

Ask HN: Review my app - SimpleStats.net - alanedwardes

The site is basically designed to be a simple medium for reviewing your website statistics. I did start an open beta, but have thus far been unsuccessful in getting any kind of suggestions or improvements that are helpful.<p>http://simplestats.net/
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tdoggette
On the front page, I tried to click on the screenshot (the one to the left of
"Public Statistics") and was dismayed when I discovered I could not make it
bigger.

The copy under "Track Visitors without Javascript" (is that lowercase w
correct?) is unprofessional-sounding and unclear: What exactly is the
difference in the data I get from non-Javascript users?

Under the "About" link up top, "your sites visitors" should be "your site's
visitors".

At the bottom of the "Help" page (which might more accurately be termed "FAQ")
is the only mention in the entire site that the service is free, which is
something I'd like to have known earlier.

Is "Unique" the best term for one-time visitors? It's usually used to mean the
total number of different users on a site.

The signup page is very very slick-- how'd you make it? One thing I'd note is
that making the user enter a domain and site at signup is an unnecessary
barrier. I entered fake data to get around it because I wasn't ready to commit
to anything, but others may not be willing to work around.

Overall, the design of the site is excellent, readable, professional, and
pretty. The AJAX stuff works beautifully in Chrome.

I may be taking responsibility for an amateur radio group website soon, and if
I do, I'll be using SimpleStats to track my visitors' activity. It looks like
just what I need.

~~~
alanedwardes
I appreciate your feedback. I'll definitely improve the home page, and make
the various grammar mistakes that I've made. I did have my doubts about the
term "Unique", perhaps simply "New" would be a more accurate label.

Thanks :)

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chaosprophet
Okay, here are my observations:

1\. That screenshot on the homepage should be click to enlarge.

2\. The bar wth the home, about, help login etc. should be bumped up in text
size by atleast one point.

3\. It's nice that you are offering a way to track people who have javascript
disabled, but what features/data will I miss when tracking using noscript as
against tracking using javascript?

4\. The site design is quite clean and to the point. Thats a huge plus for
your usability.

5\. From looking at the demo account, the stats seem to be quite detailed and
informative, and the graphs are also quite clean, in keeping with the overall
look of the site. Another plus.

6\. Real time stats is a very handy feature.

7\. I don't know if it is by design but the whole page seems to jump to the
right and back when I click on the buttons on the landing page. It's mildly
distracting, so you should look into it. It makes the site appear a bit
unprofessional.

Overall, it's a pretty nifty service and I'm quite impressed with it. It has
just about everything, I would be looking for in an web analytics tool. Kudos
to you.

~~~
alanedwardes
Thanks.

First off thank you for the suggesions - I'll definately work on the homepage
and the font size of the navigation bar at the top.

The non-JavaScript tracker is inserted alongside the JavaScript and is used
when a user has JS disabled. Although the data obtained from it isn't as good
quality (it lacks a page title and referrer etc) it makes it so you have an
accurate representation of hits, and still allows you to see how many unique
visits you've gotten.

I'm glad you like the design and actual stats stuff - but I'm not sure what
you mean by the page jumping to the right and back. What browser version + OS
are you using?

~~~
chaosprophet
I'm using Firefox 3.5 on Win XP SP3. Hope that helps you.

EDIT: I noticed that the page jumps when I click any of the rounded white
buttons (like the buttons for the different sites on the example account).

~~~
alanedwardes
Thanks for the info. As far as I can tell it's because the length of the page
gets reduced while the content is loading, removing the vertical scroll bar.
Then when the content loads the scroll bar is needed again - so the page jumps
to where it was again.

I will try and fix this in the next redesign - perhaps fade out the content
and overlay a loading bar while the content is being fetched rather than
completely nuking it.

Thanks.

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Ionic_Walrus
I like the no javascript tracking. Im struggling with Quantserve (to track our
iphone app usage) - which, although supports the no javascript tracking,
doesn't clearly work.

The site looks neat and simple - the graph is quite nice. Congratulations.

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Salvatore
When I click the buttons: * Public Statistics * Per-Visitor Drill Down * Track
Multiple Sites * Live Website Stats * Track Visitors without JavaScript - the
entire site shakes. I'm using Mozilla Firefox if it's any help.

~~~
alanedwardes
Thanks! I'm not really concerned about getting the site working for non-
Javascript users right now, I'm primarily looking to work on the functionality
side of things before I worry about that. :)

I will definitely address that issue though.

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bdmac97
I would like to suggest you try out the free HN promo I am running for my
service, launchly. You'll get feedback there on your new app.

Promo Code: HN_LAUNCH Launchly: <http://www.launchly.com>

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ashleyw
Clickables:

Example account: <http://simplestats.net/user/alanedwardes/>

Homepage: <http://simplestats.net/>

