

Ask HN: Review my site Artevolve - Remix and Derive Artwork/Photographs - dryicerx
http://alpha.artevolve.com

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tptacek
I click this link and see a wall of text. Bullet-y text to be sure, but text.
I don't even think to scroll down to see the artwork below the fold. My eyes
don't really read your text; they're just looking for some indication of
something I can click on to _actually see the thing_. They find "browse"; I
click that, and now I'm actually in your app, and I'm thinking "what-the-hell,
why isn't _this_ the first thing I see when I visit the site?"

Long story short: find another way to organize the front page of the site. You
picked a niche where you get to put pretty pictures on your site. They need to
be the first thing I see.

~~~
dryicerx
Ah yes, I just applied a new design with the info and thumbnails side by side,
hopefully solving this problem. A good lesson for me (I am just getting
started with the web design and ui aspect of things). Thanks!

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jaymon
The site looks great. It's very clean, which I love.

One of the things I would do is split the main page into left and right and
move the "Recent Artwork" to the right of bullet point list on the left. This
will let prospective users see artwork right away and you don't really lose
anything since there isn't much content in the bullet points anyway.

Also, I would lose the captcha for the signup until you have a spam user
signup problem. No point in giving people another obstacle to signup if you
don't have to. I would lose the "password again" field also as I've never
really liked it.

Good luck.

~~~
dryicerx
Thanks! Those are some great ideas, already applied your advice on the signup
form and captcha, this is a excellent point.

I agree about the front page content as well. I'm playing with the design now
trying to get them fit nicely. Not being a web designer, this is going to be a
joyful :)

------
ow
I think that your design would be much more successful if it were more
visually content-centric. Focus on 1-3 of the best images (I guess based on
your voting system) to show off on the front page. "Finally a Home for your
Creative Work!" is too generic. It forces me to read each paragraph below to
know what's going on. Try explaining the site in a few bullet points
reinforced with descriptive and visually appealing icons. If you try that
stuff out I think it would also positively influence the flow of the rest of
the site.

~~~
dryicerx
Yeah, the tag line is just a place holder for not having something better,
need to brainstorm harder...

The content concentric idea with a few images is definitely a good one. I was
thinking of something like TED.com where things are tiled, but with bigger
images, but hopefully will get to that once I finish developing the core
features within the site. Really appreciate you input!

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dryicerx
Just a side project I just hacked in the last few days. Think of it as Github,
except for artwork. You can use it to store your creative stuff, but also to
fork and derive from other users and the site tracks the derivative/fork tree.

Example of derivatives
[http://alpha.artevolve.com/art/view/321667ea2e7a4db4a2089802...](http://alpha.artevolve.com/art/view/321667ea2e7a4db4a208980241a58766)

By the way this is still Alpha as still a lot to be done

~~~
prawn
I would introduce a sidebar to the art profile page so people can get an idea
of what surrounds that piece (derivatives, ownership, etc) without having to
scroll down.

When you've developed it a bit more, make sure that in between the click from
art profile to evolve an image, there is something other than a sign-up form.
You need to show the potential to new users before they will sign-up. As it is
now, the majority would see the sign-up and walk away.

Make sure your example derivative is really convincing. Not sure if your
market is professionals (who might do this in Lightroom or Aperture), groups
(wanting to share professional derivatives privately) or people creating
lolcats and so on, but your example for each case should be quite different.

~~~
dryicerx
Excellent idea regarding the art page, I'll definitely need to redo that page.

I already applied your suggestion for art submitting/evolving page, I can
definitely see it attracting more people that way by showing the guts.

Really appreciate your input! :)

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eam
I would have to say the only thing that bugs me _is_ the many different font
styles and colors. I'm not feeling the #B55008. Just giving you my meaningless
opinion. :)

~~~
dryicerx
Now that you mention it, I can see the many fonts not mixing well too. Do you
have any suggestions regarding the color?

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amock
Is there any way to search or filter by tag? Right now you can just look
through all the photos, but once you have more photos it would be nice to be
able to filter them.

~~~
dryicerx
Yup you can, <http://alpha.artevolve.com/arts?tag=moped> I haven't included it
in to general usage yet because there still some kinks.

I also plan on making it so the source artwork's tags will also trickle down
to derivatives works and etc.

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tcagri
I think you should left align the introduction texts and title on the
homepage.

Also it is not clear if everything on the page is 'recent artwork' or not.

~~~
dryicerx
Ah good idea, noted. For the moment since there aren't that many submissions,
it's the most recent work, but once I get enough submissions, hope to only
display a couple of 'features' or 'top voted' images.

