3 ms·

Ask HN: Review our Landing Page

4 points by michael_fine 15y ago

We're a (pretty good) group of developers who have been working on improving our design skills. We'd love it if you could give your feedback on our design, layout and prose. www.musicmind.co Thanks.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
michael_fine 15y ago
clickable: http://www.musicmind.co http://www.musicmind.co
anigbrowl 15y ago
Who is this for - fans, bands, administrators? I can't tell if it's an end-user service or a framework. If the former, how does it integrate with iTunes or any of the myriad other music services? If the latter, how will this help me build traffic over a competitor's offering? Also, I hate the gray color. It looks like concrete with blue plastic tape. On the positive side, I like the idea of social discovery via music and music discovery via social networking, particularly the former. One way to highlight this would be to let me search for an artist or genre and then offer contacts with people who are already fans of that and can recommend other music in the same genre. Lots of luck!
- michael_fine 15y ago
  Thanks, great constructive feedback. A point by point: It's for both fans, and bans. The interactions will be fan to fan and band to fan. Its a social network, not currently a framework. It will help you build traffic because currently the only way to interact with fans is either through face to face, or another network like facebook, which is an imperfect medium because: a: It's not designed around music and therefore is hard/impossible to share your playlist, or to have more interactions with a band than simply posting on their wall. b: Spotify is a stopgap service, which is doing kind of well on the social front but not the artist front. For example, Lady Gaga recently took her music off spotify after earning a grand total of: $100 dollars through streaming. On the design, okay, I definitively see that. Do you have any colors/patterns you'd recommend? Thank you so much.
  - anigbrowl 15y ago
    That sounds positive, and I hope you'll keep posting progress! On the design side, you need a pro - but I feel like start with photos and bolder fonts, brand yourself more assertively.
adityar 15y ago
0. I really like your background. 1. I think all your icons should have the same color shade. I thought the + sign was something special at first glance(functionally). 2. The layout could be closer to how the page is traversed visually. to view the benefits,i have to look at all four corners first. a sample ex: < all your icons in one line with names below> < pitch text> <signup/call to action> 3. I agree with dwynings that the text is hard to read due to shadow/font choice 4. Don't know which call to action is better: build a library or connect with artists. having both dilutes the value proposition. Maybe some A/B testing would be in order.
dwynings 15y ago
I think this is something that I'd like – but it's very hard to figure out from the landing page copy. It's unclear who the site is actually for... only try to sell to one person at a time. The text is incredibly difficult to read, largely due to the text shadow being set at -2px (try just 1px), but also because of the font. The shadow of the text also isn't consistent with the shadow of the header bar. The icons look like they were picked from different iconsets, and also pixelated in some cases. The positioning of the icons isn't ideal to me, nor is only showing the description text on hover. It actually took me awhile to realize that information was there. The footer links on hover also have an entirely different shadow not consistent with the header or text. Your site is focused on one of the coolest verticals, and yet the design is sort of boring. Hope this helps!
- michael_fine 15y ago
  Thanks, I really appreciate this. The icons were a particular challenge. Do you have any favorite icon sets?
  - dwynings 15y ago
    I prefer minimal glyphs like http://iconsweets2.com/ http://iconsweets2.com/
michael_fine 15y ago
Thank all of you for your comments. One questions. All of the commenters have mentioned individual design things, which have been very helpful. But does anyone like/dislike the basic layout of the page?
kappaknight 15y ago
Honestly, the default LaunchRock page would appeal more to me than what you guys currently have. http://launchrock.com/ http://launchrock.com/ Music is about passion, and this design doesn't convey any emotions at all. Also, why are you building yet another social network for music? MySpace failed. Apple's Ping failed miserably. Both of those have huge backers. What makes this different? Did bands actually ask for it?
- michael_fine 15y ago
  Wow, that's an interesting take. I'll assure you that we do have passion, though maybe not much design sense.
  - kappaknight 15y ago
    I know coders gotta code, but I would seriously evaluate the need for such a service before diving head first into it. You may be better off creating a service that allows artists to embed music on the new Facebook Timeline and charging artists for running that iFrame or something. People really, and I mean REALLY do not want to join another social network when there are already so many to manage. Google+ is learning this the hard way.
JoshuaChe 15y ago
Thanks for the feedback. We really are trying to design a great launch page. This is not the application but we are definitely trying to attract artists, users, and potential team members.
dgunn 15y ago
Few questions not necessarily about design so feel free to not upvote. I'm wondering why you're creating this. Who has asked for it? Really, myspace is largely considered a failure and they are actually quite huge in this arena. They have a ton of bands still using their service and they make money. You can aspire to be as big as they are, but remember, they're largely considered a failure. Also, what's up with the gigantic team? You're building a bloated, slow company from the ground up. If you're going after the social networks of the world, you need a nimble team that can execute an idea within hours of realizing it is necessary and a team this size will very quickly become unmanageable. You already have 8 people and you're looking for two more! A team this size makes me think you're planning to build this entire application in a vacuum (devoid of any user input) and you think you need a lot of devs to get it done quickly. That's the end of my flame. As for the design, I actually really like it. I like the general layout quite a lot. Few recommendations: It's hard to read because of the text and you need to clean up your english a bit. For example, "building relationships between fans, musicians, all while allowing anyone to build a personal online library of music." isn't a list of similar things. That's two similar things and something completely different. Doesn't feel right when you read it. There are a few examples of this. Whether you're asking for advice on my first two paragraphs or not, I would really appreciate you answering them as I am really curious. You can email me if you don't want to answer on here. Email in the profile.

