
User Interface: A Personal View, Alan Kay (1989) - arsalanb
https://afterclasshq.com/doc/-L900zJeOz71_i1lqbrV
======
brudgers
Linking to the homepage for afterclasshq would probably be a better way to
introduce people to the product. While you have an understanding of what an
annotated document means, other people do not. It just looked like another
document with advertizing links (and a generic chat popup to interrupt my
reading). Forget about being a developer and put yourself in the shoes of
potential users/customers.

The first question people will have is "What is it?" If they do not know or it
looks like something low quality -- link filled pages and chat boxes tend to
correlate with that -- they will close the tab or click the back button.
Overall, my first impression was that the post was blogspam because the
content was lifted from someone famous, filled with links, and there just to
open a chat window.

It's an interesting idea and I see some potential because there is obvious
thought behind the execution. Make the presentation straight forward and
honest so that people know what it is, what it does, and why they should care.

Good luck.

~~~
arsalanb
I did do a show Hn earlier this week, but it seemed very inefficient to put
people through a page that gets them to sign up to create their own documents,
I just decided to annotate documents that interest me and post them here for
other like-minded people. (Believe it or not, annotating this took three
days.)

Also, you're right about the chat box being annoying I will probably remove it
from that page.

If there are specific tips for making the presentation more straight forward
and honest, I'm all ears.

Thank you for the feedback

~~~
brudgers
Inefficient for who?

I clicked on a link hoping to read something by Kay. I got something else
instead. Figuring out what it was required me to look at the "Show HN"; click
on the unlabeled logo; and scroll around on the project's home page. I never
did read the article by Kay because the intent was to demonstrate your product
not sharing an article by Kay with the Hacker News community.

My specific tip is still, just link to the project's home page so that people
know what the project is. Put yourself in the _reader 's_ place. They don't
know anything about your annotation tool. Accept that most people won't have a
use for it.

