7 ms·

I think it's a stroke of genius to launch something so aesthetically terrible on HN / PH (aka the early adopter crowd). For a group of people that see a dozen

by aresant 11y ago

I think it's a stroke of genius to launch something so aesthetically terrible on HN / PH (aka the early adopter crowd). For a group of people that see a dozen bootstrap / sandwhich vid style launches a week this stands out, and got me to read 3 paragraphs of ad-copy. Other notable examples of this launch strategy, intentional or not, in recent memory were Pud launching DistroKid (1) and the team behind Magic (2) I think in all of these cases the simple, functional approach serves in bringing us closer to the product vs. focusing on the pitch. (1) https://web.archive.org/web/20130717051607/http://distrokid.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130717051607/http://distrokid.... (2) https://getmagicnow.com/ https://getmagicnow.com/

joshcanhelp 11y ago
I was thinking "ugh, this looks terrible" and read all of the copy as well.
- jzawodn 11y ago
  How odd that I didn't really "notice" the look. This sounds like a useful service that fits in an area where Google Voice totally dropped the ball and Burner hasn't gone yet.
  - marincounty 11y ago
    I don't mind the look either. I don't mind B & W sites. (I am partially color blind, so maybe that's a factor?). Even with photography, most of my pictures are in B & W. I wouldn't pay $15/month. I would accept one targeted ad per week? While I won't use this service, I need to know how it works. I have a weekend project?
- david-given 11y ago
  It looks terrible? Really? It's an uncluttered layout with the tl;dr description of what it actually is prominently on the front page, and with easy-to-find navigation links to everything else above --- and if you notice, the informational links are on the left, and the actionable links are on the right. To me, it's exactly what I want out of a product's website, and I wish more looked like it!
  - biot 11y ago
    It's utilitarian to the max in that it cares little for graphical design. The layout is fairly functional, though I did initially think the menu links at the top were disabled given that the links below were classic blue underline. I can easily see why someone would call that terrible; it looks like a time-warp back to the mid-90s when Netscape rendered the default HTML background as grey before everyone eventually standardized on a white background. You actually have to go out of your way to make the logo and menu medium grey on light grey when the same amount of effort could have been put towards a cleaner, more modern, and higher contrast look without changing the utilitarian layout.
    - njloof 11y ago
      Phone numbers are pretty utilitarian. You mean I need a number just to contact someone? What terrible UI.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
    - jqm 11y ago
      I like. It has easy to glean information and no extraneous clutter. I personally have grown weary of pages with little to no information and half blurred pictures of people in coffee shops. And don't get me started on the scroll bar tricks....
  - joshcanhelp 11y ago
    I agree, it's uncluttered and refreshingly simple. It's the default Times font that looks bad to my eyes.
pmtarantino 11y ago
I think Tarsnap is another example of this.
- michaelmcmillan 11y ago
  I guess it's sufficient to create a service people want. Personally I don't really care if it's fancy SPA or a simple website with actual form elements. I just want software to work.
  - tekromancr 11y ago
    Could you please elaborate what you mean by "SPA". I am unfamiliar with the term, but google only returns results related to massage and nail-care services, which DOES kinda make sense in your context, but I am not sure.
    - niyazpk 11y ago
      https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Single-page_application https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Single-page_application
Hysterica 11y ago
As honest as the text appears, I usually associate websites which look similar to this as outdated and untrustworthy. It's the type of website you often see for old freeware, which is why it doesn't seem so great to a potential user as they'll assume the website style may reflect on the service they're about to receive. I would take a bootstrap style over this. Maybe that's just me.
- userbinator 11y ago
  I think your expectations are outdated; it's extremely easy these days to create a generic templated site that looks like every other Bootstrap one out there. On the other hand this looks like handwritten HTML so I get the idea that the creators put a little more effort into it. Someone looking to scam or create clickbait content-farms is unlikely to do such a thing, but rather use one of the various site-generators out there instead.
- kcbanner 11y ago
  Interesting. I prefer an older looking site like this. To me the feeling is that it has been created by more mature developers that would rather present all the necessary information simply, instead of muddling it with a bunch of unnecessary styles (or some inane scrolling page).
- cnst 11y ago
  It's funny how you're saying this on Hacker News, which, thankfully, still pretty much fully works even with JavaScript disabled, unlike pretty much every single web2.0 site nowadays, even HN clones or competitors.
ttctciyf 11y ago
The page aesthetics work for me - I particularly liked the absence of three USP divs under the lede (though the illuminoid-friendly logo was a close second..) Hey, feature idea - riffing off the now overdue but unlikely to happen call flag for non-human callers, how about a voice-recognised audio-captcha before you're put through during open hours?
- TodPunk 11y ago
  Doable, but voice recognition is severely lacking outside of targeted small dictionaries, and a simple wav file can beat it. I wouldn't rely on it for a long while.
  - ttctciyf 11y ago
    I meant like a varying question - "which is not an animal - zebra, teapot, monkey, .." so yeah, if your AI can pick the right wav file it's beatable..
    - TodPunk 11y ago
      In that case, yes, it would be interesting to make a system to verify such and probably doable in the short term (ignoring the UI issues which are separate). The problem still remains the same that your speech recognition is going to be very spotty on untrained processing, so you can at best (key word there) match maybe 500 words on one accent pool. This means you have a limited set of questions and it does make it a barrier to entry, but certainly not unbeatable and definitely much more in favor of the AI programmer. This is also why your average big-company automated attendant is so bad at interpreting what you want outside of the 5 common things people want to talk about (most of which I can do online, so it's never what I'm there for) and again sadly only if you're in the more common US American English accent pool. Southern accents tend to get squelched pretty bad and that's just the beginning of accents common in the US. One could conceivably target an individuals desired accent recognition so you could let the user say "Most of my callers speak in an X accent" and then get a little more accurate for that pool of callers, but this also means installing disparate systems for recognition, each of which are quite expensive computationally. This is a deeply interesting problem space, though, and if you're interested there's quite a bit of discussion over it in the sphinx project and several research communities.

