

Ask HN: Please review my web app for web designers with no programming skills - todd3834
http://webmanarmy.com/

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zephyrfalcon
I'd rather see an app for programmers with no web design skills... <0.5 wink>

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todd3834
Hmm... maybe your on to something! haha.

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jpeterson
*you're

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todd3834
I wanted to create something that would let users easily take care of the day
to day tasks of building a website. The first two items that came to mind were
slideshows and contact forms since I used to get hired to create those
repeatedly in my freelance days. I know solutions exist for each of those
individually but I wanted to create a simple portal where web designers could
have a toolbox for creating their sites.

I plan on adding more items but I'm just starting with those solid two.

No business model or anything yet, I'm just trying to see if anyone finds it
useful.

Please let me know what you all think! And I would love suggestions for more
simple scripts to add to it.

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teej
Aesthetics: the color scheme is murdering my eyes. Use a simple palette and
use colors that work well together. I prefer to start with
<http://colorschemedesigner.com/>

Logistics: You have _5_ calls to action on your front page. Pick one and drive
it home. Focus on _1_ and either remove or tone down the others.

Idea: definitely seems reasonable. Without signing up, I don't really have any
concept of how it works.

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jdietrich
Agreed. The idea is great, but the user experience isn't.

For a product aimed at the confused and less-web-literate, the landing page is
a bit of a nightmare. It's confusing, hard to read and has no clear call to
action. The requirement to sign up before using the tool is a completely
unnecessary barrier to entry. Let me use your tool to design my widget, _then_
ask me for my e-mail address to receive the code. Posterous is an object
lesson in the power of having a completely frictionless signup process.

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izak30
From my POV (SaaS CMS for Designers and their Clients) You are filling a gap.
That gap is "Designers who want to fiddle with code a little bit".

Most of our designers would rather be done after a PSD, but some want to
tinker with it a little more (we call them front-end developers if they know
HTML and CSS... and dabble in javascript)

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dskhatri
Catchy app name!

Some suggestions:

\- The "Start Building Stuff" menu is too wide (1/3 of the page width). When a
user selects to build a contact form or a slideshow, you could hide this menu
or offer a smaller menu instead.

\- I signed in but still get the "Join Today" button on the home page.

\- The button on the top right that reads "Free Account, Click Here for
Dashboard" could be redone for a logged in user. Maybe "Welcome firstName!
Start Here". Would your typical user understand what a "dashboard" is?

\- Finally, a comment you'll probably hear a lot: let a user start building
without having to join. As a final step, you could ask the user to join.

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todd3834
Thank you dskhatri. \- I really like the idea of showing a smaller toolbar
when a users selects an item to start working with.

\- Your right, I will hide all instances of join now for logged in users.

\- I love the Welcome, start here. That would be much easier to understand

\- No joining would be awesome but I guess I'll have to think through how to
implement that. I guess I could send a link to let them edit it later...

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lftl
I'd link the text "watch my screencasts" to your blog page. At first I thought
you actually didn't have any screencasts done. I'd consider highlighting them
more as well, maybe making them have a section like the demos and featured as
prominently.

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tcarnell
...Be careful: Are you sure this is something people need? Is this something
YOU believe web designers want? What problem does this solve? Ultimately, how
will get get money from it?

I think maybe the 'eye candy' has taken up more time than the quality of the
product. Always remember Google, a plain white page, a form field and a
'search' button...worth billions...

Go for it!! get users, get feedback, improve it etc, but be sure you can
answer the above questions...

Also, from my experience, dont rely on friends/family for useful
feedback/support - find people that have the right way of thinking and draw
from them...

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Osmose
If you're targeting web designers without programming skills, you may do well
mentioning something to that effect on the home page. My first thought when
looking at it was that it was for people who have never made a website.

Also, the "than before" in the blurb on the left seems awkward to me. Perhaps
take it out?

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adelevie
I don't like the idea that web sites are just implementations of scripts. They
are applications. Someone sells a photo album application, not a photo album
script with a pretty html+css layout.

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Androsynth
I would put a 'demo' or 'samples' link in the header nav bar. When I clicked
on the 'view demo' links, I had to go back to the homepage to view the other
demos.

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todd3834
Good point, def. will add that.

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jaw
nitpicking: "allow you build websites" rather than "allow you to build
websites" looks like a typo to me (which is an unfortunate first impression)

