4 ms·

An overlay requiring me to "Sign in" before I can even know what the hell the site is about? No thanks.

rhizome 14y ago
I noticed a comment in another story earlier today that it's a kind of call-to-action, which apparently is getting more popular. But then again, so is overlay pleading in general. "Shut up and give me your email address."
karthikksv 14y ago
As a quick overview, Napkin is a wireframing tool inspired by Balsamiq, Mockingbird, and Axure. It allows you to quickly mock up individual pages, known as screens, by means of a drag-and-drop interface. What sets it apart from the competition is its interactions. Rather than creating a prototype and telling others where a certain link leads to or that some page requires authentication, you can directly show them. The elements that you can add to a page have these interactions built in, and you can see them in action when you preview a given screen. When you're done working, you can export a whole project to a node.js express application as a baseline starting point for development. Napkin was created as a Mozilla summer intern project. You can find a presentation about it at http://ventures.karthikv.net/napkin/ http://ventures.karthikv.net/napkin/
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- cadr 14y ago
  I'd be interested in knowing what your bounce rates are - do you have anything in place measuring that?
dickbasedregex 14y ago
So many times this. You'd think the bounce rate for something like this has to be around 95%. Either way, I didn't bother and anyone who values their time wouldn't either.
dmix 14y ago
Yep, closed the window as soon as I saw that.
roryokane 14y ago
Yes, it would be better to let you use the site as a guest, and then require signing in only to save your work. But I’m glad they use BrowserID for sign-in, at least. Since I was already signed in to BrowserID, the actual sign-in was super easy – a pop-up window opened, I clicked one button, and I was in.
- dylanvee 14y ago
  This was my first real encounter with BrowserID, and I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the experience was.
  - fwenzel 14y ago
    Glad you like it! I feel the same way (I work for Mozilla, but I don't work on BrowserID).
nameuserc 14y ago
This strategy of collecting email addresses without delivering anything first never seems to die down. The reason is simple: it works. Many people will hand over their email address with no guarantee of anything in return. A shockingly large number of people will do that. And then the opt-in spam begins. It's a never ending email campaign for who knows what. Does the spam work? Surprisingly, yes. Enough to be worth paying to keep sending it out. Legalised spam. Is an email address worth something? Gather enough of them and yes, absolutely it is. This is all pure speculation. Or is it? If I had a dime for every site that collects email addresses without delivering anything first... As if Mozilla didn't have enough data about users already. Anyway, if you wanna see what this thing is here you go: http://github.com/mozilla/napkin/zipball/master http://github.com/mozilla/napkin/zipball/master Unzip the file and start reading.
- jurjenh 14y ago
  download brew and install redis... nah, no time to do that just to get a preview of how it works. Well, it may be the bees knees, but I'm not doing all that to get a look at it.
  - nameuserc 14y ago
    I am 100% in agreement. I would never make users jump through hoops like that. Or assume that Redis would be their choice of database. That's a choice for the user. But Lord knows I spend an inordinate amount of time jumping through hoops like these just to try evaluate software. It's just unavoidable. A small, simple program with no dependencies or assumptions about your software preferences is like a breath of fresh air. I wonder if there's an easy way to filter all of Github for these types of programs. Say, C programs with less than N LOC, and having no external dependencies.
gaoshan 14y ago
myemailaddress@mailinator.com Gets you a peek and provides them with useless data. I think it's a fair trade.
mrchess 14y ago
Visited page. Couldn't get in. I left. No idea what Napkin does.

I noticed a comment in another story earlier today that it's a kind of call-to-action, which apparently is getting more popular. But then again, so is overlay pleading in general. "Shut up and give me your email address."

karthikksv 14y ago

As a quick overview, Napkin is a wireframing tool inspired by Balsamiq, Mockingbird, and Axure. It allows you to quickly mock up individual pages, known as screens, by means of a drag-and-drop interface. What sets it apart from the competition is its interactions. Rather than creating a prototype and telling others where a certain link leads to or that some page requires authentication, you can directly show them. The elements that you can add to a page have these interactions built in, and you can see them in action when you preview a given screen. When you're done working, you can export a whole project to a node.js express application as a baseline starting point for development. Napkin was created as a Mozilla summer intern project. You can find a presentation about it at http://ventures.karthikv.net/napkin/ http://ventures.karthikv.net/napkin/

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
cadr 14y ago
I'd be interested in knowing what your bounce rates are - do you have anything in place measuring that?

dickbasedregex 14y ago

So many times this. You'd think the bounce rate for something like this has to be around 95%. Either way, I didn't bother and anyone who values their time wouldn't either.

dmix 14y ago

Yep, closed the window as soon as I saw that.

roryokane 14y ago

Yes, it would be better to let you use the site as a guest, and then require signing in only to save your work. But I’m glad they use BrowserID for sign-in, at least. Since I was already signed in to BrowserID, the actual sign-in was super easy – a pop-up window opened, I clicked one button, and I was in.

dylanvee 14y ago
This was my first real encounter with BrowserID, and I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the experience was.
- fwenzel 14y ago
  Glad you like it! I feel the same way (I work for Mozilla, but I don't work on BrowserID).

nameuserc 14y ago

This strategy of collecting email addresses without delivering anything first never seems to die down. The reason is simple: it works. Many people will hand over their email address with no guarantee of anything in return. A shockingly large number of people will do that. And then the opt-in spam begins. It's a never ending email campaign for who knows what. Does the spam work? Surprisingly, yes. Enough to be worth paying to keep sending it out. Legalised spam. Is an email address worth something? Gather enough of them and yes, absolutely it is. This is all pure speculation. Or is it? If I had a dime for every site that collects email addresses without delivering anything first... As if Mozilla didn't have enough data about users already. Anyway, if you wanna see what this thing is here you go: http://github.com/mozilla/napkin/zipball/master http://github.com/mozilla/napkin/zipball/master Unzip the file and start reading.

jurjenh 14y ago
download brew and install redis... nah, no time to do that just to get a preview of how it works. Well, it may be the bees knees, but I'm not doing all that to get a look at it.
- nameuserc 14y ago
  I am 100% in agreement. I would never make users jump through hoops like that. Or assume that Redis would be their choice of database. That's a choice for the user. But Lord knows I spend an inordinate amount of time jumping through hoops like these just to try evaluate software. It's just unavoidable. A small, simple program with no dependencies or assumptions about your software preferences is like a breath of fresh air. I wonder if there's an easy way to filter all of Github for these types of programs. Say, C programs with less than N LOC, and having no external dependencies.

gaoshan 14y ago

myemailaddress@mailinator.com Gets you a peek and provides them with useless data. I think it's a fair trade.

mrchess 14y ago

Visited page. Couldn't get in. I left. No idea what Napkin does.