

Please review my recent launched site Crosstips.org - peterbe
http://crosstips.org/
Is it obvious what it does? 
Does it work? 
Does it help?
======
guywithabike
Was it really necessary to rip off Readernaut's HTML and CSS wholesale?

I mean, Jesus, it's a simple web app. It shouldn't take you more than a few
hours to come up with your own design and code.

~~~
peterbe
Yes it was necessary. I don't know how to do design and CSS and there's no
money made or invested into it. I tried putting together a design but it
looked shit and never worked very well.

~~~
patio11
_Convenient to you_ and _necessary_ are not synonyms. There is an Internet
full of free (beer and/or speech, your call), legal, pretty designs that you
can use to your heart's content.

I recommend anything by Styleshout (great web 2.0y designs), MultiFlex (more
traditional, a little boring by default but clean and fits just about
anything), and several of the designs on oswd.org for projects which don't
have the budget for a custom design. I actually ran a profitable business off
of an OSWD template for almost two years:

<http://www.oswd.org/design/preview/id/2583>

Strip out the giant sunflower, add in a header, and _bam_ , its a B2C software
sales site.

------
mikeyur
I like the idea, but I would make it a bit more clear what the site actually
does.

I'd also recommend making the boxes quite a bit larger since there's so much
white space. Done right, overly-large boxes work - like at tumblr (
<http://www.tumblr.com/register> )

~~~
peterbe
Ok. I'll certainly consider that.

------
matt1
You really need to explain what this is for.

~~~
baddox
No you don't. It's quite obvious.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Judging by the number of comments saying that it needs to be more explicit,
it's quite obviously not obvious to everyone.

~~~
peterbe
I've clearly learned something by all your feedback. It used to have a more
obvious name before that I couldn't use because of domain name real estate. I
had to change to Crosstips but didn't pad it with more explanation of what it
does. Plus having stared at it so much myself I got "home blind".

------
ryanwaggoner
I think you'd be far better off to swap the "About" page text for the
statistics on the front page. I doubt the average visitor to your site cares
how many searches have been run in the last 30 days (especially since they all
seem to be zero), but judging by the comments on this page, the average new
visitor probably would like to see something explaining what this is.

------
cabalamat
Some suggestions:

\- add options for UK/US English

\- add an option so that you can solve anagrams and find scrabble words

~~~
peterbe
I automatically assumes British English if you're located (by GEO IP) in the
United Kingdom and likewise for American English. For people in France for
example they can chose between "English (GB)" and "English (US)".

------
markessien
Yikes, I had absolutely no idea what this was for. I thought it was some type
of word generator. After finding the very tiny link at the bottom, I saw the
magic word: crosswords.

Most people don't do crosswords. Add that word to your page, or a lot of
people will be completely lost.

------
m_eiman
Add some javascript to skip next input box automatically when entering text.

------
tdonia
"length" is a strange way to begin the conversation with your audience. i get
it, length is critical to finding the right word, but that doesn't make sense
until you understand what it does. i would think about this from a user
experience perspective and see if maybe there's a better way to get this
information from your User.

~~~
peterbe
Good point. Perhaps "Number of letters:" is better. Yeah, it does sound
better.

------
codeinthehole
It would help if you provided definitions for the returned words to aid
matching an answer to the clue. Nice idea though.

~~~
peterbe
That could definitely go into a version 2. I thought about it but decided I'll
just this one released first.

------
amr
I get a "502 Bad Gateway" when trying to access the provided link.

~~~
peterbe
I crashed! I'll need to review the setup and support that with proper stress
tests that tests the actual search as well as the static media.

------
suhail
How about a "Crosstips helps you figure out the answers to crossword puzzles,
provide in a letter length and a few letters to get started."

------
peterbe
For all HTTP optimization junkies, check out the headers on all the static
stuff. Pretty good caching, eh?

------
ryanwaggoner
Why would I use this? Isn't the fun of a crossword struggling through stuff
like this without help?

~~~
peterbe
Excellent question. I made the site for the same reason a crossword solver
solves a crossword: to see if I can pull it off.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
I don't mean to sound like an asshole, but if you did it just as an exercise
to see if you could, why are you soliciting feedback?

~~~
peterbe
Because I'm a web developer. Not a crossword mathematician.

------
jfarmer
What is this for and why do you break my browser back button?

------
raptrex
on your suggestions, feedback, tips at the bottom, you might want to add some
captcha or your gonna get spammed :P

------
geuis
Get rid of the About page. Move that content to the left column of the front
page.

~~~
peterbe
That would add noise I think. Plus don't people expect an About link/page?
Kinda similar to how people expect to find a link to the home page near the
upper left corner.

------
geuis
@peterbe if you add <http://> to your blog link in your profile, it becomes
clickable.

~~~
thorax
I think this is broken-- it's been a while since I saw clickable links in
profiles.

------
adrianwaj
groovy feedback form, more sites should have something that easy.

------
garply
I don't get it.

------
alaskamiller
As of 1355 Sunday it's popping up 502 error.

