3 ms·

Aaargh. This uses one of the principle UI ideas we're integrating into our wanna-be YCW10 app. EDIT: Hah. Plus "like" and the mobile UI -- that pretty much is

Aaargh. This uses one of the principle UI ideas we're integrating into our wanna-be YCW10 app. EDIT: Hah. Plus "like" and the mobile UI -- that pretty much is 80% of our client interface.

JacobAldridge 17y ago
Try to stay positive - this demonstrates that you're onto a good thing.
- thaumaturgy 17y ago
  Yeah, we've still got some tricks up our sleeve. OTOH, we were really counting on surprising a lot of people with the UI, and that's out the window at this point. ...And, this isn't just an idea on paper -- we've written a huge chunk of both the server-side and mobile client code already.
  - chime 17y ago
    Don't worry about there being similar concepts. You never know if something like this will pursued beyond a Labs project. The main thing to realize is that if you consistently work on your idea, it does not matter if someone else has a similar product. Being a smaller, more agile developer, you can continue to innovate much faster. This applies to your ideas being stolen too. Sure, anybody can copy what you have made. But remember, nobody can copy what you haven't even thought of yet. So just keep thinking of cool new things your users can benefit from and make them so you stay ahead of the curve.
  - wmeredith 17y ago
    Yikes! If your UI is what's surprising people, then I would generally consider that a bad thing. By their definition, a surprising UI is bad. (Obviously there are exceptions but they're very very rare.)
    - smokinn 17y ago
      It depends. There's surprising as in what is this software doing!? and there surprising as in the wow, this is so much better. The pinch zoom is a perfect example of a surprising UI that most people love. When someone sees a two fingered pinch zoom for the first time they go wow, that's awesome. Surprising isn't always bad.
      - jonnytran 17y ago
        I wouldn't necessarily call "pinch zoom" surprising, though, b/c the first thing I thought after seeing it was, _this is so intuitive -- i.e. unsurprising -- you never have to show anyone twice_. The wow-factor is less surprise, and more delight.
    - thaumaturgy 17y ago
      Well, like I said, we've got other tricks yet, and it's still a fledgling system. We just thought that we had a better UI for browsing content than anyone else had yet, and then Google debuted something that was uncomfortably close. But, I'm hoping that the really surprising thing will be the ... naaaah. :-)
shotgun 17y ago
Welcome to the club! I think this is a UI design pattern we're going to see used a lot in the future. What I find interesting is that you and I are both working on a journalism/publishing startup and found reason to use similar UI ideas. We must be onto something!
- thaumaturgy 17y ago
  Hey! I didn't know who else around here might be working on something in the same market, but I'm not at all surprised that someone is. I wouldn't mind "competing" with someone in the YC or HN crowd, it would be fun -- and it's a big enough market, there's room for a couple of people to steal some lunches. Hope to hear more from you and what you're working on. We might start releasing some teasers around the end of October; I haven't figured out yet if that would ultimately help us or hurt us, but it might be fun either way.

Aaargh. This uses one of the principle UI ideas we're integrating into our wanna-be YCW10 app. EDIT: Hah. Plus "like" and the mobile UI -- that pretty much is 80% of our client interface.

JacobAldridge 17y ago

Try to stay positive - this demonstrates that you're onto a good thing.

thaumaturgy 17y ago
Yeah, we've still got some tricks up our sleeve. OTOH, we were really counting on surprising a lot of people with the UI, and that's out the window at this point. ...And, this isn't just an idea on paper -- we've written a huge chunk of both the server-side and mobile client code already.
- chime 17y ago
  Don't worry about there being similar concepts. You never know if something like this will pursued beyond a Labs project. The main thing to realize is that if you consistently work on your idea, it does not matter if someone else has a similar product. Being a smaller, more agile developer, you can continue to innovate much faster. This applies to your ideas being stolen too. Sure, anybody can copy what you have made. But remember, nobody can copy what you haven't even thought of yet. So just keep thinking of cool new things your users can benefit from and make them so you stay ahead of the curve.
- wmeredith 17y ago
  Yikes! If your UI is what's surprising people, then I would generally consider that a bad thing. By their definition, a surprising UI is bad. (Obviously there are exceptions but they're very very rare.)
  - smokinn 17y ago
    It depends. There's surprising as in what is this software doing!? and there surprising as in the wow, this is so much better. The pinch zoom is a perfect example of a surprising UI that most people love. When someone sees a two fingered pinch zoom for the first time they go wow, that's awesome. Surprising isn't always bad.
    - jonnytran 17y ago
      I wouldn't necessarily call "pinch zoom" surprising, though, b/c the first thing I thought after seeing it was, _this is so intuitive -- i.e. unsurprising -- you never have to show anyone twice_. The wow-factor is less surprise, and more delight.
  - thaumaturgy 17y ago
    Well, like I said, we've got other tricks yet, and it's still a fledgling system. We just thought that we had a better UI for browsing content than anyone else had yet, and then Google debuted something that was uncomfortably close. But, I'm hoping that the really surprising thing will be the ... naaaah. :-)

shotgun 17y ago

Welcome to the club! I think this is a UI design pattern we're going to see used a lot in the future. What I find interesting is that you and I are both working on a journalism/publishing startup and found reason to use similar UI ideas. We must be onto something!

thaumaturgy 17y ago
Hey! I didn't know who else around here might be working on something in the same market, but I'm not at all surprised that someone is. I wouldn't mind "competing" with someone in the YC or HN crowd, it would be fun -- and it's a big enough market, there's room for a couple of people to steal some lunches. Hope to hear more from you and what you're working on. We might start releasing some teasers around the end of October; I haven't figured out yet if that would ultimately help us or hurt us, but it might be fun either way.