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Some web design advice: I looked for a tab called "Screenshots", didn't find one, didn't find any general info about what this is other than the buy now stuff,

Some web design advice: I looked for a tab called "Screenshots", didn't find one, didn't find any general info about what this is other than the buy now stuff, so I hit the Back button. Edit: I re-visited and scrolled down past what I thought was the end of the page only to find everything I was looking for. This is the problem with these huge scrolling marketing pages. You gotta lead with the content and then try to sell me at the bottom.

detrites 4y ago
Exact same thing happened here. Only went back because I saw your comment.
- sam0x17 4y ago
  Yeah, I think people take "single page application" a little too literally these days
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
DrewADesign 4y ago
Yeah. These folks should probably hire a designer. They clearly put a lot of fancy looking elements in it to attempt to replicate the look of a designed page, but that's not how it works. Many developers think design is like air freshener for a page-- an aesthetic improvement based on personal preference and taste that's distantly secondary to the real content. But colors, relationships between elements, placement of elements, and all of those things communicate about your product. If they're inexpertly or sloppily put together, it communicates that your product is inexpertly or sloppily put together well before they visually parse your copy and screenshots. Here's a free first impression breakdown for them: A page's social media link stripe is commonly at the bottom of the page as a final "ok you're not going to buy this right now, but at least keep us in mind" call to action, or at the very top of a page as a nav element. Gray is a common color for page terminal stripes or other perfunctory, de-emphasized components because nothing stands out against it as much as it would stand out against something else. Pricing schemes are either on a standalone page or at least after some introduction explains what they are. Seeing the gray stripe of social media links under the pricing block is like a stop sign to your brain. Beyond that, the "more options" button at the bottom of the page only reveals more options at the top of the page. The section of tiny screenshots half covered up with those boxes in that same "not important" gray is very off-putting. Not only does varying shades of gray text on white or various shades of gray background scream "don't pay attention to me," it's irritating to read, and their #969696 text on white on the purchase page even fails WCAG AA color contrast guidelines for headlines. Many elements are slightly misaligned. The complete lack of visual hierarchy beyond the project name and purchase section title leads users to subconsciously say "not worth the cognitive load to figure out what's going on here," and leave... and that was a sub 5-minute analysis. Most bounced users don't consciously think about why they left. They'll never complain about it because they'll never think about you again. There's a damn good reason big businesses put a lot of time and resources into that stuff, and as much as folks like to think otherwise, having developers as your customers doesn't change that. Developer-targeted FOSS projects get away with undesigned websites because it's free as in speech, and most people are probably looking at the very thoughtfully designed Github, et al interface instead. Even subconsciously, broken buttons, misaligned elements, uncomfortably obfuscated elements, and miscommunication of navigation cues through poor color choice does not communicate "high-quality paid software product that beats the vast array of free competition."
- stewartlynch8 4y ago
  Thanks for this advice. I'm currently in the process or re-doing the website and this is really useful feedback. Hopefully a lot of these issues have already been addressed. I'll be uploading the new site in a day or two. The sudden activity on this site kind of took me by surprise, I wasn't quite ready for the big reveal.
  - sam0x17 4y ago
    Just to add on here, I routinely scan the top navbar for an item saying "Screenshots" when I arrive at sites like this and if I don't find something like that I'm like wtf and leave
    - stewartlynch8 4y ago
      I can understand screenshots for things such as games, but for text editors, one text editor screenshot looks pretty much the same as the next. I don't think it is usual for software like this to have a sreenshots page. What sort of things are you looking for here? The new website will have gifs on the front page showing some of the features.
      - svlasov 4y ago
        For example I would be interested to see a debug mode with expandable variables and call stack, git changes highlight, flexible split layout with tabs support, toolbars if any, terminal integration, compilation log, file tree navigation, syntax highlight on non-trivial code, popups with symbol info, scrollbars minimap, markdown rendering.
      - sam0x17 4y ago
        Presumably some screenshots showing off how crisp the editor looks, font faces, color themes, auto completion working, how things are set up visually, is there a built-in terminal, etc etc, a picture is a thousand words with this kind of thing and IDEs are highly visual
      - 4y ago

detrites 4y ago

Exact same thing happened here. Only went back because I saw your comment.

