5 ms·

YC Facelift: Pebble

116 points by mahipal 14y ago

kenrikm 14y ago
I like your design better, much cleaner. I was not a fan of the exec redesign you did however this one is a big Improvement. Good job.
untog 14y ago
Unlike most of the other facelifts, I'd say that the inPulse web site is definitely in need of a refresh. So this was interesting to see.
flavien_bessede 14y ago
You should start accepting requests, I know so many startups that could use a big redesign.
Angostura 14y ago
Coming at this fresh, I have absolutely no idea what a facelift is in this context, and you don't give any. Have you redesigned their web site? The product? What's the relevance of biosensing? Confusing.
- pg_bot 14y ago
  The author has been redesigning the landing pages of different YC companies.
ryanglasgow 14y ago
No offense but this looks like a generic template with content filled in. A clean and simple design like this needs to demonstrate excellent typography and spacing, neither of which I see here. If you wanted to let the product speak for itself, I would have drawn inspiration from Flipboard or Path. Both of these sites heavily rely a clean design coupled with custom typography and a well integrated video.
replicatorblog 14y ago
It would be cool if you included the "Before" in the blog post as well. Nice work on the design, especially for a medical student!
ericabiz 14y ago
A couple things about this one that didn't click with me: 1) You mention "iPhone" at the top. Sorry, I've already clicked "Back"--I'm an Android user. Except Pebble is the first thing I've ever funded via Kickstarter, and I'm ridiculously excited about it, so I'm clearly in their target market. 2) I don't get the "Beam your music, Scotty." part--it's not the biggest draw for me (and I'm not a Star Wars/Trek person, despite being a huge geek!) My biggest interest in Pebble? It's a watch that lets ME do what I want with it--I can display the time in weird fonts, or make it say: seven thirty THREE ...or any of those other cool things. In other words, it's the design and flexibility that interest me more than the features. Pebble lets me be crafty...with my WATCH. That is freakin' awesome. It is SO awesome that I will be wearing a watch for the first time in years. And that's exciting. I feel like this page misses that genuine excitement that got me to buy a Pebble and tell all my friends about it.
- kyro 14y ago
  Fair criticisms. However, you're speaking, presumably, from the perspective of a developer – someone who'll be writing apps for and fiddling with their Pebble. I designed this from the perspective of a consumer who intends to purchase the product because of its looks and the apps available for it already. The iDevices are not advertised in a way that directly appeals to tinkerers and developers, but rather to everyday people who want a cool device that does cool things. Of course, I'm assuming who Pebble's target market is, and I could very well be wrong.
  - ericabiz 14y ago
    Probably not, actually--although that's a fair guess based on both the content of my post and the fact that it resides on Hacker News. I'm swamped with my own business currently. I'm more of the "consumer interested in the looks and apps" category.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- astrodust 14y ago
  It's interesting you say "I'm an Android user" instead of "I have an Android phone".
citricsquid 14y ago
I think this idea is cool (YC Facelift) but without explaining why you did what you did your designs are just "oooo pretty". Nobody will learn from your work if you can't explain why you did what you did, and if you can't explain why then the criticisms here are probably valid. Design is more than just pretty.
eel 14y ago
How did you decide what to include on the page? One thing that I noticed was that you removed the news mentions from this facelift, but the one you did last week has news mentions.
justjimmy 14y ago
Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives zero context, no interaction, no brief, no reasoning. It's purely visual reformatting. Every placement of content, layout has a reason – you need to provide those in order for us, the reader, to understand your thought process and why you did the things you did. I'd suggest taking it a step further to give more 'meat' to your posts. Use services like Invisionapp to create clickable hotspots to allow users to explore the redesigned site. Offer your thoughts as you go through the process. A simple image with a few words on the product and why it's awesome doesn't really tell us anything about your process. (Design is about solving problems – you also need to identify what is wrong with the original design, then offer your solution and explain why they are better)
- kyro 14y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. You're not the first to suggest the need to include my reasons for design decisions I've made with these. I'll work on that for the next one.
  - wdewind 14y ago
