

Ask HN: Review My Website - Trip Reports All Over the World - andrewljohnson
http://www.trailbehind.com/node/1148091/

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jmorin007
First off, I really like the concept of being able to see potential outdoor
activities within my area.

Some feedback:

\- As some other people have mentioned, it's tough to tell exactly what is
happening when you drop onto the page. You need at least some description as
to what you are all about, even though it seems obvious to you.

\- Have a key for all of the different icons that show up. It may seem obvious
that a notebook is information about something, and a water drop is a
river/stream/etc. but it won't be obvious to everyone. A followup to that is
to show more information when I hover over an icon. Showing me a name when I
hover over a waterdrop doesn't do me much good. Tell me it's a stream, river,
lake, pond, puddle, etc. as well as its name and why I would want to know that
this exists (the point of the website is to find places to do things outdoors,
right?). Tell me that I can go fishing or boating on a lake. Whitewater
rafting on a river with rapids. That sort of thing.

\- Clicking on an icon adds a point, but it's not altogether clear as to why
it does that. I would expect it to show additional information (which it
apparently does in the floating pane...I'll get to that momentarily) but why
do I need multiple points? And reclicking on a point does a reload of the
page? Again, just make it blatantly clear why some of these actions occur.

\- The floating pane. I totally get why it's there...you need some sort of
window to display detailed information about all of these different icons, but
let me hide/minimize or close it if I want to. The title of whatever I click
on looks like it's in an input box, which makes me think I can edit it...which
I can't. Make it look like a title not an input box. Additional, if I've
clicked on an icon and want information on what that is, then just show me
information for that point. If there isn't any, then don't show the point.
You'll quickly have a bad user experience if you have lots of points with no
content. (It appears that there is a user generated content aspect to this
where people can input information about a point, so this may be a tough
balance...maybe have a toggle to add content to the map, but hide points with
no content if you're just searching) Give me the option to view other
related/interesting areas in proximity to this, but don't default to that if
there is no content. Also, clicking on the title of a nearby/related trip
report should show more information in the pane about that trip report, not
take me away from the site to somewhere else. Let the URL at the bottom do
that, or have a link to the source website.

\- Your homepage (the place that your Home link goes to) just goes into a
continuous loading indicator when searching on my zip (21045). Are you
planning on having people drop onto this page when going to Trailbehind? If
not, why have it if you already have a location search on the map? If it's an
About page rather than Home, then call it that, not Home.

\- Eventually do some geolocation to default the map to a point close to the
where the user is accessing Trailbehind from. Defaulting to a location in
Ghana does not help me at all (no offense to the country of Ghana).

Anyway, there were just a few thoughts after a quick glance through the site.
Congrats on getting something out there and keep iterating!

~~~
andrewljohnson
Thanks for your feedback. A couple of notes:

1) Definitely need to improve the tooltips, as you say.

2) Also definitely need to make the floating widget resizable and minimizable,
and allow users to show it as half the screen instead of floating

3) I was just messing with the autocomplete, to add the state/country to the
dropdown. It should work now for your zip code and not freeze.

4) The home page used to be the map, but in testing we found people stuck
around longer if we gave them a bit of About the Map text. We also use the
time your reading the homepage to load the map and other javascript. And yeah,
this page should be the main entrance point, though we get a lot of google
searches that go right to node maps.

5) The map does geo-locate you. It works for most people, but if you have a
satellite connection or some other funkiness, then we screw it up sometimes.
I'll look into it.

~~~
jmorin007
Ah, my bad, I didn't realize you were linking directly to a node. I guess that
makes sense if you anticipate most people being referred from a search engine
to a specific node, but if you're thinking they're going to be hitting your
homepage, then I would probably get feedback by dropping users there first.

On that note, I would definitely work on the homepage a bit. Add in some
pictures of people doing outdoors things (rock climbing, hiking, boating,
etc.) Get people excited about doing something outdoors. I get that you're
going for simplicity here, so obviously accentuate the search box (maybe make
it and the search button a little bigger). Also, more contrast with the nav
bar and background...green on green doesn't really set off the most important
elements on the page (logo/brand and main navigation). Maybe also list further
down who this might interest (hikers, backpackers, kayakers, etc.) and tell
why. It seems obvious to you, but if you call out "Find Great Places to Hike",
and I'm a rock climber, I may just bounce.

