

Ask HN: Review my startup, symbyoz.com - metysj

I know ... 4am is not a reasonable time to go to sleep (nor to wake up) but hey, you know the rap ...<p>So I completed a major iteration of my side project, an online notebook to organize and share ideas and advices with friends.<p>Here's the site http://www.symbyoz.com<p>The site is still a bit slow and rough in the edges but it's functional. Your feedback and advices will be really precious.<p>Also I'm looking for driven and talented programmers, hackers or enthusiasts who aren't afraid to tackle big challenges, handle hard problems and put up with the pains of starting a new business.<p>If interested, contact me directly on the site.<p>Thanks.
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PonyGumbo
For what it's worth, my eyes went directly to the web comic, and I was on
panel 2 when the image refreshed. It got to the third strip before it occurred
to me that a mouseover might pause the rotation.

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DeusExMachina
I'm on an iPhone and I even can't stop it. After two times I was not able to
finish a strip I got pissed and left the page.

~~~
metysj
Oh yes, the site is not ready for smartphones yet. Sorry about the pain. If
you are in the area, I'll buy you a beer to make it up ! :)

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metamemetics
typo: "Thanks for registering! Please ake the time"

Landing page:

make the logo bigger upper left. make the logo subtitle a phrase that is
formatted as a direct answer to the question "Why are you here?" make the logo
aligned with the body text to make the left axis of alignment on your page
stronger. Consider changing the background gradient to something radial rather
than linear and more stylized. Maybe a darker luminosity to emphasize that the
notebook page is the foreground. Do not use centered alignment in your content
page. Always use left or right alignment unless you have a really good reason
for making it centered. There isnt much repeated style between elements Uh...
I'm going to stop mentioning design stuff and just say you should either hire
a designer before a programmer\hacker or get this book for some really easy to
act on practical advice: [http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-
Robin-Willia...](http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-
Williams/dp/0321534042)

App: On notes under an idea I like how it hides unnecessary interface features
unless you mouseover..... I think you need to incorporate this design
methodology in more places with cruft on the site. I am allergic to cruft,
squint until your eyes go blurry and see how many different "chunks" make up
the page and try to limit it to 5-7. Tags is plural but only seems to accept
one thing. You need to show "state" better. For example you know how some
sites use breadcrumbs? Like it will say "Metamemetic's Ideas > A First Idea >
Notes" or something and they are all links to navigate back and forth, and
they are all the same style in the same location and instantly convey where I
am in the site. You don't have to use breadcrumbs just make it super obvious
for the user to tell where they are and what they are doing at all times with
no clutter around whatever the "state" indicator is. and don't have multiple
"state" indicators, just one all informative one.

overall it's a good idea though with a good code foundation! Props for getting
something out there

I would try and leverage the fact that you are creating tree data structures
with ideas and notes to do some interesting things in the future, but just
improve the UI and UX first.

[I don't know if I would use the site personally because I use Git to version
control my local repository of random ideas, but there could be a good target
market. Not sure who your target market is... you should pick one and post on
whatever forums they are currently sharing ideas on and see what features they
would need\want to use your site. Or if your site ends up functioning better
as a personal planner\to do list than a collaborative editor, maybe market it
as increasing ones organization and productivity]

~~~
metysj
Great return, thanks. If you are or know a good designer you can recommend,
I'm a taker.

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DirtyAndy
I know a lot of "Web 2.0" sites are all look a bit the same, and I appreciate
you going for a different look, but for me this doesn't work. If you look at
other sites they tell you exactly what they are trying to sell in big letters,
with clear screen shots on the front page.

Your video tells me little (well done though, that must have taken some time),
three different sign-up options on the home page is messy, the link to
screenshots down the bottom is just hyperlink, "Product Tour" needs to be at
the top somewhere.

Do you really need a Captcha? I find them a pain in the arse, why not wait
until you have a spam account problem.

As another commentator says, depending on your audience the Killer Startups
and Best of the Web logos may actually devalue your product. If you are aiming
for HNers etc definitely, however the general public seem to like these sorts
of things sometimes.

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wccrawford
<http://www.symbyoz.com> Clickable.

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sirwitti
hi! when the site loads, the facebook buttons need some time more to load (of
course). but they don´t seem to be in a container, so some elements jump when
the buttons are rendered.

the signup button is very hard to find. you could make it much bigger "web
2.0" style and with green background (which is good for conversion rates).

i´d replace "watch the video" with a big play button in the middle of the
image. this way, more people will watch it.

the signup form: i´d mask the rest of the site when it´s showed, to make clear
that the user can´t do anything else right now.

the captcha is centered now, but the text fields not. i´d right align the
captcha.

when first opening the signup form, the error message for the full name is
shown in pure red. for me the error should only be shown when the user tries
to submit the form. and you could use a more decent color for the error
messages.

add a * to all required labels (and "fields with * are required), so the users
knows which are required. right now he has to wait for error messages.

the checkbox and notice texts (at the bottom) would look better if they were
all aligned with the text fields.

i´m not quite sure, whether purple is the right color for the notice text.

for the checkbox: it´s a lot clearer if there is first the checkbox and then
the label for it. (i personally try to always use wordings with I instead of
you. feels better somehow)

i like the js validation when the user inputs the needed information. - well
done!

hopefully i was not too hard to you :) martin

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metysj
nope ... perfect feedback and great advices :-) thanks a lot martin

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Roridge
I may be completely wrong on this, but didn't Google try something almost
identical and eventually realised it just didn't work, or the user base wasn't
ready for it and Wave-ed goodbye to it only recently?

