
Making of April Zero: Part 2 - aprilzero
http://aprilzero.com/journal/making-of-aprilzero-part-2/
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sixQuarks
It doesn't matter how long you practices the art of design, there are few
people that can pull this off by themselves. I believe this guy has natural
design talent coupled with years of practice.

~~~
computerslol
I see talent. This is a nifty display of technical prowess. I don't see
discipline or any concern for the experience of the user.

Having spent some time in the explorer section, what I see is something
pretty, but unreadable. After the novelty of the interface choices fades, it's
about as engaging as an XML document. There's no story here, no human element.
I am seeing some interesting ideas and uses of space wasted displaying useless
data. The experience is disjointed, the navigation is not intuitive, the page
does weird things on scroll, and it doesn't work in IE11 (which is more
offensive to me than it likely is to most of his audience - I switched to
chrome to play with this).

If I were looking through this as a portfolio piece, I would be impressed with
the technical elements of the design, a bit put-off by the usability problems,
and confused (and a little upset) as to why a record of travel to 72 cities is
presented in such a dehumanized manner.

~~~
debt
In his defense it was a personal project; not a product for paying customers.
I find it impossible to get "upset" at someone's personal project.

But haters gonna hate.

EDIT: Count all the haters above coming out of the woodwork. We can't see the
points so we'll never know the real number.

~~~
computerslol
Let me clarify. None of that was an insult. He has talent. It takes a lot of
experience to harness and balance it properly. As he matures he'll figure it
out. He's 24.

Building something pretty is one talent. Building something novel yet still
intuitively usable is another. Building something engaging is yet another.
They (and more) are all linked. If he gets them all (or even just a few) down
and balanced he'll be someone to look out for.

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at-fates-hands
[http://aprilzero.com/journal/making-of-
aprilzero/](http://aprilzero.com/journal/making-of-aprilzero/)

I like at the end of part 1 where his buddy texts him and asks him if he wants
to go to Hong Kong and to meet in 5 hours at SFO.

Must be nice. . .

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laacz
This is some hugely impressive amount of highest quality work done by a single
person. I cannot recall seeing anything more astonishing than this.

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joelrunyon
This is cool. I want this to be an app.

~~~
joelrunyon
And I just realized he's releasing it as one -
[http://gyrosco.pe/](http://gyrosco.pe/)

~~~
misframer
He should put some text on that website.

~~~
DarkTree
yeah actually can someone verify that this is related to his app? I can't
really come to terms with entering my email into a blank third-party website.

~~~
aprilzero
Sorry. It's real but pretty rough, I put that page together really quickly.
Working on an upgraded version now that should feel less shady