4 points by michael_fine 15y ago

We're a (pretty good) group of developers who have been working on improving our design skills. We'd love it if you could give your feedback on our design, layout and prose. www.musicmind.co Thanks.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

michael_fine 15y ago

clickable: http://www.musicmind.co http://www.musicmind.co

anigbrowl 15y ago

Who is this for - fans, bands, administrators? I can't tell if it's an end-user service or a framework. If the former, how does it integrate with iTunes or any of the myriad other music services? If the latter, how will this help me build traffic over a competitor's offering? Also, I hate the gray color. It looks like concrete with blue plastic tape. On the positive side, I like the idea of social discovery via music and music discovery via social networking, particularly the former. One way to highlight this would be to let me search for an artist or genre and then offer contacts with people who are already fans of that and can recommend other music in the same genre. Lots of luck!

michael_fine 15y ago
Thanks, great constructive feedback. A point by point: It's for both fans, and bans. The interactions will be fan to fan and band to fan. Its a social network, not currently a framework. It will help you build traffic because currently the only way to interact with fans is either through face to face, or another network like facebook, which is an imperfect medium because: a: It's not designed around music and therefore is hard/impossible to share your playlist, or to have more interactions with a band than simply posting on their wall. b: Spotify is a stopgap service, which is doing kind of well on the social front but not the artist front. For example, Lady Gaga recently took her music off spotify after earning a grand total of: $100 dollars through streaming. On the design, okay, I definitively see that. Do you have any colors/patterns you'd recommend? Thank you so much.
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  That sounds positive, and I hope you'll keep posting progress! On the design side, you need a pro - but I feel like start with photos and bolder fonts, brand yourself more assertively.

adityar 15y ago

0. I really like your background. 1. I think all your icons should have the same color shade. I thought the + sign was something special at first glance(functionally). 2. The layout could be closer to how the page is traversed visually. to view the benefits,i have to look at all four corners first. a sample ex: < all your icons in one line with names below> < pitch text> <signup/call to action> 3. I agree with dwynings that the text is hard to read due to shadow/font choice 4. Don't know which call to action is better: build a library or connect with artists. having both dilutes the value proposition. Maybe some A/B testing would be in order.

dwynings 15y ago

I think this is something that I'd like – but it's very hard to figure out from the landing page copy. It's unclear who the site is actually for... only try to sell to one person at a time. The text is incredibly difficult to read, largely due to the text shadow being set at -2px (try just 1px), but also because of the font. The shadow of the text also isn't consistent with the shadow of the header bar. The icons look like they were picked from different iconsets, and also pixelated in some cases. The positioning of the icons isn't ideal to me, nor is only showing the description text on hover. It actually took me awhile to realize that information was there. The footer links on hover also have an entirely different shadow not consistent with the header or text. Your site is focused on one of the coolest verticals, and yet the design is sort of boring. Hope this helps!

michael_fine 15y ago
Thanks, I really appreciate this. The icons were a particular challenge. Do you have any favorite icon sets?
- dwynings 15y ago
  I prefer minimal glyphs like http://iconsweets2.com/ http://iconsweets2.com/

michael_fine 15y ago

Thank all of you for your comments. One questions. All of the commenters have mentioned individual design things, which have been very helpful. But does anyone like/dislike the basic layout of the page?

kappaknight 15y ago

Honestly, the default LaunchRock page would appeal more to me than what you guys currently have. http://launchrock.com/ http://launchrock.com/ Music is about passion, and this design doesn't convey any emotions at all. Also, why are you building yet another social network for music? MySpace failed. Apple's Ping failed miserably. Both of those have huge backers. What makes this different? Did bands actually ask for it?

michael_fine 15y ago
Wow, that's an interesting take. I'll assure you that we do have passion, though maybe not much design sense.
- kappaknight 15y ago
  I know coders gotta code, but I would seriously evaluate the need for such a service before diving head first into it. You may be better off creating a service that allows artists to embed music on the new Facebook Timeline and charging artists for running that iFrame or something. People really, and I mean REALLY do not want to join another social network when there are already so many to manage. Google+ is learning this the hard way.

JoshuaChe 15y ago

Thanks for the feedback. We really are trying to design a great launch page. This is not the application but we are definitely trying to attract artists, users, and potential team members.

dgunn 15y ago

Few questions not necessarily about design so feel free to not upvote. I'm wondering why you're creating this. Who has asked for it? Really, myspace is largely considered a failure and they are actually quite huge in this arena. They have a ton of bands still using their service and they make money. You can aspire to be as big as they are, but remember, they're largely considered a failure. Also, what's up with the gigantic team? You're building a bloated, slow company from the ground up. If you're going after the social networks of the world, you need a nimble team that can execute an idea within hours of realizing it is necessary and a team this size will very quickly become unmanageable. You already have 8 people and you're looking for two more! A team this size makes me think you're planning to build this entire application in a vacuum (devoid of any user input) and you think you need a lot of devs to get it done quickly. That's the end of my flame. As for the design, I actually really like it. I like the general layout quite a lot. Few recommendations: It's hard to read because of the text and you need to clean up your english a bit. For example, "building relationships between fans, musicians, all while allowing anyone to build a personal online library of music." isn't a list of similar things. That's two similar things and something completely different. Doesn't feel right when you read it. There are a few examples of this. Whether you're asking for advice on my first two paragraphs or not, I would really appreciate you answering them as I am really curious. You can email me if you don't want to answer on here. Email in the profile.