
A beautifully-designed checklist for web designers - jlangenauer
http://launchlist.net/
======
gojomo
Of course, tastes differ -- but I found this painful to look at, for the
following reasons:

Hard to read font, capitalization and color-saturation choices. Inefficient
spacing/sizing requiring more scrolling and mousing to use. Nonstandard
'check' indicator which is farther from its label than usual on-the-left
practice. Large floating fixed footer not seeming to provide value
commensurate with its placement. 'About' slide-out that's impossible for me to
close without major window fussing (maximize window, close row of open tabs).

Feature request: provide checklist items as plain text.

~~~
mortenjorck
My main issue was the needless animation in the background.

Safari 5 on a fast Core 2 Duo is plenty usable with it, but when my scroll
framerate seemingly goes from 60fps to 30, it's not worth it. Smooth scrolling
is just too high on my UX priorities list.

------
endtwist
I could see this being very useful.

My one criticism is that I find the all-caps League Gothic _much_ too
difficult to read here. A non-condensed sans-serif would be a lot easier on
the eyes.

~~~
ahlatimer
Agreed. This looks like one of those instances where the designer went for
form and completely forgot about function. It _looks_ nice, at a glance, but
actually reading it is difficult.

------
taitems
Holy excessive caps, Batman!

Apart from that, I think a lot of those options should be either set to N/A
automatically, or some kind of low priority or second round testing. It's
comprehensive, I'll give it that; but it's just too visually dense.

~~~
mattmcknight
I agree, and would add that it should be three valued, because it doesn't
allow for a difference between "NO" and "I didn't check that yet".

------
edw519
They forgot one:

    
    
                                                    +---+
      REVIEWED BY 5 HUMANS FOR OBVIOUS OVERSIGHTS?  |   | NO
                                                    +---+

~~~
maukdaddy
5? You must work in a small enterprise ;)

~~~
dsteinweg
Maybe he was referring to this? <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html>

------
cubicle67
Nice, but it features one if my pet hates - field errors in modal dialogs.
This requires the user to memorise a list of errors (4 in this example) but
you can't act on the message until you've clicked OK, and once you dismiss the
dialog, you lose the message.

------
vegashacker
My eyes hurt (literally) after a few seconds of trying to read the text.

~~~
nhebb
Mine too. My first thought is that these guys need to take a style lesson from
Matt Drudge.

I like checklists, but I really prefer plain text that I print out and check
off manually. It's just easier.

------
Terretta
Annoying that lack of IE6 compatibility makes "launch not advisable". It's
hard enough to convince clients that IE6 must die.

<http://www.ie6nomore.com/>

~~~
taitems
Investigate "aggressive degradation". It revolves around the principle of not
stressing over delivering the same exact functionality - but delivering
something that DOES work in its simplest forms. A GIF when a PNG would look
nicer. Squared off corners when border-radius would look nicer and you can't
be bothered with background images and floats (yes I am aware this is an IE-
wide problem).

~~~
Terretta
Yes, we used aggressive degradation in 2009.

In 2010, after Microsoft sent flowers to IE6's funeral[1] we have been able to
use that anecdote to persuade clients to go a step further and actively sign
off that IE6 is not supported.

At the least, "Displays and functions correctly in IE6" should be defaulted to
"N/A", which would also help make the "N/A" option more discoverable.

[1]
[http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/03/microsoft_sends_flo...](http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/03/microsoft_sends_flowers_card_for_internet_explorer_6_funeral.html)

------
jcromartie
Ironically, the iPad-styled UI doesn't fully work on the iPad because it
depends on mouseover.

~~~
josefresco
I had the same reaction when I saw the on/off buttons. For a second I thought
they were so advanced they had designed the site to work with the iphone/ipad.
Alas, it's just a regular webpage which relies on mouseover to function.

------
Dirt_McGirt
It's pretty obvious why they don't have a "doesn't take forever to load"
checkbox.

------
subbu
This reminds me of a launch check list posted to HN long back. Link here:
[http://www.boxuk.com/blog/the-ultimate-website-launch-
checkl...](http://www.boxuk.com/blog/the-ultimate-website-launch-checklist).

That's still a good list and more usable because of its spreadsheetish look.

------
ivanzhao
Similar to that 19th century as a inflationary time for typography, why in our
time eye candies like this, with low legibility, are considered as good
design...

------
keltex
For some of the checklist items, I don't think "yes" and "no" are the
appropriate options. There really should be a 3rd... "unknown" or "not
reviewed" or something like that. "All text free from spelling errors" doesn't
make sense to have "no". It might be free from spelling errors, we just
haven't checked it yet.

------
flubba
Do people really spend their time making sites like these for attention? We
get it, you're good at using Photoshop and maybe CSS. These sites are useless,
why would anyone waste their time making them?

~~~
billybob
Do people really spend their time criticizing others on HN? We get it, you're
too busy and smart for such tomfoolery. :)

Seriously, whoever made this did it as a fun exercise. They probably have to
make boring forms at work and wanted to see how extreme they could go in
making something attractive (whether it's actually attractive is open for
discussion). Maybe they learned something they can use; maybe others will be
inspired.

Haven't you ever tinkered with something that wasn't strictly necessary? If
not, how do you learn what's possible?

------
tomh-
Well, seems for this app, it would still have some stuff on it's checklist to
check off...it indeed looks nice, but not very flexible to what designers
might do.

------
olliesaunders
This has got to be the move over-engineered checklist I've ever seen in my
life. What's wrong with a text file of all these things? It's not even
complete.

------
SkyMarshal
Edit: Nm, League Gothic. Thanks endtwist.

Anyone know what font that site uses? It's one of my new favorites, but don't
know the name yet.

------
techiferous
Are there any tools/techniques to test my web site at a higher resolution if
all I have is a laptop that goes to 1280x800?

------
nakajima
I like it a lot. My one quibble is that a lot of the animations seem to take
forever.

------
VMG
Is it really necessary to test every browser on PC and Mac?

~~~
aarongough
Yes, particularly if you're working with Javascript. I missed this once and
had a big client tell me a feature was not working in FireFox on XP. Worked
fine on OS X.

Turns out the Windows version of FireFox had a bug with setInterval() on
windows that would cause it to fire irregularly...

------
drivebyacct
I knew these "tips" when I was 16 after playing with HTML/CSS for a few weeks.
These are obvious no brainers for anyone that has any business doing anything
web related.

Descriptive 404, obvious SEO things that just make sense to do anyway, alt
text?

Who needs a checklist to do these things? And one that takes 6 seconds to load
in all the JS at that. (I'm not one to complain about JS usually but the
scripts were working for a significant and noticeable amount of time)

------
hackermom
With no offense meant, with just a reasonable and pragmatic perspective on the
whole thing, I think the (WTF?) button itself provides the best response to
this.

------
mailanay
Sorry, but I don't get the point of this application. All this can be done by
sending a simple email to the webmaster of the site.