    It's not only that you need to explain your reasoning...it's also that you operate in a vacuum. The constraints of actual designers are rarely "you get a shittily designed page, do WHATEVER you want with it." (Not saying the current YC pages are shittily designed, in fact while some of them are not aesthetically pleasing they all look reasonably well thought out). I think all OP is saying is "beware, you're only getting the aesthetic practice, and in design it turns out thats really a very minor part of what's important."
    - bmelton 14y ago
      I was about to post something similar, but saw this, and it's close enough to what I was going to say, so I'll piggyback. First, let me start by saying that I think that in every case, Kyro's redesign has been superior to the original page in the broad sense. Most of what I'm seeing as complaints have to do more with copy and content than the design, which for a designer should be a good thing, right? Maybe. In my opinion, content and design are interlinked so heavily that it's impossible to separate the two. Good design accentuates the copy, and good copy accentuates the design. The design should visually reinforce the message at every step. While I think these redesigns are great exercises, and are sure to benefit Kyro more than not, I think what they're missing is the key to good design, which is interacting with the product team, learning the message, figuring out how to surface hints of that message at every turn, but without beating users over the head with it. The only other complaint is that yeah, these designs look a little stock. There's nothing to stop me from coopting this design as a WP theme and selling it to 100 other companies looking for a good product page. Nothing wrong with that, but a great design is unique, and can only work for the product it's for. http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/ http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/ is a good example. There's almost nothing else that page could exist for. Nobody can steal that design because it's way too close to the product. Anyway, I don't mean to sound like I'm coming down on anybody -- I think these designs are good, but since Kyro specifically mentioned that he's trying to improve, thought I'd offer some of what I consider to be important in design that isn't just aesthetic.
pault 14y ago
I don't think there is anything wrong with what you are doing, but I hope people understand that there are many, many talented designers out there working for companies with horrendous websites. It's very easy to make a PSD mockup of a single landing page working in a vacuum. However, see how that pretty PSD looks after making its way past meddling founders, overworked devs that don't give a damn about aesthetics, and technology constraints. Building beautiful websites in a business environment is hard.
aaronkwhite 14y ago
I really like the clean design and simple color palette, the one thing I would address is the Typography. You've clearly chosen a non-standard typeset, however I think it's extremely understated in this design. There are some really good points about not highlighting both iOS & Android as supported platforms (Android has a much larger user base). One of the really cool things about the Pebble, is that you can grab apps for it or build your own and this is really lost in the design you have. I love that you are taking on these types of projects/exercises! Don't get caught up in all the negative bias, you'll never please everyone... Would love to see an update to this design, to see how you execute with this type of feedback. Keep it Up!
SomeComments 14y ago
Gee, it sure would have been nice to see that the watch communicates with all these marvelous devices via bluetooth. I mean really. Why are we left to assume that it's a bluetooth watch? Why can't they just come out and say it? Are they shy or something? Do they themselves secretly believe that by stating that it is a bluetooth device that they some how lower the watch? Why do they insult their ostensibly budding (zomg! rockstar ninja!11one) "hacker" community with stupid diagrams like this? http://www.getinpulse.com/images/how-it-works.jpg http://www.getinpulse.com/images/how-it-works.jpg
- SomeComments 14y ago
  Seriously, the first place I could find where they explicitly state that the watch communicates via bluetooth was here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.getinpulse https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.getinpulse
  - superchink 14y ago
    Check out the kickstarter page for the product: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper... . It's very clear about Bluetooth being the method of communication.
web_chops 14y ago
I think pebble is the next big thing and might even get rid of its dependence on the mobile phone in future. Just imagine Siri helping you get through your day with out taking the phone out of the pocket!
gwillis13 14y ago
kyro, I would actually like to see you do a design that doesn't fall into the "web 2.0" trend. Your designs overall are nice, and flows well, but falls in the realm of "template" in my eyes. Really push the boundary of the design to stand out from the rest. Also don't take this as all web 2.0 sites are similar, or you can't pull inspiration from them. Just something refreshing to break the mold of mundane would be nice.

