

Ask HN: How's my landing page? - johnhok

Recently worked on a personal project this summer and finally soft launched it with a private beta. I've created this landing page for it at:<p>http://www.dailychomp.com<p>I'd like some feedback on the landing page design and ways you think I could improve it as I've never really done landing page designs before.<p>Just want to see if others could pick out ways to improve it.<p>Thanks!
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danielhunt
_edit_ typo

Nice twist on not collecting email addresses into some bucket that will sit
dormant for 2 years - pretty clever of you to poke twitter & facebook instead
(which, I imagine, would result in more 'OMGVIRALZ' too).

I had actually had a very similar idea to this myself, but never got around to
implementing it.

The design looks clean and very appealing, but why did you create it with a
hashbang link approach? It doesn't _appear_ to gain anything by doing that
(click on the 'about' link)

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johnhok
Thanks for the feedback.

It's using hashbang links simply because the mobile web application uses a
similar approach in order to reduce the assets being transferred over 3g
connections.

The desktop web application is bootstrapping the same JavaScript at the moment
so it uses a similar approach in requesting the assets that change.

The idea is so the desktop can easily inherit most of the functionality of the
mobile web application with minimal modifications.

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glimcat
The page is basically blank if JavaScript isn't available. Turning it on shows
that it is only being used to populate the main content pane.

This is a bad design decision since (a) not everyone with JavaScript off will
bother to enable it if they haven't already seen something interesting, (b)
not everyone with JavaScript off can enable it, and (c) you're giving yourself
this problem in exchange for no apparent benefit.

Your main pitch should always, always, always be visible in the broadest
compatibility case - even if that means falling back on a static mockup.

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dgunn
Currently at work so I'm using IE8. It seems to be completely unusable. I hate
thinking about it just as much as the next guy, but it's probably wise to
support at least 2 versions back for IE.

I recommend keeping the landing much simpler and more focused. I have no idea
what is trying to run when I load the page, but whatever it is probably isn't
strictly necessary for the front page. Link to the more complicated stuff for
those who become interested.

~~~
johnhok
Guilty as charged. I did absolutely no cross browser testing with IE for
DailyChomp mainly due to time constraints with school starting. No excuse but
thanks for the good reminder. I will try to fix up the IE issues as soon as I
can. Sorry about that!

I've made a screenshot for you to see how it looks at the moment:
[http://f.cl.ly/items/3r1H280A2U3G1w0N1d1w/Screen%20Shot%2020...](http://f.cl.ly/items/3r1H280A2U3G1w0N1d1w/Screen%20Shot%202011-09-12%20at%2012.07.33%20PM.png)

I did try to put a focus on simplicity. Let me know if you think there's still
some unnecessary stuff on the page :)

~~~
dgunn
Looks great. I love the subtle rainbow effect on the left side of the header.
Those little things are what usually impresses me the most because they're so
subtle I'm surprised anyone ever thought to do it.

I think the message is perfect. The complication I was talking about is the
(likely) unnecessary script running on a landing page. It seems like the
intention of the page is simple enough that very little (if any) scripting is
necessary. For example, I have a "coming soon" page that is solely meant to
collect email addresses (<http://soupnextdoor.com>) and I'm more interested in
everyone being able to see it than how it looks, so I made sure it will work
for anyone. I may be wrong about your page's need for scripting since I
haven't seen it with a browser that can handle it. I'll take another look with
chrome when I get home. Great design tho, and the message is clear. Good idea
btw. :)

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duck
Looks good overall. Couple small things: 1) Show a couple more screenshots so
we know what exactly it does 2) I see this a lot and it drives me nuts:
DailyChomp, but the logo shows dailychomp. The logo also looks a little out of
place. 3) I would give the option to collect email addresses too.

Lastly, and the most important... start A/B testing right now. Try testing the
wording in that button first and go from there.

~~~
danielhunt
Just on 2) - I actually prefer to see all lower case in the logo, as opposed
to CamelCasing the whole lot

Certainly agree on 1) though

~~~
duck
I'm fine with logos being all lower case or whatever, but to me it should
match how you write it in the text. If you don't do that, it is hard for
people to write about you because they don't know how to write the name.

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xutopia
What does it matter what it looks like if it is effective? The stats you get
from this should matter more than our opinions.

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ryankals
I think it looks pretty good. The best landing pages are the ones that simply
explain the idea. Perhaps you could create a short video to let us know how it
works once you launch.

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shiftpgdn
You need to have a way to go back to the main site from mobile browsers. I'm
on Firefox/Ubuntu and it takes me to your mobile site with no way to get back
to the normal site.

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johnhok
Here's a link for convenience.

<http://www.dailychomp.com>

~~~
johnhok
For those who just want to see a screenshot:
[http://f.cl.ly/items/3r1H280A2U3G1w0N1d1w/Screen%20Shot%2020...](http://f.cl.ly/items/3r1H280A2U3G1w0N1d1w/Screen%20Shot%202011-09-12%20at%2012.07.33%20PM.png)

