5 ms·

Enthusiastically seconded. Nothing makes me hit the back button faster on a startup/app website than a mostly-empty page with a video on it. Especially when the

by seldo 15y ago

Enthusiastically seconded. Nothing makes me hit the back button faster on a startup/app website than a mostly-empty page with a video on it. Especially when the video is just a close-up of somebody's face talking, i.e. there's nothing that requires a video to demonstrate.

qq66 15y ago
We have a text description at http://getliveloop.com http://getliveloop.com but to tell you the truth, the video is the easiest, and dare I say, quickest way to understand what we do. The reason we have the text is that our target users are PowerPoint users, who often work in settings where they cannot listen to audio. Obviously a site should have both text and video but I don't blame anyone who does the video first.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  > to tell you the truth, the video is the easiest, and dare I say, quickest way to understand what we do About 20 seconds in, your video says: Liveloop is a simple powerpoint plugin that lets everyone work on the document at the same time, seeing everyone else's changes as they type. That is the quickest way to understand what you do. If I want to see it in action, I can click through to a video demonstration.
  - natrius 15y ago
    A simple A/B test would answer this question.
    - PakG1 15y ago
      Out of curiosity, how do you A/B test understanding?
      - varikin 15y ago
        A/B testing understanding might not be feasible, but in the end, they are trying to sell their plugin so A/B testing for signups or sales or something like sounds like a good correlation to understanding.
    - TeMPOraL 15y ago
      http://untyped.com/untyping/2011/02/11/stop-ab-testing-and-make-out-like-a-bandit/ http://untyped.com/untyping/2011/02/11/stop-ab-testing-and-m...
    - neilk 15y ago
      How about doing hallway usability testing? Show the page to people in the target market for five seconds and then ask them "what does this company do?" Five of these will tell you everything you need to know. If you don't have a constant stream of fresh users walking through your offices, you can do something on http://www.usertesting.com/ http://www.usertesting.com/ .
  - neilk 15y ago
    Unless they just changed it, they seem to have snappy taglines that explain it well already: Liveloop is really real-time collaboration within Powerpoint Collaborate in real-time, keystroke by keystroke, without ever leaving Office. These aren't bad. I wonder if they have tested them with the target market. I have sympathy. It's a hard concept to get across. That said, it takes until 2:30 in the video before we see people collaborating on the same slide at the same time. And there might be a bit of meta-confusion because they're working on a presentation for "LiveLoop Zoo". I know that seems like a harmless self-reference, but I've seen people get tripped up on much easier ideas. That seems a bit wrong. I wonder if, instead of a video where I have to press "play", we could have a silent animation that starts immediately on the home page. Show two cartoon figures typing into PowerPoint screens, with their changes reflected immediately. (And it's never bad to show human faces with emotions.) Anyway, that sort of thing is hard, and they're to be commended for getting this far, my armchair criticism aside.
- rhizome 15y ago
  the video is the easiest, and dare I say, quickest way to understand what we do Another way of saying that is that the site's target audience is people for whom that video is the easiest/quickest way to receive knowledge.
- runako 15y ago
