6 ms·

Ask HN: Please review my app

35 points by schapirama 17y ago

robryan 17y ago
Decent idea, in the same way that there is something special about a book over an eBook there is something special about handwritten notes on a big birthday or farewell card which may impact usage of something like this. Looks well done though and the handwriting like fonts may combat this.
- schapirama 17y ago
  Thanks for the comments, robryan. Yes, I agree with you, nothing beats a real object --that's why the idea is that the recipient of the letters can buy a real book (printed on demand) to keep all the letters. We've shipped a few, and people seem to love it!
  - thorax 17y ago
    Wouldn't it be better to (also/instead) allow the person who starts the book the option of sending that hard copy to them?
    - schapirama 17y ago
      It would be great, yes. Our concern has been that the price of the book depends on the # of pages, and we don't know how many there will be in advance. More importantly, we don't know if enough people will write, to make a physical book worthwhile. What we're planning to do is give that option to the person who starts the book, and let them specify that the book should be printed only if it has 5/10/15/20 letters... Thanks much for the suggestion.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
thorax 17y ago
I do like this. Might even try it as a gift for a friend of mine, too.
there 17y ago
on your tour screen, create proper thumbnails of the screenshots, don't make the browser download the huge files and scale them itself. it's painfully slow and the scaled versions aren't readable.
- JeremyChase 17y ago
  I would say performance is generally poor. The rendering of pages seemed plenty fast, but downloading of all the content/css/js was painful. Some quick things that would help: * use :cache => true for both your CSS and JS files, this helps more than you'd guess * make sure passenger is serving your static content without hitting the rails stack. I don't know much about passenger, but you should check on this. * as 'there' said, use properly resized thumbnails.
  - schapirama 17y ago
    Great comments, 'there' and Jeremy. Yes, performance is poor. I mainly need to fix the background images, which are huge. It's at the very top of my ToDo list. Thanks for the tips on Passenger. I'll take a look at it... Your comments are much appreciated.
mnemonik 17y ago
Quick run through and my thoughts: * First off, the front page took an incredibly long time to load. According to firebug's net console there were 23 requests totalling over 2 mb and took 32.35 seconds to load. Maybe I'm an outlier here, but there has got to be a way to cut down on that. Just about everything I'm seeing is an image rather than styled text. * When creating a new album, why do I have to give you my information _and_ the recipients info right off the bat? You could probably postpone at least the recipient's info until I'm done. (I haven't finished creating anything, so this may be moot, but what if I decide there should be another recipient as well?) * It would be nice to have a 'check availability' function for the subdomain that the letters will live at * ok I just created this album, got a subdomain, etc... and clicked 'write a letter for XXXXX' right--now you want me to enter my info all over again?! I just did! I understand now (hint: I didn't get this point from your front page. The page shown right after you create an album is much mroe informative) that this is for multiple people to collab on some letters for a special time in somebody else's life, and you need to get all those people's info too. But you should probably remember me since I filled this stuff out not five minutes ago. * What if I want to attach links, videos, files, etc... rather than just images? * How do I get back to the root url of my newly created album after I have successfully written a letter? I see no navigation bringing me back to XXXX.fromabirdie.com/ from XXXX.fromabirdie.com/letter/thanks * from my albums root url, I would like to see (at least a preview of) the letters already written, not have to click a link to another page. The whole reason I'm here is these letters, why make me jump through hoops? Sorry if I sounded a little brash at all, I just did a really quick run through and jotted my immediate thoughts down. Of all of these issues, I would say the speed of the front page loading should be a major concern. Is anyone else having it load this slow? Besides that, I really do like the concept and can see myself using it not as much for my girlfriend's birthday, but possibly for a cousin's graduation or for a coworker who is moving on or retiring. Right now I'm working as a student developer for my Uni's Residences Dept, along with a handful of other people, three of which are graduating in a week. I think being able to set up one album for all three of them would be great, rather than having to do one for each. Once again, I really like the concept, and hope to see future iterations be born, because I think it has a lot of potential!
- mnemonik 17y ago
dougp 17y ago
In Opera the hover over effect on the buttons causes them to spasm in size Large -> tiny text -> large and red. This causes the other buttons to shuffle around usually under your cursor and then they start their dance. It was pretty exciting.
dc2k08 17y ago
I know you probably are more looking for feedback as to how it works but you do really need to compress the images you are using. At 56.6 Kbps just the top portion of the letter graphic takes over 35 seconds to load. Here's the same graphic saved as a jpg using the fireworks engine - no different in appearance but 10 times smaller: http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/3946/amalfitopcreate.jpg http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/3946/amalfitopcreate.jpg Here's your png for comparison: http://www.fromabirdie.com/images/Amalfi_Top_Create.png http://www.fromabirdie.com/images/Amalfi_Top_Create.png you'll have to work in the exact matching background gradient but it will be worth it.
- schapirama 17y ago
  Hey, thanks a lot for taking the trouble to create a JPG! I am aware of the problem with the images (300KB each! ;-) I used png because I need the transparency, but my very first task now is to fix this problem. Thanks
  - dc2k08 17y ago
