

Show HN: A community for designers to hone their skills, critique and share work - azilnik

Check out http://swrm.io<p>Basically, we created a feedback platform, and launched it as a tool to allow designers to crowdsource feedback from other designers. The idea is that this tool would allow designers to improve, share knowledge, learn new skills, and consistently deliver their best work.<p>There's a lot that still needs to get done, including making money, letting posts die out after a certain time, and making the site faster by generating image thumbnails.<p>Any feedback would be appreciated and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Feel free to sign up. Thanks!
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JoelMarsh
I am a UX guy who specializes in community design, and I see some fundamental
areas you should work on:

1.) How is this better than Dribbble; a popular, well-respected site with
precisely the same pitch? That's not a criticism so much as something to think
about.

2.) You forgot half of your target audience. Community like this has two user
types that support each other: designers and critiquers. Ideally the
critiquers are designers too, but these are two separate behaviours, and your
site is designed for one of them. You're never going to reach critical mass
until you cater more to the majority (non-uploading, non-commenting lurkers).

3.) It's hard to browse. The start page has a few clickable images and once
you choose one, you're doomed if it wasn't something you like. I bet the exit
rate (Google Analytics) on that second page is through the roof... what should
I do next if I didn't like it? Hit the back button? That's a no-no.

4.) The users are too downplayed. In a community like this, people discover
the users through their content. Then they want to follow and see more, which
motivates registrations. You should make it obvious who has posted each
design, with a clear link to see more.

5.) You did a good job of selling the concept on the start page, and the path
to registration is obvious and clear, but I don't want to sign up for
something as time-consuming as a community without trying it and exploring a
bit first. That's the part that isn't so great right now.

6.) I don't get the metaphor. Is it military or something?

7.) On a purely aesthetic level, you might consider simplifying your brand...
there are a lot of colors, and mid-tones, and textures, and geometry, and it's
forcing you to use lots of boxes and stuff. It's hard on the eyes. Pick a
couple colors, a motif/pattern or two, and reduce, re-use, and recycle. ;)

Good Luck! Nice effort so far!

~~~
jxg
Another member of the Swrm team here. Thank you for your detailed feedback!

Re: 1) Although we are aware of dribbble, Swrm addresses a fundamentally
different issue: Getting an honest, helpful critique of one's work. While
dribbble may be a great platform for showcasing finished design work, it has a
natural tendency to promote only works which it considers "best of the best".
This is reflected in its feedback system, where comments are most often overly
positive. Swrm is built on the realization that good design work is generally
the result of a lengthy, iterative process rather than a flash of genius at
the hands of an especially "talented" designer. By focusing on the process, we
want to enable anyone to continuously improve their work.

Re: 2) Making designers and critiquers "come together" is one of the top items
we're working on, especially to encourage critiquers to provide constructive
feedback. I'm not sure whether you considered "lurking" to be one of the "two
separate behaviors", but besides encouraging active participation I think this
is just a general property of people on the web.

I agree on your remaining points – Thanks again for taking the time.

~~~
JoelMarsh
Fantastic.

For #1... maybe the real feedback is that I didn't understand that. But fair
enough. I don't disagree with your goal. :)

For #2... you're right, and my point was that there is nothing for those
lurkers (or "pre-contributors") to do. The community is very singular in its
focus, and that focus is on the minority. A "browse" page or a footer full of
browsable suggestions would be worth a lot.

~~~
azilnik
Hi Joel, this is some excellent feedback! Thanks for checking out swrm.io. We
hope to take your suggestions everyone elses into account for our future
updates. Is there anything else worthwhile exploring, other than your
suggestions so far?

~~~
JoelMarsh
Anything else I noticed seems insignificant compared to those ones.

One note though, in response to a comment above... be careful not to "force"
people to be honest; they might leave instead. _Motivate_ them to be honest by
rewarding honesty and making it clear how they are rewarded. Feedback loops
are your friend. ;)

~~~
azilnik
Absolutely. There's a huge psychological and group mentality thing with this
project the team and I are working through right now. There's a huge risk in
it spiraling towards being too negative or also too superficial. We're trying
to keep a balance with meaningful, constructive feedback, similar to this site
to be honest.

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msb
The design is nice. The site is simple and easy to understand how to use, but
the simplicity kind of leaves me wanting more. There is definitely something
up with the interactive elements, noticeable delays on each page. Might be
worth introducing some type of visual feedback that indicates the page hasn't
completed rendering.

