4 ms·

Ask HN: Review my startup, libramatic.com

4 points by ShaneCurran 13y ago

I'm looking for some feedback on our startup, http://www.libramatic.com/ so we can improve our user experience and improve our product in general.

jdssdd 13y ago
Looks good. Website is a bit slow though
josephwegner 13y ago
My first thoughts: - It looks _really_ great. I'm not super familiar with the interfaces that librarians have to use, but I can't imagine it looks or feels as nice as this. When the kinks are worked out, I can definitely see this being great. - Upon first login, I'm REALLY confused. This first dashboard is way overwhelming. Perhaps a tutorial on first run, or don't show the widgets unless there's some data. - There should definitely be a way to import books. There may be a standard library format, if not use CSV. Almost all libraries will already have a system that does this. The only way you will convince them to change is if the migration process is easy. - The rows in the catalog view widget seem to get big enough to fill the widget. When you don't have many books, it looks weird. Probably better to set these as a fixed height. - Make the entire row for a book clickable. The whole row gets a cursor icon, but only clicking the text takes me to the next page. - Deep linking doesn't work - When I add a book manually, the ID doesn't seem to stick. I entered "22222", and now I can't find that anywhere. - CoverSwish is really cheesy. Technology for the sake of technology. - There seems to be an image field on books, but I can't find where to upload an image - The whole app is _really_ slow. Currently I'm hung and can't get back in. I guess I'll end my review here.
wikwocket 13y ago
First, don't trust us, we are hackers. It looks like you're selling to librarians, so go ask some of them. They are generally very nice and super awesome. Second, consider adding a 1-line elevator pitch under your tagline. "Online Library Management System" is a good start but it is a bit vague - library of what? Managing how? Try to write a 1-sentence phrase, packed with specific language, directly addressing the pain point(s) and how you are solving them. Something like some of the text in your About/FAQ sections. Third, the cover-swish feature is neat, but the "COVERSWISH" title is hard to grok on first glance. Consider a plain easy-to-parse title. Fourth, your "Detailed Book Information" section does not show very detailed information. Overall pretty slick, but again I am not a librarian and their worldview is different enough from ours that I recommend you spend lots of time with them. :)
LarryMade2 13y ago
I've written library programs previously for work... Though this is more a personal library system which does not meed as much detail... but here are some suggestions. Web access is good (I don't have an iPhone... most of my friends have androids if they have a smartphone. :) Make the checkout ID the barcode or a barcode... So you can scan the book, this could be different than the ISBN. Also a tool to create self-generated barcode labels for items that don't have any barcodes (I preferred 1.75 x .5" labels... I used TCPDF to make em, told folks to print the label sheets with "scaling off", no printer/label alignment woes then.) With barcodes you can enter the patron first, then rapid scan each item to check out, or when checking in just scan in the items. You use patron number to checkout should have a facility to search by name... as mentioned get the checkout person's credentials once and then check out the items till done. Book info is sparse, if you have over 30 books you want to have some search properties and categorization. Maybe tags so you can do searches to locate your vampire western novels... :-) Also if you ware having friends access your library is there some public facing url they can use to browse the owner's library on-line? Item location, when you get into the several hundred you should have a field for filing location - Dewey decimal is one (though I don't like it myself) give am a 10 or 12 character field and some ideas on how to categorize thier library (i.e. never describe a specific location 3rd shelf, instead, say cookbooks...)... I would put button on checkout to temporarily adjust loan duration, most friends might get the normal 14 days, other might need more (or less) Checkout record/reciept, so people have a copy of what they borrowed... or so patrons can sign that they borrowed stuff and lender could take em to small claims if they don't return (some private collections are pretty costly).. if you get into value, purchase/replacement cost. A general limitless notes field for both for patrons and items would always be welcome... (this would be only viewable by the owner, not in the public search thing I was mentioning previously) Patron contact info - so you can shoot of an email or call them. If email maybe add a facility to auto-generate a past due notice. That's it off the top of my head. Nice start.
angeliquew 13y ago
It's a bit slow to load but the use of colour is good and layout is clean.

