
Making of Aprilzero - vpj
http://aprilzero.com/journal/making-of-aprilzero/
======
kalvin
This is SO well done. So, so impressive.

A side question, for any doctors on HN-- I'm really curious, what do you think
about the Blood Tests section? That is, the benefits of monthly blood testing.
From talking to one earlier today about related topics (coincidentally!) I
could imagine the following response:

1\. The ideal ranges for each value on your blood test do not necessarily
represent the ideal range for you personally -- and not only do they not
necessarily represent the ideal range for you, if your number is outside them
and you're otherwise asymptomatic, your number is likely already "healthy"
(with very few major exceptions like blood pressure and cholesterol.)

2\. So by doing this, you aren't actually tracking things that need to be
improved, or rather, you have no way of knowing if you'd be "more healthy" by
being within range

3\. So, getting monthly blood tests is useless, and any changes detected would
also be useless

4\. (And as an aside, annual physicals for young healthy people are not
beneficial (and can be harmful) to health)

Is this right? Was I just talking to a curmudgeon? Tech-optimistic doctors,
what do you think?

~~~
davak
For normal people monthly lab testing would be overkill at best and dangerous
at worse.

The thing to remember about lab tests is that the "normals" are based on bell
curves so approximately 1 out of 20 labs will be abnormal from this phenomena
alone. The more labs you get, the more false abnormals you get. If each false
abnormal gets worked up, you are talking a lot of additional testing and
worry.

Typical recommendations to test hypercholesterolemia is every 90 days at most
if actively treating and then yearly once stable.

To your aside, I think annual physicals are probably overkill, but primary
care doctors are now expertly trained in screening for multiple issues that
could affect young healthy folks. Seeing your PCP for a "well-person" visit
every few years is a good idea. Most of the time the doctor isn't going to
order labs and will just chat a bit, do a physical exam, and get you on your
way. A good doctor will have informed opinions about your exercise and diet
regimen, for example.

------
dschwartz88
I realize that this took a huge amount of time, so asking for an open source
version of this might be asking a bit much. But, I would absolutely be willing
to pay for a SaaS product, or a licensing fee for the code. It's absolutely
beautiful, and as someone who does this in a gross spreadsheet, moving to
something like this would be unbelievable.

~~~
joshdance
Considering most people are casual observers 3 comments about paying for this
is a positive signal. vpj should just throw up a landing page asking for money
and start building. :)

~~~
vpj
I am not the designer, I just shared the link.

Author: [https://twitter.com/aprilzero](https://twitter.com/aprilzero)

------
markgarity
Anand, you have SERIOUSLY outdone yourself on this one. I continue to aspire
to attain frontend design chops as good as yours.

I remember watching Iron Man with this guy in his apartment in LA while trying
to convince him to move to SF. He took meticulous sketches and notes on the UI
used in the film. I look at this, especially the initial circular ui, and see
the culmination of those notes with amazing use of frontend technologies and
near perfect 3rd party integrations.

Well done, man. You are an inspiration to me.

~~~
icantthinkofone
So you can answer the question. Who is Anand Sharma?

~~~
josephpmay
not op, but Anand was previously the head of design at Quizlet (a top ed-tech
startup).

------
blueatlas
This is a striking example of the amount of work and thought that goes into a
design that presents rich data so clearly and cleanly. The casual visitor
would likely never have an idea of what it took to build what they are looking
at.

~~~
exogen
Yes. It really shines a lot on the fact that those futuristic movie interfaces
didn't just spring out of the computer by virtue of it being the future. And
I'm not talking about the CGI folks who create those interfaces for the movie
(although of course that's a lot of work, too) – I mean in the fictional movie
universe, where did those UIs come from? Are we assuming that in the future,
computers will be auto-generating all these sweet transitions and design
details? It seems to me that it will always come about just like April Zero –
through a LOT of effort, trial, and error.

------
Permit
It's always impressive to see an individual with a really good eye for design
and the technical chops to bring it to life alone.

Building a site as beautiful as this must have left you inundated with job
offers. It's really awesome!

------
smilefreak
This is seriously an awesome and well executed concept.

I am working in genetics lab that studies complex disease. Many of these
diseases have many environmental component and there is much interest in
investigating these so-called gene-environment interactions.