sam0x17 4y ago
Yeah, I think people take "single page application" a little too literally these days

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

DrewADesign 4y ago

Yeah. These folks should probably hire a designer. They clearly put a lot of fancy looking elements in it to attempt to replicate the look of a designed page, but that's not how it works. Many developers think design is like air freshener for a page-- an aesthetic improvement based on personal preference and taste that's distantly secondary to the real content. But colors, relationships between elements, placement of elements, and all of those things communicate about your product. If they're inexpertly or sloppily put together, it communicates that your product is inexpertly or sloppily put together well before they visually parse your copy and screenshots. Here's a free first impression breakdown for them: A page's social media link stripe is commonly at the bottom of the page as a final "ok you're not going to buy this right now, but at least keep us in mind" call to action, or at the very top of a page as a nav element. Gray is a common color for page terminal stripes or other perfunctory, de-emphasized components because nothing stands out against it as much as it would stand out against something else. Pricing schemes are either on a standalone page or at least after some introduction explains what they are. Seeing the gray stripe of social media links under the pricing block is like a stop sign to your brain. Beyond that, the "more options" button at the bottom of the page only reveals more options at the top of the page. The section of tiny screenshots half covered up with those boxes in that same "not important" gray is very off-putting. Not only does varying shades of gray text on white or various shades of gray background scream "don't pay attention to me," it's irritating to read, and their #969696 text on white on the purchase page even fails WCAG AA color contrast guidelines for headlines. Many elements are slightly misaligned. The complete lack of visual hierarchy beyond the project name and purchase section title leads users to subconsciously say "not worth the cognitive load to figure out what's going on here," and leave... and that was a sub 5-minute analysis. Most bounced users don't consciously think about why they left. They'll never complain about it because they'll never think about you again. There's a damn good reason big businesses put a lot of time and resources into that stuff, and as much as folks like to think otherwise, having developers as your customers doesn't change that. Developer-targeted FOSS projects get away with undesigned websites because it's free as in speech, and most people are probably looking at the very thoughtfully designed Github, et al interface instead. Even subconsciously, broken buttons, misaligned elements, uncomfortably obfuscated elements, and miscommunication of navigation cues through poor color choice does not communicate "high-quality paid software product that beats the vast array of free competition."

stewartlynch8 4y ago
Thanks for this advice. I'm currently in the process or re-doing the website and this is really useful feedback. Hopefully a lot of these issues have already been addressed. I'll be uploading the new site in a day or two. The sudden activity on this site kind of took me by surprise, I wasn't quite ready for the big reveal.
- sam0x17 4y ago
  Just to add on here, I routinely scan the top navbar for an item saying "Screenshots" when I arrive at sites like this and if I don't find something like that I'm like wtf and leave
  - stewartlynch8 4y ago
    I can understand screenshots for things such as games, but for text editors, one text editor screenshot looks pretty much the same as the next. I don't think it is usual for software like this to have a sreenshots page. What sort of things are you looking for here? The new website will have gifs on the front page showing some of the features.
    - svlasov 4y ago
      For example I would be interested to see a debug mode with expandable variables and call stack, git changes highlight, flexible split layout with tabs support, toolbars if any, terminal integration, compilation log, file tree navigation, syntax highlight on non-trivial code, popups with symbol info, scrollbars minimap, markdown rendering.
    - sam0x17 4y ago
      Presumably some screenshots showing off how crisp the editor looks, font faces, color themes, auto completion working, how things are set up visually, is there a built-in terminal, etc etc, a picture is a thousand words with this kind of thing and IDEs are highly visual
    - 4y ago