makes the most money from its audience, then it's presumably the best design. There are so many anomalously successful website designs that ye can't just say it's about 'pleasantness', unless your audience are graphic designers.
    - mattmanser 15y ago
      You're morphing the meaning of design that was conveyed in the article: A good looking, well designed website will convey credibility and professionalism. Even if you’re just two guys coding at a Starbucks, you can look like a big, well-known brand. Invest in design. BCC does not convey credibility and professionalism and is not good looking. It doesn't look like a Starbucks brand, it looks like some guy in his bedroom put it together. appointmentreminder.org, on the other hand, does follow that advice. So either Patio11's ignoring his own advice, the author misinterpreted it or Patio11forgot to add 'tailor to your market', which BCC might be.
rmc 15y ago
I think that page has been A/B tested up the whazoo. It's probably optimised as much as possible to sell that software. I'll bet patio11 can put dollar figures on the placements of certain buttons, or the value of certain words.
- anjc 15y ago
  What does it mean that your comment is half gray? You're more than likely totally correct so i hope it doesn't signify 'downvotes' or something...
  - rmc 15y ago
    Yes, it means downvotes. When you start going below 0 it starts greying out. I dunno why people were downvoting that comment, but it's been upvoted now and is non-grey.
    - anjc 15y ago
      Thanks, how do you downvote though?
      - gigawatt 15y ago
        You have to have a minimum karma score to be able to downvote. I'm not sure what that score is though.
        anjc 15y ago
        Thanks. To be honest, one of the things i liked most about HN was the lack of downvoting (I never realised it was possible...i thought the grey posts were caused by mods or something). I know in effect there's no real difference...but the whole place felt more 'community' like. Ah well.
        zacharycohn 15y ago
        The min threshhold I think is now 500 karma. It's a way to ensure that only people who have been around for a while and understand the community have the ability to downvote, and the rule is only downvote contentless posts (like memes, "+1"'s, etc).
Joe_Knapp 15y ago
The design is for conversion not aesthetics.
OpenAmazing 15y ago
Are you a female elementary school teacher?