  I don't disagree that the video is the easiest and quickest way for you. The point is that it's harder for many/most users than reading text. Think about it in terms of system requirements: - Web page with text as the primary -> a browser - Web page with video as the primary -> a browser, sound device, sound output device, absence of anything else using the sound device (this means I have to pause my music), etc. More requirements -> fewer useful impressions. And again, what's wrong with writing? Even YC makes applicants send a (text) description of their plan. It should be a red flag if you cannot describe your business in a short text snippet.
  - qq66 15y ago
    I must not be clear, there is text right under the video, but the video is the one that gets the most responses.
    - runako 15y ago
      Yes, I saw the page. I'm not sure how you test that the video is getting more responses, but could it be that this is the case because you don't have your one-sentence pitch in text on the site? This is the pitch from the video, which isn't on the home page: Liveloop is a simple powerpoint plugin that lets everyone work on the document at the same time, seeing everyone else's changes as they type. That alone could be why the video converts better: it tells (not shows) what you do in a way the text doesn't. To do a fair test, you'd need to have text materially similar to what's in the video.
- DanBC 15y ago
  > The reason we have the text is that our target users are PowerPoint users, who often work in settings where they cannot listen to audio. You say a video is best, even though you also say that a video isn't best for your target audience? Accessibility makes things better for everyone, not just those people who need it. If you'd approached this with accessibility in mind you'd have realised that a video was sub-optimal, and come up with some form of text. That (while not covering everything) would have been more helpful for more people. As can be seen from the comments here.
  - qq66 15y ago
    I did design it with accessibility in mind. There is a text description right under the video, and there are captions on the video itself. But neither of those change the fact that the video is the most compelling way to communicate what we're doing.
    - DanBC 15y ago
      I apologise for my tone.
romansanchez 15y ago
I'm curious if videos really do scare people away. If you take a look at dropbox and cloudflare they do a really good job at using a video to demonstrate their product. Now taking into consideration the size of dropbox's and cloudflare's users, I'm more inclined to the idea that "videos work".
- kuahyeow 15y ago
  Not sure about scaring people away, just pushes time-conscious people away, which is true for me personally
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  I don't think I have ever seen Dropbox video, even though I have been using it for years.
- nhebb 15y ago
  It's not that videos scare people away, but they need to be augmented. Would Dropbox convert better if they had descriptive text on their home page, or at least made the features link more visible than the one in the footer? We'll never know unless Dropbox tests it and publishes the results. When I think of software sold to businesses, I'm reminded of the place I used to work where the president had the IT department disable the speakers on all new PC's. He didn't want employees sitting around watching videos or listening to music on company time. It may be hard to fathom for some people, but there are offices where playing videos (even demos) is frowned upon - especially in a cube farm. If you want to make conversions, think of all the barriers between you and the sale, and start knocking them down one by one. Making your products key features readable and crawl-able for search engines is an easy one.
  - kami8845 15y ago
    As someone from the affiliate space where EVERYTHING gets splittested I can tell you that videos generally own all other forms of website content when trying to get the user to do something (download, signup, buy). >Would Dropbox convert better if they had descriptive text on their home page, or at least made the features link more visible than the one in the footer? We'll never know unless Dropbox tests it and publishes the results. of course DB tested their homepage a ton