    no worries. if you need any help, let me know.
colinplamondon 17y ago
CSS sprites are your friend.
csbartus 17y ago
sorry for asking, may not be adequate but have you planned to get revenue somehow?
- schapirama 17y ago
  I originally built this as a b-day present for my wife, and she liked it so much that I decided to turn it into a public service. And I'll be happy if it's just that. But we do have a model to generate (modest) revenue, which hopefully will cover the (again, modest) costs: At the end, when the recipient has seen all the letters, s/he can order an actual, physical book with all the text. It's printed on-demand, and we're make a bit of $$$ over what the publisher charges.
  - csbartus 17y ago
    Amazing! I could not realize this 'off-line' business model aspect of the site! But must work as all other online-to-offline modeled businesses. You can contact Springwise.com maybe they'll put in their feed, they like these on/off combinations.
    - schapirama 17y ago
      I'll certainly write to them. Thanks for the suggestion!
    - rs 17y ago
      The 'off-line' model is actually quite common in the wedding world. I know a person running a wedding website hosting (planning, photos, invitations, etc) site where the couple can get everything on a CD once the wedding is over for a small charge. Useful to keep these additional models in mind when thinking of a new business idea
mellis 17y ago
For a concept that depends so heavily on invoking a personal / emotional response in your users, I don't think the graphic design is good enough. The pages are heavily themed (e.g. strong background image, handwriting fonts); if you're going to do this, you should do it well. Otherwise, it's probably best to stick with a more subdued design and allow the content to dominate. Or you should let the album's creator design / customize the theme. Please don't take this the wrong way. I love the idea and wish you the best of luck.
zackattack 17y ago
reminds me of a startup I worked on a while ago -- groupcard.com
- schapirama 17y ago
  You worked there? Interesting. They're still up, right? Our goal when we started the project was to be, in a way, the opposite of groupcard. Whereas they (and their format, and their examples, etc) encourage quick, short messages ("Happy b-day dude! 21, wow! now you can legally drink!"), we created our site for people who want to write longer, more personal, and more detailed letters. Hence the design with the scroll, the hand-written fonts, the lack of shinny images, etc. You'd be surprised, but the average length of the letters that are being submitted is a bit over 300 WORDS... I do like groupcard... we're just targeting a different audience/need...
bcl 17y ago
I have just given it a quick skim. I hope that you have put anti-spam measures in place to prevent scripts from automating submissions to your system and using it to send email. A few ideas: * Original creator needs to register, use a confirmation email to verify them. * ReCaptcha for other writers * email confirmation before doing the final delivery to the friend. Also make sure you have the creator write something personal for the recipient to see when they get the delivery email. I get e-cards from my relatives all the time and I always delete them. I would also give them the option of downloading a PDF of the letters. Good Luck!
- schapirama 17y ago
  Good comments re:spam bots. BTW, the creator can write something personal, both for the recipient, and for the friends who come to write their letters. It's a customization option in the album admin page. Thanks a lot.
tr4nslator 17y ago
You might want to create your own original "feedback" image for the tab on the left. Yours[1] appears to have been copied from uservoice[2] (probably a leftover from deciding to use their feedback or use your own, am I right?). [1] http://www.fromabirdie.com/images/feedback_tab_white.png [2] http://cdn.uservoice.com/images/widgets/en/feedback_tab_white.png
shiranaihito 17y ago
The page http://www.fromabirdie.com/what http://www.fromabirdie.com/what links to itself with the word "our". It seems a bit strange.
- schapirama 17y ago
  Embarrassing. Thanks --I've fixed it.
qeorge 17y ago
I like the idea, but the design has a couple of flaws: - The heading text is hard to read (perhaps choose a different font?) - The button's rollover states aren't preloaded, makes it a bit awkward. Preload them, or better use CSS sprites - The PNG buttons aren't blending properly with the content's background image - The tour's screenshot thumbnails should be small images, not large images resized with HTML. End result is that each one is ~200K. Easy to fix and would make the page load a lot quicker Its a really nice idea though - I think people would love to get a collection of letters from friends on their birthday, anniversary, etc. Keep going!
- schapirama 17y ago
  Thanks qeorge. Yes, indeed, lots of work needed on the front-end design.
caffeine 17y ago
Hi Schapirama, I love the idea. But I have a visual problem with the page (other than the massive loading times, which you've already promised to fix): Way too many fonts on that page. The logo on the top left, the "Album of letters" script, and the "TOUR" button are all different fonts, and it's ... less than pretty :) Get rid of the military-style "TOUR" font. Maybe tone down the crazy "from a birdie" logo ... it looks too twittery. Also, tone down the cross-hatch on the back of the page. Nobody writes letters on corduroy pants :) I think you should work with a graphic designer to choose a good color scheme and typography set that work. The idea is excellent and your page almost gives the "vibe" you're looking for. Seeing that page, I really wanted to write some letters: so that's a huge plus. I like the layout of the elemnents: the "An album of letters" is intriguing, and simple "big middle box" layout works well, because it feels like a letter.
greengirl512 17y ago
I really like the concept...how neat! In addition to the design issues, I just wanted to second the idea of allowing the person who ordered the album to purchase it and have it sent to the person it's for. I could see using this for older relatives who don't really do computers if it had that option, or even for my MIL, who uses computers but is also obsessed with physical pictures and scrapbooks.