I don't want to bring down your site, but if they couldn't make it profitable
that says something to me.

However, I liked Wave, and wanted it to stay, so if you system is good I'd use
it, but I wonder if enough people would?

(oh and the rotating comic, totally agree very annoying)

~~~
metysj
Wave was a great product, still is actually. I liked it a lot too.

But let's get it straight ... Symbyoz is far from being Wave.

Wave is an awesome brute force of technology. We're not even close. Wave
intent was to replace email. We don't (meh ... Google is a legend, I'm a lone
hacker). Wave was a self sufficient (closed?) communication and collaboration
tool. We aren't. We talk to Facebook, Twitter and GMail right off the bat.
Wave target was to rack up every e-mail users out there. We obviously would
like to dream about it, but ... :)

If Symbyoz grows, it can become a lot more like Wave. For now, it's just a
social platform to quickly jot down ideas and share with friends.

I think of it more as the secret child of 43things and Evernote who's being
raised by Facebook.

(And for the rotating comic, I'll definitely take care of it :))

Thanks for the feedback !

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metysj
Just some words to thank you all so far for the feedback. You guys sure are no
brittle matter, but that's also why you rock. I mean it. I've at least "pack-
minified" most resources to make things a bit faster. It's still slow (YSlow ~
70) but hopefully more bearable for demanding hackers :). I also wanted to
renew my call for help. I'm still looking for people (koders or designers) who
would be interested in making this a great (and cool) journey.

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csomar
1\. You need a better design, the logo seems kind of stupid for me. The whole
design take me back to 2000/2002.

2\. Why load all these scripts. I mean, I'm in the home page, you shouldn't
load validate.js, form.js... Also lot of commented HTML, this only add
unnecessary loads to your page. Also avoid inline CSS.

3\. You need a good copywriter or may be some copy writing lessons since you
just started. Someone already mentioned it.

~~~
metysj
1\. 2000: Y2K fear passes, Bush is elected as president through Supreme Court
Decision, 2001- 9/11 attacks, Beginning of war on Terror, 2002-2003: Beginning
of War in Iraq. Yuck... Bad memories. You need a beer too.

2\. As I stated, the site is still in development (as you stated, there's
still a lot of work on the design). I'll clean it up.

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brosephius
I think the "See a sample page" link should be more prominent. maybe it's just
me, but I have very little patience for new web apps that don't let me see
what they look like without signing up, so I was about to leave yours until I
noticed that link down in the corner.

the intro video you have doesn't really tell you anything either, I'd replace
that with a screencast of someone using the site.

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ScottWhigham
I like the overall look and feel of it - kudos for getting it going. I think
the little graphics (Killer Startups and Best of the Web) kill any credibility
that the site was trying to build - at least to me - so I would suggest
dumping those. The comic doesn't size well. I couldn't easily read it even
though it was a PNG (so I didn't bother).

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cubix
You seem to have at least four slogans:

1) Share ideas and advices

2) Organize and share ideas with your friends

3) The best place to organize and share your ideas.

4) It's who you know

You should choose one, and show it only once. I would go with the first, but
change advices to advice.

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HowardRoark
I am primarily a Java developer too, but I have very rarely seen any hobby
projects being done in Java/Jsp. I wonder if there is a reason why you did it
in Java? What framework do you use? Does Java needing a lot of memory have to
do with the slowness of the site?

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metysj
No I've used java because it was faster for me to code something functional.
There's no other specific reason.

The slowness is due to the tons of non-minified javascript loaded, to the not-
yet optimized number of requests to the back-end, and also to the fact that my
VPS is not a competition server.

It's actually a miracle already that it renders the way it does. I understand
only now how sensitive the HN community is to these aspects, I should have
understood it already I guess ... hackers like clean efficient code, and it's
all good feedback.

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pirko
The site is painfully slow. When I clicked on "See A Sample Page" it took
around 20 s to load with over 200 requests. It loads 61 external javascripts
and 16 stylesheets (combine and minify). When I tested the page in YSlow it
got 54 / 100 performance score.

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metysj
Planning on it ... as it's still in development I didn't bother doing that
just yet. Thanks for the feedback, yes, it's painfully slow at loading :(. It
gets a bit better after.

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jusob
I didn't like the design too much, but the video is really great! I think it
should be on the main page. I would remove the cartoon, and some other
content, and put the video inline. Did you create it your self, or did you get
an agency to do it?

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vladoh
Why should I use this web app instead of updating my Facebook status or
posting a tweet?

~~~
metysj
Are you using Facebook or Twitter to share ideas?

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JabavuAdams
I misread your URL as simboyz. What? A gay simulator?

~~~
metysj
Look what I've found for you :)
<http://www.bookglutton.com/glutton/simboyz/15408>