Currently to investigate interactions between genes and the environment, we
rely on patients to fill in questionnaires, which are problematic because
people are inaccurate. Other more specific measurements are gathered with
nurses taking blood, serum etc.

I wonder whether this could be deployed in anyway in medical research, using
the smartphones currently on the market.

~~~
debt
This definitely would provide a visual hierarchy to view all the potential
interactions, though I think your problem might be more hardware-related.

I assume if you combined as many of these apps(Moves, Cardiio, Foursquare,
etc.) into a single app(including peripherals like the USB ultrasound, which
seems impossible right now) you could get close to a pretty accurate picture
of a person's total gene interactions throughout the day. Also, the app would
have to be running continuously in the background.

------
nacs
Previous discussion of AprilZero (the site, not the making of):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8024073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8024073)

~~~
vxNsr
You can actually track him hour to hour... kinda crazy that he's providing
that, the site design is a little different than described I found myself
clicking on things that weren't links and being sent places I didn't want to
go because I'd click something that looked clickable but turned out not to be
and clicking on unclickable things sends you back one step.

------
skizm
Wow, what do you do for a living that you can travel so much?

~~~
reledi
You don't need a lot of money to travel.

~~~
skeletonjelly
True, but you should probably take a take a look at the above comment...

------
disdev
Best line from the write-up: It combined three of my passions: running,
photography, and getting attention.

Great design!

~~~
the_cat_kittles
I love that line too- somehow being honest and upfront about something thats
"taboo" to like makes it totally fine with me

------
ryanmickle
Turned out gorgeous, really well done, Anand.

------
jjsz
According to the previous discussion, he used, ignoring analytics and APIs: js
(coffeescript), leaflet, d3 (mercator projection), jQuery, SASS, mapbox,
jquery-pjax, python (django), individual animated state transitions with css,
and webkit transitions.

This is on another level. What extra resources on the side would one recommend
following IDV for the Web [1], to close the gap?

[1]
[http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1230000000345/index.ht...](http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1230000000345/index.html)

------
joeyspn
This is an awesome work, really. The design style reminds me _a lot_ of Eric
Jordan's style (2advanced Studios) [0]. Not really a new style, but nice to
see that Interaction Design with open technologies (HTML/JS/CSS) is arriving
"there", where (believe or not) Flash was 10 years ago...

I've been waiting for this moment for years. Hopefully this will set a new
trend.

[0]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANng1oTO2Zk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANng1oTO2Zk)

------
karl_gluck
This is really amazing; on the desktop, the site looks fantastic and it is
very interesting to browse. I learned way more about his travel history than
probably necessary due to sheer interest.

That said, it is completely unusable on the phone. Not just 'it looks weird'
but completely broken. I can't navigate anything or even read the article
linked here. -Firefox on Nexus 5

~~~
dan1234
FWIW it looks very nice in Mobile Safari, maybe there's something Firefox
doesn't support right now?

~~~
Excavator
More likely the issue is due to him using a ton of -webkit-prefixes for things
that have been unprefixed for years in Firefox.

[https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/07/aurora-16-is-
out/](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/07/aurora-16-is-out/)

------
throw564
Just wondering. Which insurance supports monthly blood testing. Are thee
reasonable private providers with reasonable charges?

~~~
ejain
InsideTracker and WellnessFX are two companies that offer direct-to-consumer
blood testing at somewhat reasonable prices. Another company called Cue
[[https://cue.me/](https://cue.me/)] is working on a device that would let you
do certain blood tests at home.

------
teekert
I find it a bit strange that he is currently on Koh Tao and his latest run was
5 hrs ago in San Francisco? :)

------
oumph1
Does anyone know what the USB Ultrasound transducer mentioned is called?

~~~
elitrium
Judging from the screenshot, I believe it's made by BodyMetrix:

[http://www.amazon.com/BodyMetrix-Personal-Ultrasound-Body-
Co...](http://www.amazon.com/BodyMetrix-Personal-Ultrasound-Body-
Composition/dp/B006C3T68G)

~~~
PStamatiou
Yes that's the one he has (I'm his roommate)

~~~
cheapsteak
Oh hey I referenced your guide on Jekyll when I was setting up my own blog
last year. ( thanks :) )

I'm kind of surprised that both of you are living in a roommate situation. How
did you guys know each other?