4 points by ShaneCurran 13y ago

I'm looking for some feedback on our startup, http://www.libramatic.com/ so we can improve our user experience and improve our product in general.

jdssdd 13y ago

Looks good. Website is a bit slow though

josephwegner 13y ago

My first thoughts: - It looks _really_ great. I'm not super familiar with the interfaces that librarians have to use, but I can't imagine it looks or feels as nice as this. When the kinks are worked out, I can definitely see this being great. - Upon first login, I'm REALLY confused. This first dashboard is way overwhelming. Perhaps a tutorial on first run, or don't show the widgets unless there's some data. - There should definitely be a way to import books. There may be a standard library format, if not use CSV. Almost all libraries will already have a system that does this. The only way you will convince them to change is if the migration process is easy. - The rows in the catalog view widget seem to get big enough to fill the widget. When you don't have many books, it looks weird. Probably better to set these as a fixed height. - Make the entire row for a book clickable. The whole row gets a cursor icon, but only clicking the text takes me to the next page. - Deep linking doesn't work - When I add a book manually, the ID doesn't seem to stick. I entered "22222", and now I can't find that anywhere. - CoverSwish is really cheesy. Technology for the sake of technology. - There seems to be an image field on books, but I can't find where to upload an image - The whole app is _really_ slow. Currently I'm hung and can't get back in. I guess I'll end my review here.

wikwocket 13y ago

First, don't trust us, we are hackers. It looks like you're selling to librarians, so go ask some of them. They are generally very nice and super awesome. Second, consider adding a 1-line elevator pitch under your tagline. "Online Library Management System" is a good start but it is a bit vague - library of what? Managing how? Try to write a 1-sentence phrase, packed with specific language, directly addressing the pain point(s) and how you are solving them. Something like some of the text in your About/FAQ sections. Third, the cover-swish feature is neat, but the "COVERSWISH" title is hard to grok on first glance. Consider a plain easy-to-parse title. Fourth, your "Detailed Book Information" section does not show very detailed information. Overall pretty slick, but again I am not a librarian and their worldview is different enough from ours that I recommend you spend lots of time with them. :)

LarryMade2 13y ago

I've written library programs previously for work... Though this is more a personal library system which does not meed as much detail... but here are some suggestions. Web access is good (I don't have an iPhone... most of my friends have androids if they have a smartphone. :) Make the checkout ID the barcode or a barcode... So you can scan the book, this could be different than the ISBN. Also a tool to create self-generated barcode labels for items that don't have any barcodes (I preferred 1.75 x .5" labels... I used TCPDF to make em, told folks to print the label sheets with "scaling off", no printer/label alignment woes then.) With barcodes you can enter the patron first, then rapid scan each item to check out, or when checking in just scan in the items. You use patron number to checkout should have a facility to search by name... as mentioned get the checkout person's credentials once and then check out the items till done. Book info is sparse, if you have over 30 books you want to have some search properties and categorization. Maybe tags so you can do searches to locate your vampire western novels... :-) Also if you ware having friends access your library is there some public facing url they can use to browse the owner's library on-line? Item location, when you get into the several hundred you should have a field for filing location - Dewey decimal is one (though I don't like it myself) give am a 10 or 12 character field and some ideas on how to categorize thier library (i.e. never describe a specific location 3rd shelf, instead, say cookbooks...)... I would put button on checkout to temporarily adjust loan duration, most friends might get the normal 14 days, other might need more (or less) Checkout record/reciept, so people have a copy of what they borrowed... or so patrons can sign that they borrowed stuff and lender could take em to small claims if they don't return (some private collections are pretty costly).. if you get into value, purchase/replacement cost. A general limitless notes field for both for patrons and items would always be welcome... (this would be only viewable by the owner, not in the public search thing I was mentioning previously) Patron contact info - so you can shoot of an email or call them. If email maybe add a facility to auto-generate a past due notice. That's it off the top of my head. Nice start.

angeliquew 13y ago

It's a bit slow to load but the use of colour is good and layout is clean.