~~~
azilnik
Well, ideally, we would scale to loading wouldn't be an issue. But you're
totally right, we need to be giving users more feedback. Any suggestions in
terms of particularly painful screens? Thanks for using the site!

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harmon_michael
First, cool idea, being a designer I know how much a good critique can really
help you polish your design and really improve it (so long as you don't take
it personally).

Second, how does the process go once you do improve on your design and heed
the advice given, can you upload your new design (replace the old one, show
them side to side, represent a timeline of the iteration?) will it tell the
people who critiqued that you followed their advice? and will your old design,
having already been polished and finished, will it stay on there forever
continuing to get critiqued on things that have been fixed already?

looks good I'll probably upload something soon, good luck

ps: if I did upload something are there any other incentives other than the
critique (like maybe a linkback to a site) just curious.

~~~
azilnik
Your second point is almost exactly what we're looking to impliment in version
2! We want to give the designs you make a "life", so you can see the process
and progress towards the final product. You can imagine this evolving into a
sort of "portfolio timeline" view, where you and other users can see your
progress and improvements over both one single design, as well as all of your
designs.

In terms of other incentives, we are looking into that now, and we would love
some suggestions if you have any!

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olegious
The site looks great.

One piece of feedback- on Chrome Version 23.0.1271.91, the "Rate Artwork"
slider doesn't have any kind of scale or visual confirmation of what score I'm
giving- I'm assuming moving the slider left indicates that I'm saying that I
don't like the design and right that I like it. Is this a bug or by design?

~~~
azilnik
Thanks! Yes, we know that's a problem, and we're working on it. We were
thinking of adding a number on the thumb of the slider that changes as you
move it. What do you think?

~~~
olegious
That can work.

Or even a static scale at the low and high end, with the slider calculating a
score in the background. That way you're not distracting the rater with
changing numbers.

Or even more simply, why not just have a Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down icons (with
"no selection" being a neutral score) instead of a slider? You either like a
design or you don't- do you really care about how much you like or dislike
something (unless you're tracking exact scores in the background for some kind
of a ranking system)?

~~~
azilnik
Awesome suggestion. Thanks!

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Goopplesoft
For some reason on Chrome Version 23.0.1271.64 OSX 10.8.2 gave me a blank
white page for like 10 seconds before the page loaded. Is everything pulled in
via javascript or something?

Glad I waited though site looks beautiful.

~~~
azilnik
Thanks for the feedback. I have a feeling we're pulling full-rez images to
display before showing the page (I'm the designer, I can dev to speak a bit
more about it). We are trying to figure out a smart way to resize images to
lighten the load. Thanks for the feedback about the design! Sign up and play
around.

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magnate_
I don't like the design, it's way too cluttered. Needs less colors and more
space between the elements.

I love the concept though and I definitely see myself using something like
this.

~~~
azilnik
Thanks for the feedback. Is there anything else you think we can do to make it
more enticing for you to use?

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MarlonPro
Clickers: <http://swrm.io>

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azilnik
Sorry about that, I couldn't figure out a way to make it a hyperlink.

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azilnik
Feel free to ask anything, but really we would love to get feedback on the
idea / site etc. We're just getting started

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gassaf
You are amazing people. Love the work. More ways to get honest feedback and
critique is always great!

~~~
azilnik
Thanks! Are you a designer? Would love to hear some thoughts on the execution.

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parkerbossier
This is actually a really good idea for crowdsourcing design feedback. I like.

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azilnik
Thanks! Ya we're just getting started, trying to validate the design /
concept. Any other feedback? I hope you use it!

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msb
I created an account and added some comments to existing designs. Noticed that
I could up vote my comment, not sure if that is intentional or not. Maybe just
start comments off at 1?

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azilnik
Thanks for signing up and using the site. Hmm, starting at 1 is not a bad
idea, but also, upvoting your own stuff makes sense; you just think the
comment is THAT good. :)

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msb
Maybe I am misunderstanding the intent of the point system, but in what
situation would I upload something and NOT give myself a point? If none, then
you are just giving me one more step to perform after each comment.

~~~
azilnik
You are right; do you think giving you a point automatically is confusing at
all?