Subnav on the homepage: Recent Reports means nothing to me. Featured Content,
a little more interesting, but still not the first thing I'd click on (if I
click at all), Park Index is getting better (I can equate hikes to parks) and
finally About Trailbehind, which is probably what I am going to click on if I
don't immediately do a search. Move that up the priority list, and downplay
some of the other stuff that isn't relevant to first time visitors (or make it
clear why it is relevant).

Login: I know it seems logical that if you want to register and can't find
where to, then you would click login. Don't make users do that if you've
already convinced them to register (which you need to do more of...I still
don't know why I would) Make the registration link over obvious if you're
looking for visitors to register, and make it clear what benefit there is to
registering (can you save locations, favorites, link up with other outdoors
people, etc.)

Sorry, not trying to be overly critical here at all. I really like the idea
and what you guys have built so far. We've just found with Anyvite that the
more feedback we get, the better grasp we have on what needs to be changed.
Iterate rapidly, right? Anyway, best of luck with things.

~~~
andrewljohnson
No offense taken at all. This sort of feedback is exactly why I post releases
to HN, so thanks.

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sgrove
I suppose I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with this. I looked at my area
(orange county, california) and there were a few icons. clicking on them
didn't give me any description - I suppose it's because you don't have any for
those places (I do see the link to add info there).

But you show me some info that I don't really understand. It doesn't change
based on my interaction with different icons. Maybe give me a one liner
telling me "Hey, these are interesting reviews of places near where you're
looking." Just a thought to make it more immediately engaging - I wouldn't
personally take the time to figure out this interface as it is right now, even
though I enjoy hiking quite a bit.

That said, you guys have ben iterating quite rapidly it seems, and making
great progress, so I'm sure all of this will be taken care of shortly.

~~~
andrewljohnson
Sounds like good advice.

As it stands now, if we have a report for a place, then we give it an orange
notebook icon. Typically, a place will have the icons as you see - streams,
summits, etc.

We have 6000 or so reports indexed to the map now, and we plan to increase
that by an order of magnitude or two, so we'll have reports all over the map.

~~~
prawn
I don't think the notebook icon is that obvious. Looks almost like part of a
train track or zip.

I read this comment of yours, then visited the site, and still spent a couple
of seconds wondering what that icon meant (train? video upload?) before I
remembered you mentioning an orange notebook.

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dawie
I really like your site!

I live in Calgary Alberta, and I am always looking for hiking trails, but it
takes time to find them. I will definately use your site in the summer.

~~~
andrewljohnson
I checked out Calgary on the map, and it looks like we have tons of reports
mapped to the west, from summitpost.com.

I'm glad you found them, because they aren't immediately visible if you zoom
in on Calgary. I need to set it up to where you'll get some indication of
reports if you search for or zoom in on Calgary.

I probably need to add city nodes to the map, and do a different sort of
search for those - a wider radius that looks inside parks.

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andrewljohnson
We started indexing trip reports from a few websites, and it's really filled
out the map with information. I hope this helps someone find a hike!

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bprater
Andrew -- I was in and out in about 10 seconds.

You've been staring at the webpage for weeks or months now -- and you get
exactly what's going on. But nobody else does. (Or at least the slow-minded
amongst us, including me.)

You may have the most wonderful service in the world, but if you cannot
quickly convey _the benefit that you offer me_ in 10 seconds, you've lost a
potential customer -- and probably one that was difficult to get to your site
in the first place.

Personally, I will spend weeks crafting and re-crafting my site's message. And
when I think I'm done, I'm still tuning it based on feedback.

This continues to be the weakest link with most new sites I see.

Best of luck with the project -- I truly hope you find amazing success with
it!

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rrival
Great coverage of Colorado - verynice!

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phillian
FYI- when I clicked on the link I received nothing but a blank screen.

~~~
andrewljohnson
I just pushed some changes and restarted the server. I bet I got you with
that.

Try again! :)

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eli_s
Really love the idea. I'm sure you will get loads of attention from the hiking
community. It's a great niche to target too - I imagine its quite
underserviced with lots of enthusiastic people who can help promote your site.

Something to look out for: the site seems very processor intensive. Using IE7
on a Core 2 6400 1gb ram the site becomes unresponsive and CPU is pegged at
50% - 90% each time the map is moved/zoomed.

Full screen map seems to be a killer. Maybe anbother way to display info such
as large static map where you choose a region and then a smaller interactive
map overlaid?

Also - is this a hobby project? If not how are you planning on monetizing?

Great work overall though.

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keltecp11
Check out: www.tripsharer.com