35 points by schapirama 17y ago

Decent idea, in the same way that there is something special about a book over an eBook there is something special about handwritten notes on a big birthday or farewell card which may impact usage of something like this. Looks well done though and the handwriting like fonts may combat this.

schapirama 17y ago
Thanks for the comments, robryan. Yes, I agree with you, nothing beats a real object --that's why the idea is that the recipient of the letters can buy a real book (printed on demand) to keep all the letters. We've shipped a few, and people seem to love it!
- thorax 17y ago
  Wouldn't it be better to (also/instead) allow the person who starts the book the option of sending that hard copy to them?
  - schapirama 17y ago
    It would be great, yes. Our concern has been that the price of the book depends on the # of pages, and we don't know how many there will be in advance. More importantly, we don't know if enough people will write, to make a physical book worthwhile. What we're planning to do is give that option to the person who starts the book, and let them specify that the book should be printed only if it has 5/10/15/20 letters... Thanks much for the suggestion.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

thorax 17y ago

I do like this. Might even try it as a gift for a friend of mine, too.

there 17y ago

on your tour screen, create proper thumbnails of the screenshots, don't make the browser download the huge files and scale them itself. it's painfully slow and the scaled versions aren't readable.

JeremyChase 17y ago
I would say performance is generally poor. The rendering of pages seemed plenty fast, but downloading of all the content/css/js was painful. Some quick things that would help: * use :cache => true for both your CSS and JS files, this helps more than you'd guess * make sure passenger is serving your static content without hitting the rails stack. I don't know much about passenger, but you should check on this. * as 'there' said, use properly resized thumbnails.
- schapirama 17y ago
  Great comments, 'there' and Jeremy. Yes, performance is poor. I mainly need to fix the background images, which are huge. It's at the very top of my ToDo list. Thanks for the tips on Passenger. I'll take a look at it... Your comments are much appreciated.

