

Ask HN: Feedback on my learning startup - lux
http://www.dojolearning.com/

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aggieben
I think the topics seem a little too contrived.

For example - who is really going to go looking for training in the "Politics"
category? There may be some things, but I don't know that many people would
look for it there.

My suggestion: let topics be determined more organically, and use a tagging
mechanism like the one on del.icio.us where you can combine tags to refine the
particular topic you want. To go back to the "Politics" topic, I might rather
see all topics tagged "politics+communications" to learn more about making
political speeches, or "politics+county+texas" to learn about how county
governments in Texas work. Or, if I just had a general interest in
mathematics, I could just look at the list of courses tagged "math". Etc, etc,
etc. I don't think this means you have to show a tag cloud on the front page,
but you might show a simple list of the 10 most popular tags instead of
imposing a topic list.

I realize this is a very common way to organize user-generated content, but I
think it's very effective, and I think it's even now something that web-savvy
users now come to expect (like me - I very quickly get frustrated with
searching for untagged content).

~~~
lux
Thanks! We're definitely looking to completely revamp the public lesson
browsing with a more complete experience for users. I agree that tagging like
you describe is the best approach there.

For our "1.0" launch we're focusing more on the lesson delivery for companies
and trainers, which we've been calling their "private learning network" and
"lesson storefront" where they get companyname.dojolearning.com (or a few
other domains we registered :) and send their learners there. You can see
simian.dojolearning.com as an example, which is the learning site for my other
software project.

For our "2.0" we're hoping to put more emphasis on the public side and also
add some social elements so users can find lessons through each other and get
recommendations in the system too. But for now we chose to really hone the
lesson builder and lesson delivery and just get it out there for companies to
use.

So right now it's more of a Basecamp style (private focus), and the 2.0 would
be more of a YouTube (public focus) in that sense :)

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tstegart
It has a nice design. I would suggest two things. One, a way to pause the
tour. I couldn't find it.

Two, a case study, showing how somebody used your product. Testimonials are
also great, and its another way to connect to a potential customer. Believe it
or not, some still are given work computers without speakers, so the video
tour is useless. And some people just like reading things instead. I do at
least, its usually faster and I can tell quicker if I like the idea, without
waiting for the tour to move along. A more in-depth how-it-works page would
appeal to me more than a video tour. Plus it gives you a chance to sell your
services in the way you explain how it works.

EDIT: Here's someone else launching today:
<http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups>. They have a little more
explanation, and a testimonial blurb on the front page. I think it works well.

~~~
lux
We're working with a couple companies who we're working on getting some case
studies and testimonials from. Soon, hopefully :) I totally agree on that one.

As for the pause button, we're working on improving the flash soon too. I'm
more of a back-end coding guy and haven't touched flash in years, so I'm just
a bit rusty...

Thanks for the feedback!

------
lux
I'm resubmitting since this didn't get any notice last time around. Hopefully
timing is better this time :)

We're about to launch our new startup, but wanted a bit of feedback from our
fellow startup-starters in the HN community.

Our idea can be described as the Basecamp model/philosophy applied to
training. We want to make online training much easier, and affordable for any
company. Beyond that, I'll let the site speak for itself.

Thanks!

------
OCInnovationVlt
Sounds interesting... did you launch yet?

~~~
lux
We've been using it with a small group so far, but we haven't officially
(publicly) launched yet no.