by aresant 11y ago

joshcanhelp 11y ago

I was thinking "ugh, this looks terrible" and read all of the copy as well.

jzawodn 11y ago
How odd that I didn't really "notice" the look. This sounds like a useful service that fits in an area where Google Voice totally dropped the ball and Burner hasn't gone yet.
- marincounty 11y ago
  I don't mind the look either. I don't mind B & W sites. (I am partially color blind, so maybe that's a factor?). Even with photography, most of my pictures are in B & W. I wouldn't pay $15/month. I would accept one targeted ad per week? While I won't use this service, I need to know how it works. I have a weekend project?
david-given 11y ago
It looks terrible? Really? It's an uncluttered layout with the tl;dr description of what it actually is prominently on the front page, and with easy-to-find navigation links to everything else above --- and if you notice, the informational links are on the left, and the actionable links are on the right. To me, it's exactly what I want out of a product's website, and I wish more looked like it!
- biot 11y ago
  It's utilitarian to the max in that it cares little for graphical design. The layout is fairly functional, though I did initially think the menu links at the top were disabled given that the links below were classic blue underline. I can easily see why someone would call that terrible; it looks like a time-warp back to the mid-90s when Netscape rendered the default HTML background as grey before everyone eventually standardized on a white background. You actually have to go out of your way to make the logo and menu medium grey on light grey when the same amount of effort could have been put towards a cleaner, more modern, and higher contrast look without changing the utilitarian layout.
  - njloof 11y ago
    Phone numbers are pretty utilitarian. You mean I need a number just to contact someone? What terrible UI.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - jqm 11y ago
    I like. It has easy to glean information and no extraneous clutter. I personally have grown weary of pages with little to no information and half blurred pictures of people in coffee shops. And don't get me started on the scroll bar tricks....
- joshcanhelp 11y ago
  I agree, it's uncluttered and refreshingly simple. It's the default Times font that looks bad to my eyes.

pmtarantino 11y ago

I think Tarsnap is another example of this.

michaelmcmillan 11y ago
I guess it's sufficient to create a service people want. Personally I don't really care if it's fancy SPA or a simple website with actual form elements. I just want software to work.
- tekromancr 11y ago
  Could you please elaborate what you mean by "SPA". I am unfamiliar with the term, but google only returns results related to massage and nail-care services, which DOES kinda make sense in your context, but I am not sure.
  - niyazpk 11y ago
    https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Single-page_application https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Single-page_application

Hysterica 11y ago

As honest as the text appears, I usually associate websites which look similar to this as outdated and untrustworthy. It's the type of website you often see for old freeware, which is why it doesn't seem so great to a potential user as they'll assume the website style may reflect on the service they're about to receive. I would take a bootstrap style over this. Maybe that's just me.

userbinator 11y ago
I think your expectations are outdated; it's extremely easy these days to create a generic templated site that looks like every other Bootstrap one out there. On the other hand this looks like handwritten HTML so I get the idea that the creators put a little more effort into it. Someone looking to scam or create clickbait content-farms is unlikely to do such a thing, but rather use one of the various site-generators out there instead.
kcbanner 11y ago
Interesting. I prefer an older looking site like this. To me the feeling is that it has been created by more mature developers that would rather present all the necessary information simply, instead of muddling it with a bunch of unnecessary styles (or some inane scrolling page).
cnst 11y ago
It's funny how you're saying this on Hacker News, which, thankfully, still pretty much fully works even with JavaScript disabled, unlike pretty much every single web2.0 site nowadays, even HN clones or competitors.

ttctciyf 11y ago

The page aesthetics work for me - I particularly liked the absence of three USP divs under the lede (though the illuminoid-friendly logo was a close second..) Hey, feature idea - riffing off the now overdue but unlikely to happen call flag for non-human callers, how about a voice-recognised audio-captcha before you're put through during open hours?

TodPunk 11y ago
Doable, but voice recognition is severely lacking outside of targeted small dictionaries, and a simple wav file can beat it. I wouldn't rely on it for a long while.
- ttctciyf 11y ago
  I meant like a varying question - "which is not an animal - zebra, teapot, monkey, .." so yeah, if your AI can pick the right wav file it's beatable..
  - TodPunk 11y ago
    In that case, yes, it would be interesting to make a system to verify such and probably doable in the short term (ignoring the UI issues which are separate). The problem still remains the same that your speech recognition is going to be very spotty on untrained processing, so you can at best (key word there) match maybe 500 words on one accent pool. This means you have a limited set of questions and it does make it a barrier to entry, but certainly not unbeatable and definitely much more in favor of the AI programmer. This is also why your average big-company automated attendant is so bad at interpreting what you want outside of the 5 common things people want to talk about (most of which I can do online, so it's never what I'm there for) and again sadly only if you're in the more common US American English accent pool. Southern accents tend to get squelched pretty bad and that's just the beginning of accents common in the US. One could conceivably target an individuals desired accent recognition so you could let the user say "Most of my callers speak in an X accent" and then get a little more accurate for that pool of callers, but this also means installing disparate systems for recognition, each of which are quite expensive computationally. This is a deeply interesting problem space, though, and if you're interested there's quite a bit of discussion over it in the sphinx project and several research communities.