~~~
PStamatiou
Always kind of knew of his work online for years. He eventually moved to SF a
few years back. I wanted to hire him for my startup at the time but couldn't
afford him, but we hung out a lot and eventually got a place with another
friend

------
hexleo
Amazing, the blog's owner is a designer? Full of modern sense. It's a good
idea, combine many health apps and LBS apps data, display to user. It's done
automatically?

------
basseq
This is really amazing. A lot of thoughtful work went into this site, and it's
great that he took the time to document the process and talk through it. Wow.

------
Kiro
I want to read the "How to setup Photoshop" article that's in the old version
of the page but the link is dead. Where can I find it?

------
lucaspiller
Anyone know where you can get detailed blood tests like that in the UK? I'm
guessing the NHS won't cough up for that every month...

~~~
k-mcgrady
I know there are certain things you can pay the NHS to do (e.g. a friend had
to get a full physical signed off by the doctor to participate in boxing and
had to pay £20 for it). But then again blood tests are usually pretty slow
even for people who need them so they may not want people paying and taking up
resources.

------
tisunov
Such a thorough peek behind the curtains of his design decisions. And he
definitely fueled my passion for travel and active lifestyle.

------
nimish
Would love to know how the animations were designed and implemented--they
really add the extra wow factor.

~~~
skeletonjelly
Combination of CSS3 transitions (blur, translation, glow) and d3 I think

------
tabrischen
Really great write up of a well thought-out design and iteration process.

Bookmarked for future reference.

------
sixQuarks
wow, incredible designer. What would it take to convince you to work with me?

------
stevofolife
Amazing, I saw your website a few days ago and been studying it ever since.

------
click170
This page did not like loading on a mobile phone.

------
ivabz
WOW. Appreciate the way it is build.

But, So screwed up on IE10.

~~~
joeyspn
Collateral damage...

~~~
Excavator
Don't have access to IE here but he's using a ton of -webkit- prefixing for
things that are supported in other browsers since long ago.

[http://caniuse.com/transforms2d](http://caniuse.com/transforms2d)

[http://caniuse.com/css-transitions](http://caniuse.com/css-transitions)

[http://caniuse.com/css-animation](http://caniuse.com/css-animation)

[http://caniuse.com/css-gradients](http://caniuse.com/css-gradients)

Must say all that -webkit- yellow on those pages is scary.

------
Jonovono
Dude!! Where is your Narrative clip?
[http://getnarrative.com/](http://getnarrative.com/)

~~~
exacube
You have to pay a subscription just to get your photos out of the clip!? I
like the idea of the clip, but what a huge dealbreaker

~~~
Jonovono
hmm, as far as I know you just pay the $10 a year if you want to have your
photos stored on the cloud, but if you are willing to store all them yourself
you can do that. But i'll double check that!

~~~
hboon
You don't need the subscription if you just want to export the photos locally.
But the subscription fee is $9/mth, not year.

~~~
Jonovono
Ah, thanks for the clarification!

------
icantthinkofone
While looking at all this, I can't help but keep asking, "Who is this guy?".
I'm sure he's not some random web developer who thunk this up one day.

~~~
djloche
Not to diminish Anand's credibility at all - but why does he have to be
anything other than some random web developer? Does everyone have to have some
magical backstory to qualify to ship something great?

The primary difference between Anand and 'some random web developer' is that
he actually shipped. You can join this club too.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> Does everyone have to have some magical backstory to qualify to ship
something great?

I was wondering the same as the parent and not because I thought there was a
'magical backstory' but because when someone ships something this good they
have usually shipped something else you know of.

~~~
lukeholder
I disagree, a lot of people crate massively good work but never self promote.
Not that he is self promoting, but the point stands producing high quality
work does not mean fame.

~~~
ff7c11
Ok, but the lifestyle of just hoping on a plane somewhere to get into the mind
of an explorer requires you to be getting funding from somewhere (though
perhaps not dev work)

------
nilved
On Arch Linux using WebKit, this page doesn't load at all without JavaScript,
and doesn't work at all with it. Can you fix the site or provide a text
version?

~~~
majurg
Pretty sure JS is the brunt of the visualizations, etc.

~~~
nilved
Definitely, but a well-made site will degrade gracefully. I digress though,
because I'm okay with turning on JavaScript; the issue is that the page still
doesn't react to scrolling.