116 points by mahipal 14y ago

I like your design better, much cleaner. I was not a fan of the exec redesign you did however this one is a big Improvement. Good job.

untog 14y ago

Unlike most of the other facelifts, I'd say that the inPulse web site is definitely in need of a refresh. So this was interesting to see.

flavien_bessede 14y ago

You should start accepting requests, I know so many startups that could use a big redesign.

Angostura 14y ago

Coming at this fresh, I have absolutely no idea what a facelift is in this context, and you don't give any. Have you redesigned their web site? The product? What's the relevance of biosensing? Confusing.

pg_bot 14y ago
The author has been redesigning the landing pages of different YC companies.

ryanglasgow 14y ago

No offense but this looks like a generic template with content filled in. A clean and simple design like this needs to demonstrate excellent typography and spacing, neither of which I see here. If you wanted to let the product speak for itself, I would have drawn inspiration from Flipboard or Path. Both of these sites heavily rely a clean design coupled with custom typography and a well integrated video.

replicatorblog 14y ago

It would be cool if you included the "Before" in the blog post as well. Nice work on the design, especially for a medical student!

ericabiz 14y ago

A couple things about this one that didn't click with me: 1) You mention "iPhone" at the top. Sorry, I've already clicked "Back"--I'm an Android user. Except Pebble is the first thing I've ever funded via Kickstarter, and I'm ridiculously excited about it, so I'm clearly in their target market. 2) I don't get the "Beam your music, Scotty." part--it's not the biggest draw for me (and I'm not a Star Wars/Trek person, despite being a huge geek!) My biggest interest in Pebble? It's a watch that lets ME do what I want with it--I can display the time in weird fonts, or make it say: seven thirty THREE ...or any of those other cool things. In other words, it's the design and flexibility that interest me more than the features. Pebble lets me be crafty...with my WATCH. That is freakin' awesome. It is SO awesome that I will be wearing a watch for the first time in years. And that's exciting. I feel like this page misses that genuine excitement that got me to buy a Pebble and tell all my friends about it.

kyro 14y ago
Fair criticisms. However, you're speaking, presumably, from the perspective of a developer – someone who'll be writing apps for and fiddling with their Pebble. I designed this from the perspective of a consumer who intends to purchase the product because of its looks and the apps available for it already. The iDevices are not advertised in a way that directly appeals to tinkerers and developers, but rather to everyday people who want a cool device that does cool things. Of course, I'm assuming who Pebble's target market is, and I could very well be wrong.
- ericabiz 14y ago
  Probably not, actually--although that's a fair guess based on both the content of my post and the fact that it resides on Hacker News. I'm swamped with my own business currently. I'm more of the "consumer interested in the looks and apps" category.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
astrodust 14y ago
It's interesting you say "I'm an Android user" instead of "I have an Android phone".

citricsquid 14y ago

I think this idea is cool (YC Facelift) but without explaining why you did what you did your designs are just "oooo pretty". Nobody will learn from your work if you can't explain why you did what you did, and if you can't explain why then the criticisms here are probably valid. Design is more than just pretty.

eel 14y ago

How did you decide what to include on the page? One thing that I noticed was that you removed the news mentions from this facelift, but the one you did last week has news mentions.

justjimmy 14y ago

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives zero context, no interaction, no brief, no reasoning. It's purely visual reformatting. Every placement of content, layout has a reason – you need to provide those in order for us, the reader, to understand your thought process and why you did the things you did. I'd suggest taking it a step further to give more 'meat' to your posts. Use services like Invisionapp to create clickable hotspots to allow users to explore the redesigned site. Offer your thoughts as you go through the process. A simple image with a few words on the product and why it's awesome doesn't really tell us anything about your process. (Design is about solving problems – you also need to identify what is wrong with the original design, then offer your solution and explain why they are better)