mnemonik 17y ago

Quick run through and my thoughts: * First off, the front page took an incredibly long time to load. According to firebug's net console there were 23 requests totalling over 2 mb and took 32.35 seconds to load. Maybe I'm an outlier here, but there has got to be a way to cut down on that. Just about everything I'm seeing is an image rather than styled text. * When creating a new album, why do I have to give you my information _and_ the recipients info right off the bat? You could probably postpone at least the recipient's info until I'm done. (I haven't finished creating anything, so this may be moot, but what if I decide there should be another recipient as well?) * It would be nice to have a 'check availability' function for the subdomain that the letters will live at * ok I just created this album, got a subdomain, etc... and clicked 'write a letter for XXXXX' right--now you want me to enter my info all over again?! I just did! I understand now (hint: I didn't get this point from your front page. The page shown right after you create an album is much mroe informative) that this is for multiple people to collab on some letters for a special time in somebody else's life, and you need to get all those people's info too. But you should probably remember me since I filled this stuff out not five minutes ago. * What if I want to attach links, videos, files, etc... rather than just images? * How do I get back to the root url of my newly created album after I have successfully written a letter? I see no navigation bringing me back to XXXX.fromabirdie.com/ from XXXX.fromabirdie.com/letter/thanks * from my albums root url, I would like to see (at least a preview of) the letters already written, not have to click a link to another page. The whole reason I'm here is these letters, why make me jump through hoops? Sorry if I sounded a little brash at all, I just did a really quick run through and jotted my immediate thoughts down. Of all of these issues, I would say the speed of the front page loading should be a major concern. Is anyone else having it load this slow? Besides that, I really do like the concept and can see myself using it not as much for my girlfriend's birthday, but possibly for a cousin's graduation or for a coworker who is moving on or retiring. Right now I'm working as a student developer for my Uni's Residences Dept, along with a handful of other people, three of which are graduating in a week. I think being able to set up one album for all three of them would be great, rather than having to do one for each. Once again, I really like the concept, and hope to see future iterations be born, because I think it has a lot of potential!

mnemonik 17y ago

dougp 17y ago

In Opera the hover over effect on the buttons causes them to spasm in size Large -> tiny text -> large and red. This causes the other buttons to shuffle around usually under your cursor and then they start their dance. It was pretty exciting.

dc2k08 17y ago

I know you probably are more looking for feedback as to how it works but you do really need to compress the images you are using. At 56.6 Kbps just the top portion of the letter graphic takes over 35 seconds to load. Here's the same graphic saved as a jpg using the fireworks engine - no different in appearance but 10 times smaller: http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/3946/amalfitopcreate.jpg http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/3946/amalfitopcreate.jpg Here's your png for comparison: http://www.fromabirdie.com/images/Amalfi_Top_Create.png http://www.fromabirdie.com/images/Amalfi_Top_Create.png you'll have to work in the exact matching background gradient but it will be worth it.

schapirama 17y ago
Hey, thanks a lot for taking the trouble to create a JPG! I am aware of the problem with the images (300KB each! ;-) I used png because I need the transparency, but my very first task now is to fix this problem. Thanks
- dc2k08 17y ago
  no worries. if you need any help, let me know.

colinplamondon 17y ago

CSS sprites are your friend.

csbartus 17y ago

sorry for asking, may not be adequate but have you planned to get revenue somehow?

schapirama 17y ago
I originally built this as a b-day present for my wife, and she liked it so much that I decided to turn it into a public service. And I'll be happy if it's just that. But we do have a model to generate (modest) revenue, which hopefully will cover the (again, modest) costs: At the end, when the recipient has seen all the letters, s/he can order an actual, physical book with all the text. It's printed on-demand, and we're make a bit of $$$ over what the publisher charges.
- csbartus 17y ago
  Amazing! I could not realize this 'off-line' business model aspect of the site! But must work as all other online-to-offline modeled businesses. You can contact Springwise.com maybe they'll put in their feed, they like these on/off combinations.
  - schapirama 17y ago
    I'll certainly write to them. Thanks for the suggestion!
  - rs 17y ago
    The 'off-line' model is actually quite common in the wedding world. I know a person running a wedding website hosting (planning, photos, invitations, etc) site where the couple can get everything on a CD once the wedding is over for a small charge. Useful to keep these additional models in mind when thinking of a new business idea

mellis 17y ago

For a concept that depends so heavily on invoking a personal / emotional response in your users, I don't think the graphic design is good enough. The pages are heavily themed (e.g. strong background image, handwriting fonts); if you're going to do this, you should do it well. Otherwise, it's probably best to stick with a more subdued design and allow the content to dominate. Or you should let the album's creator design / customize the theme. Please don't take this the wrong way. I love the idea and wish you the best of luck.