by seldo 15y ago

qq66 15y ago

We have a text description at http://getliveloop.com http://getliveloop.com but to tell you the truth, the video is the easiest, and dare I say, quickest way to understand what we do. The reason we have the text is that our target users are PowerPoint users, who often work in settings where they cannot listen to audio. Obviously a site should have both text and video but I don't blame anyone who does the video first.

pavel_lishin 15y ago
> to tell you the truth, the video is the easiest, and dare I say, quickest way to understand what we do About 20 seconds in, your video says: Liveloop is a simple powerpoint plugin that lets everyone work on the document at the same time, seeing everyone else's changes as they type. That is the quickest way to understand what you do. If I want to see it in action, I can click through to a video demonstration.
- natrius 15y ago
  A simple A/B test would answer this question.
  - PakG1 15y ago
    Out of curiosity, how do you A/B test understanding?
    - varikin 15y ago
      A/B testing understanding might not be feasible, but in the end, they are trying to sell their plugin so A/B testing for signups or sales or something like sounds like a good correlation to understanding.
  - TeMPOraL 15y ago
    http://untyped.com/untyping/2011/02/11/stop-ab-testing-and-make-out-like-a-bandit/ http://untyped.com/untyping/2011/02/11/stop-ab-testing-and-m...
  - neilk 15y ago
    How about doing hallway usability testing? Show the page to people in the target market for five seconds and then ask them "what does this company do?" Five of these will tell you everything you need to know. If you don't have a constant stream of fresh users walking through your offices, you can do something on http://www.usertesting.com/ http://www.usertesting.com/ .
- neilk 15y ago
  Unless they just changed it, they seem to have snappy taglines that explain it well already: Liveloop is really real-time collaboration within Powerpoint Collaborate in real-time, keystroke by keystroke, without ever leaving Office. These aren't bad. I wonder if they have tested them with the target market. I have sympathy. It's a hard concept to get across. That said, it takes until 2:30 in the video before we see people collaborating on the same slide at the same time. And there might be a bit of meta-confusion because they're working on a presentation for "LiveLoop Zoo". I know that seems like a harmless self-reference, but I've seen people get tripped up on much easier ideas. That seems a bit wrong. I wonder if, instead of a video where I have to press "play", we could have a silent animation that starts immediately on the home page. Show two cartoon figures typing into PowerPoint screens, with their changes reflected immediately. (And it's never bad to show human faces with emotions.) Anyway, that sort of thing is hard, and they're to be commended for getting this far, my armchair criticism aside.
rhizome 15y ago
the video is the easiest, and dare I say, quickest way to understand what we do Another way of saying that is that the site's target audience is people for whom that video is the easiest/quickest way to receive knowledge.
runako 15y ago
I don't disagree that the video is the easiest and quickest way for you. The point is that it's harder for many/most users than reading text. Think about it in terms of system requirements: - Web page with text as the primary -> a browser - Web page with video as the primary -> a browser, sound device, sound output device, absence of anything else using the sound device (this means I have to pause my music), etc. More requirements -> fewer useful impressions. And again, what's wrong with writing? Even YC makes applicants send a (text) description of their plan. It should be a red flag if you cannot describe your business in a short text snippet.
- qq66 15y ago
  I must not be clear, there is text right under the video, but the video is the one that gets the most responses.
  - runako 15y ago
    Yes, I saw the page. I'm not sure how you test that the video is getting more responses, but could it be that this is the case because you don't have your one-sentence pitch in text on the site? This is the pitch from the video, which isn't on the home page: Liveloop is a simple powerpoint plugin that lets everyone work on the document at the same time, seeing everyone else's changes as they type. That alone could be why the video converts better: it tells (not shows) what you do in a way the text doesn't. To do a fair test, you'd need to have text materially similar to what's in the video.
DanBC 15y ago
> The reason we have the text is that our target users are PowerPoint users, who often work in settings where they cannot listen to audio. You say a video is best, even though you also say that a video isn't best for your target audience? Accessibility makes things better for everyone, not just those people who need it. If you'd approached this with accessibility in mind you'd have realised that a video was sub-optimal, and come up with some form of text. That (while not covering everything) would have been more helpful for more people. As can be seen from the comments here.
- qq66 15y ago
  I did design it with accessibility in mind. There is a text description right under the video, and there are captions on the video itself. But neither of those change the fact that the video is the most compelling way to communicate what we're doing.
  - DanBC 15y ago
    I apologise for my tone.

romansanchez 15y ago

I'm curious if videos really do scare people away. If you take a look at dropbox and cloudflare they do a really good job at using a video to demonstrate their product. Now taking into consideration the size of dropbox's and cloudflare's users, I'm more inclined to the idea that "videos work".

kuahyeow 15y ago
Not sure about scaring people away, just pushes time-conscious people away, which is true for me personally
TeMPOraL 15y ago
I don't think I have ever seen Dropbox video, even though I have been using it for years.
nhebb 15y ago
It's not that videos scare people away, but they need to be augmented. Would Dropbox convert better if they had descriptive text on their home page, or at least made the features link more visible than the one in the footer? We'll never know unless Dropbox tests it and publishes the results. When I think of software sold to businesses, I'm reminded of the place I used to work where the president had the IT department disable the speakers on all new PC's. He didn't want employees sitting around watching videos or listening to music on company time. It may be hard to fathom for some people, but there are offices where playing videos (even demos) is frowned upon - especially in a cube farm. If you want to make conversions, think of all the barriers between you and the sale, and start knocking them down one by one. Making your products key features readable and crawl-able for search engines is an easy one.
- kami8845 15y ago
  As someone from the affiliate space where EVERYTHING gets splittested I can tell you that videos generally own all other forms of website content when trying to get the user to do something (download, signup, buy). >Would Dropbox convert better if they had descriptive text on their home page, or at least made the features link more visible than the one in the footer? We'll never know unless Dropbox tests it and publishes the results. of course DB tested their homepage a ton