kyro 14y ago
Thanks for the feedback. You're not the first to suggest the need to include my reasons for design decisions I've made with these. I'll work on that for the next one.
- wdewind 14y ago
  It's not only that you need to explain your reasoning...it's also that you operate in a vacuum. The constraints of actual designers are rarely "you get a shittily designed page, do WHATEVER you want with it." (Not saying the current YC pages are shittily designed, in fact while some of them are not aesthetically pleasing they all look reasonably well thought out). I think all OP is saying is "beware, you're only getting the aesthetic practice, and in design it turns out thats really a very minor part of what's important."
  - bmelton 14y ago
    I was about to post something similar, but saw this, and it's close enough to what I was going to say, so I'll piggyback. First, let me start by saying that I think that in every case, Kyro's redesign has been superior to the original page in the broad sense. Most of what I'm seeing as complaints have to do more with copy and content than the design, which for a designer should be a good thing, right? Maybe. In my opinion, content and design are interlinked so heavily that it's impossible to separate the two. Good design accentuates the copy, and good copy accentuates the design. The design should visually reinforce the message at every step. While I think these redesigns are great exercises, and are sure to benefit Kyro more than not, I think what they're missing is the key to good design, which is interacting with the product team, learning the message, figuring out how to surface hints of that message at every turn, but without beating users over the head with it. The only other complaint is that yeah, these designs look a little stock. There's nothing to stop me from coopting this design as a WP theme and selling it to 100 other companies looking for a good product page. Nothing wrong with that, but a great design is unique, and can only work for the product it's for. http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/ http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/ is a good example. There's almost nothing else that page could exist for. Nobody can steal that design because it's way too close to the product. Anyway, I don't mean to sound like I'm coming down on anybody -- I think these designs are good, but since Kyro specifically mentioned that he's trying to improve, thought I'd offer some of what I consider to be important in design that isn't just aesthetic.

pault 14y ago

I don't think there is anything wrong with what you are doing, but I hope people understand that there are many, many talented designers out there working for companies with horrendous websites. It's very easy to make a PSD mockup of a single landing page working in a vacuum. However, see how that pretty PSD looks after making its way past meddling founders, overworked devs that don't give a damn about aesthetics, and technology constraints. Building beautiful websites in a business environment is hard.

aaronkwhite 14y ago

I really like the clean design and simple color palette, the one thing I would address is the Typography. You've clearly chosen a non-standard typeset, however I think it's extremely understated in this design. There are some really good points about not highlighting both iOS & Android as supported platforms (Android has a much larger user base). One of the really cool things about the Pebble, is that you can grab apps for it or build your own and this is really lost in the design you have. I love that you are taking on these types of projects/exercises! Don't get caught up in all the negative bias, you'll never please everyone... Would love to see an update to this design, to see how you execute with this type of feedback. Keep it Up!

SomeComments 14y ago

Gee, it sure would have been nice to see that the watch communicates with all these marvelous devices via bluetooth. I mean really. Why are we left to assume that it's a bluetooth watch? Why can't they just come out and say it? Are they shy or something? Do they themselves secretly believe that by stating that it is a bluetooth device that they some how lower the watch? Why do they insult their ostensibly budding (zomg! rockstar ninja!11one) "hacker" community with stupid diagrams like this? http://www.getinpulse.com/images/how-it-works.jpg http://www.getinpulse.com/images/how-it-works.jpg

SomeComments 14y ago
Seriously, the first place I could find where they explicitly state that the watch communicates via bluetooth was here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.getinpulse https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.getinpulse
- superchink 14y ago
  Check out the kickstarter page for the product: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper... . It's very clear about Bluetooth being the method of communication.

web_chops 14y ago

I think pebble is the next big thing and might even get rid of its dependence on the mobile phone in future. Just imagine Siri helping you get through your day with out taking the phone out of the pocket!

gwillis13 14y ago

kyro, I would actually like to see you do a design that doesn't fall into the "web 2.0" trend. Your designs overall are nice, and flows well, but falls in the realm of "template" in my eyes. Really push the boundary of the design to stand out from the rest. Also don't take this as all web 2.0 sites are similar, or you can't pull inspiration from them. Just something refreshing to break the mold of mundane would be nice.