

Show HN: Less Work, More Golf - mdoerneman
http://www.scrambl.com

======
sixtofour
Firefox 4.0.1. Ubuntu 10.04. I don't golf and I don't know anything about
colors.

Pardon the following stream of consciousness.

I like the colors, the prominent Big Orange Button, the name and the
uncluttered layout.

Is your font source so important that, among all the elements of all your
pages, _this_ is the one thing you can see at any screen size and scroll
position? More important than Create Event and Login (see next para)?

None of your text or blocks re-flow if I have a small screen or if I simply
resize my browser down, so you have to side-scroll. The Create Event and Login
links at the top right disappear behind a scroll. There's nothing about your
text that requires it be in lines that exact length, and there's nothing about
your six flagged features (the bottom_feature divs) at the bottom that require
them to be in two lines of three; they could re-flow.

Coming Soon, Auto Tee Times. "We make your tee times." Does that mean you
actually secure the reservation at the course? You could charge money for that
feature.

Create Event: I like that you can see most of what you can do without creating
an account and logging in.

The Name and Email text fields extend way out of the Your Info column, into
the Itinerary column.

Not sure I like one long column of blocks on the left on Create Event, and a
column of just one block on the right.

The url for Create Event is /event/new. If you go to that url, and then
manually to /event (by deleting "/new" in the address bar, or using the Uppity
addon in Firefox), you display the root page and the formatting gets fubarred.
If you're on the root/home page and then manually go to /event, you display
the root page and the formatting is fine.

However: If you go to the Login page, /account/login_new, and then manually go
up to /account, you get redirected to /account/login_new. Same if you manually
go from / to /account, the same redirection. I think this is better behavior
than /event/new in the previous paragraph.

Login page: On the scale of security, this is a minor issue, especially on a
non-critical site like yours. I tried to reset my password with a fake, non-
existent account, iamfake@example.com. After clicking, the page tells me there
is no account with this email. What if I wasn't iamfake, but wanted to know
whether iamfake had an account on this site or not? You just told me. Anyone
else want to comment on this information leak? I see it a lot elsewhere. A
better response would be to say something like "If this account exists, we
have sent email ..." regardless of whether there is such an account.

I created an account. An entire 15 seconds has gone by, and I still haven't
received the confirmation email! :) Seriously, I hate this. When I create an
account (anywhere) it's because I'm so interested that I want to do stuff
_now_. (still no email). I'm always curious, in general, why these things take
so long. Is it by design, to fight spam bots, or do you (and others) outsource
this and your service just takes its own sweet time? Or is it just an
unavoidable condition of email?

In general I think this is an unfortunate hurdle in an otherwise smooth and
inviting (inviting almost by definition, since I'm taking the time to sign up)
site and process. I wonder how many potential customers/users are lost at this
stage? (still no email ...)

We have email! I didn't time it, between five and ten minutes I think. I've
abandoned potential new sites in less time.

Copyright: it says 2011 on your front page, 2010 elsewhere. Templates?

Bear with me on this next one. When I created a new account, I was left on a
logged in page while waiting for the activation email. It was the /account
page. I know I'm logged in because I see "My Events", and "Logout" at the top.
When I clicked on the activation link in the activation email, I was brought
to a new page/tab on the /account/login_new page, not logged in. I reloaded
and hard-reloaded, still not shown as logged in on that page.

Just a nit, but since I'm shown as logged in on the one page, and you've given
me a cookie, shouldn't I be logged in on any page/tab? I like that you left me
logged in on the /account page (remember, I've just created the account and
I'm waiting for the activation email on that page), it gives me something to
do while waiting for the activation email. But then I should be logged in no
matter what other tab/pages I'm on, particularly the one that the email
activation link brings me to. But, just a nit I'm picking.

My Friends: I added Friend1, Friend2 and Friend3. Deleted Friend2 with the red
X on the right, that's pretty clear. What are the check boxes for, to the left
of the friends, and the select all check box above them? Did you leave this
feature on without any purpose? Did you intend to be able to create an event
from here, by first selecting friends, and forgot to finish this feature?

Same comment for Courses.

Create Event: When I first created an event, I scrolled down to the Who block,
far enough that Itinerary was not visible. I clicked on Friend1 and Friend3
repeatedly, and "nothing" happened. I wasn't able to see that those friends
had been added to the Itinerary until I scrolled back up. And then I thought
for half a second "how did _those_ get in there? Oh, right."