zackattack 17y ago

reminds me of a startup I worked on a while ago -- groupcard.com

schapirama 17y ago
You worked there? Interesting. They're still up, right? Our goal when we started the project was to be, in a way, the opposite of groupcard. Whereas they (and their format, and their examples, etc) encourage quick, short messages ("Happy b-day dude! 21, wow! now you can legally drink!"), we created our site for people who want to write longer, more personal, and more detailed letters. Hence the design with the scroll, the hand-written fonts, the lack of shinny images, etc. You'd be surprised, but the average length of the letters that are being submitted is a bit over 300 WORDS... I do like groupcard... we're just targeting a different audience/need...

bcl 17y ago

I have just given it a quick skim. I hope that you have put anti-spam measures in place to prevent scripts from automating submissions to your system and using it to send email. A few ideas: * Original creator needs to register, use a confirmation email to verify them. * ReCaptcha for other writers * email confirmation before doing the final delivery to the friend. Also make sure you have the creator write something personal for the recipient to see when they get the delivery email. I get e-cards from my relatives all the time and I always delete them. I would also give them the option of downloading a PDF of the letters. Good Luck!

schapirama 17y ago
Good comments re:spam bots. BTW, the creator can write something personal, both for the recipient, and for the friends who come to write their letters. It's a customization option in the album admin page. Thanks a lot.

tr4nslator 17y ago

You might want to create your own original "feedback" image for the tab on the left. Yours[1] appears to have been copied from uservoice[2] (probably a leftover from deciding to use their feedback or use your own, am I right?). [1] http://www.fromabirdie.com/images/feedback_tab_white.png [2] http://cdn.uservoice.com/images/widgets/en/feedback_tab_white.png

shiranaihito 17y ago

The page http://www.fromabirdie.com/what http://www.fromabirdie.com/what links to itself with the word "our". It seems a bit strange.

schapirama 17y ago
Embarrassing. Thanks --I've fixed it.

qeorge 17y ago

I like the idea, but the design has a couple of flaws: - The heading text is hard to read (perhaps choose a different font?) - The button's rollover states aren't preloaded, makes it a bit awkward. Preload them, or better use CSS sprites - The PNG buttons aren't blending properly with the content's background image - The tour's screenshot thumbnails should be small images, not large images resized with HTML. End result is that each one is ~200K. Easy to fix and would make the page load a lot quicker Its a really nice idea though - I think people would love to get a collection of letters from friends on their birthday, anniversary, etc. Keep going!

schapirama 17y ago
Thanks qeorge. Yes, indeed, lots of work needed on the front-end design.

caffeine 17y ago

Hi Schapirama, I love the idea. But I have a visual problem with the page (other than the massive loading times, which you've already promised to fix): Way too many fonts on that page. The logo on the top left, the "Album of letters" script, and the "TOUR" button are all different fonts, and it's ... less than pretty :) Get rid of the military-style "TOUR" font. Maybe tone down the crazy "from a birdie" logo ... it looks too twittery. Also, tone down the cross-hatch on the back of the page. Nobody writes letters on corduroy pants :) I think you should work with a graphic designer to choose a good color scheme and typography set that work. The idea is excellent and your page almost gives the "vibe" you're looking for. Seeing that page, I really wanted to write some letters: so that's a huge plus. I like the layout of the elemnents: the "An album of letters" is intriguing, and simple "big middle box" layout works well, because it feels like a letter.

greengirl512 17y ago

I really like the concept...how neat! In addition to the design issues, I just wanted to second the idea of allowing the person who ordered the album to purchase it and have it sent to the person it's for. I could see using this for older relatives who don't really do computers if it had that option, or even for my MIL, who uses computers but is also obsessed with physical pictures and scrapbooks.