Make those buttons in the Who block toggles, and highlight them when a friend
is on the itinerary, unhighlight when you click again and toggle that friend
off. It may be redundant, but I like the feedback to take place where I did
the action.

Similar comment for the date buttons in the When block.

You have "clear all" in the three sections of the Itinerary block. In keeping
with the suggestion in the preceding two paragraphs, add a clear all in the
Who, When and Options block.

The names of the sections in the Itinerary block (Course Options, Date
Options, Invites) should match the names of the corresponding blocks (Options,
When, Who). Change one side or the other.

I like the idea of the Itinerary block. Maybe you could move it to span the
top, and have it always visible regarless of scroll position (like your font
source at the bottom :). You could then move the Who and Options block up to
the top of the right column.

The order of the sections in the Itinerary block should match the displayed
order of their corresponding blocks. If you were to re-arrange as above, with
Itinerary across the top and the other blocks in a two by two grid, AND you
re-designed so that the four blocks re-flowed into a single column of four
when you re-size the page smaller, then the order of the sections in the
Itinerary would be the top to bottom displayed order of the single column of
four blocks. Extra fancy if you had the Itinerary sections arranged two by two
to match the blocks' two by two grid when the screen is large, and rearranged
the Itinerary sections to a single column when the blocks are a single column
on a smaller screen/window.

I tried to add a non-existent golf course to my profile, but could not do it,
I was limited to only what's in your drop down list. Do you really have all
the courses in the country here? I suspect not, but maybe there's such a list.

As for that, you mis-spelled the Wellshire course in Denver as Weilshire.
<http://www.cityofdenvergolf.com/wellshire/>

Please don't take any of the above as negative, I think you've made a great
site. Whatever I said that's subjective is exactly that, subjective; you're
the boss.

~~~
mdoerneman
Wow! Thank you very much for taking the time to provide such in-depth
feedback. This is why I love this community so much.

~~~
sixtofour
Yer welcome.

I also just noticed that if I delete a friend from the Friends block on the My
Profile page, that friend still is shown on the Itinerary on the event that
I'm currently working on.

Also I forgot to mention on the Create Event page, Where should be listed on
the Itinerary, to be consistent with listing the other three blocks in the
Itinerary. You could also then make a Print view of the Itinerary. If you
Print-Preview as it is, it doesn't look very good.

------
mdoerneman
I think we all need to spend less time working and more time golfing. Here's a
start-up I created that can help.

I'd love to hear your feedback!

-Michael

------
Yxven
This seems like a cool idea. Have you considered expanding it to schedule
anything? Trying to schedule boardgames with friends can be quite painful. You
can play most of my collection with 4-5 people, but with 6 or 3, your options
are quite limited (plus, I am typically trying to play my new 5 player game).

~~~
mdoerneman
Actually, I started down this path by creating a site that lets you schedule
anything: www.DecideOnADate.com. You may want to try it out. With Scrambl we
wanted to be different from other invitation sites and focus on a niche, which
is golfers. The 2 apps may seem very similar at the moment but we have some
cool features planned for Scrambl that are directly related to golf.

------
dmix
I've read everything on the page and I'm not exactly sure what it does.

I'm guessing its for planning golfing "events". But I doubt my father or the
casual user would understand that.

~~~
mdoerneman
Scrambl sends out invites for golf and lets the group vote on the course and
date.

How does that sound?

~~~
dmix
Much better.

I recommend putting that next to the getting started button. The top headline
sells the benefit and next to the CTA explains what you're signing up for.

~~~
mdoerneman
This change has been made. Thanks!

------
agscala
One thing I can think of is picking a date to golf on should probably be a
calendar with a AM/PM toggle next to it. It's a bit hard to grok by glancing
at it right now.

------
ChaseB
I started www.niblink.com a couple years ago. Failed to get traction / pursued
a new venture. The golf industry can be fun. Best of luck.

~~~
mdoerneman
I'm picking up on some sarcasm about the golf industry being fun. Would love
to hear more.

------
juddlyon
Great idea and well-executed, congrats on the launch.

How'd you build it (get course info, tech stack, etc.)?

------
sabat
Quick note: would be nice to see a tag line that explicitly states what you're
offering. It's about setting up tee times with friends, correct? That should
be stated more clearly and simply.

~~~
mdoerneman
I have thought about this tag line a lot but you're right, it could be more
clear. I was trying to avoid using the phrase "make a tee time" as I didn't
want to get lumped in to other tee time sites but I may want to rethink this.
Thanks.

