
Ask HN: Feedback on my web app: govcheck.net - rmanocha
http://govcheck.net/
======
sgrove
First off, best to indicate that this is for India.

The UI is not bad, but I would make the font bigger in most cases,
particularly the link targets. For example, why not make the entire cell
clickable for each entry here <http://govcheck.net/party/> ? Would greatly
speed my navigation through the site.

You'll need a subtitle, or a one line description of your site, otherwise I'm
not sure what I'm supposed to be looking for. "Get information..." is good,
but tell me what the purpose of the site it. Something like, "All the stats on
your Indian politicians."

On the graphs here, <http://govcheck.net/mp/111/> label the axis. I don't know
how to interpret this, other than it's trending downward.

Overall a very cool site, I like the idea behind it, and I'm glad to see you
launching and polishing it. Well done!

~~~
rmanocha
Thanks for the tips. The one about indicating this is for India seems to be
something I should really do. Going through the server logs, it looks like
lots of people are searching for states/cities in North America.

One more question I would like to ask people though is if I should try to make
this site compatible with IE6. I have done _no_ testing with it, and done very
rudimentary testing with IE7. I have not yet had too many users using IE6 to
view the site, but my target audience includes rural parts of India - places
where people use antiquated machines. Is it a good idea to try to fix this
issue now, or wait until I see more people using IE6 before diving in?

~~~
paraschopra
If it is not too much of an hassle, I would advise you to test on IE6. But,
unfortunaltely, it is usually too much of an hassle.

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fixie
Good idea. UI-wise, I would get rid of the "Welcome to GovCheck" text and
replace it with a tagline. Saying "Welcome to..." doesn't really tell me why I
should be on your site. I need to know what's in it for me, otherwise, I'm
heading off to another site. I would also de-emphasize the logo (eg. make it
smaller) and emphasize the search box more.

On your search results page, I would change the label of the "submit" button
to "Search" and remove that secondary search at the top right. If you need
that global search for some other page than the search results, I would
suggest adding a button to the right of the text field and label it "Search".

It would also be a good idea to add a "you-are-here" indicator on your tabs.

Colors could also use some polishing. Try
<http://www.colourlovers.com/palettes/> for some great color palettes to
choose from.

Good luck on your application!

------
neetij
This is a very cool site. I can quite appreciate the amount of work you've put
in here. I was trying to get something along these lines going myself, albeit
unsuccessfully - I was unable to do a good job scraping LS/RS :(

Second sgrove's suggestions. Further, it isn't immediately obvious that I can
click on the graphs to get participation details, attendance details, party
members in LS, etc. When comparing records, I found it difficult to identify
exact values in the bar graph - there are no axes lines or values provided.

Testing in IE7/IE8 is a must. IE6 has certainly diminished in popularity, but
your target audience doesn't necessarily live on cutting edge (or even close
to it), so some testing is required (atleast so the site degrades gracefully).

As for UI, I think you could make better use of the white space on some of the
pages. The search box at the top right is too small, yet search is a primary
navigation tool. The logo is a bit jarring on the blue bg. A breadcrumb would
be nice too. If my search returns a unique result, like your example for
'Gujarat', it would be nice to be taken directly to the result instead of
seeing the intermediate page with only one result - one less click, but a big
step in usability, friendliness. Also, are you using exact matches only, for
the search? Would full-text be applicable here?

One thing I see you haven't addressed is localization (unless it's there and
I'm missing it, I apologise). Translations to regional languages is important
when targeting the rural markets.

It's important to make this information more accessible and I think you've
made a great start.

PS: I know you've done a lot of the work already, but I'm interested in
helping out if needed. Email is in the profile.

------
rmanocha
I've launched with approximately 20% of the data I'm collecting so far. I was
not yet fully comfortable with the stability of those scraping scripts and so
wanted to give myself some more time.

Any feedback on the data and/or presentation is welcome. I would also really
love to know what people think of the design/layout - I'm not a UI guy, and I
know there are many improvements I can make.

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gills
At first I was disappointed that when I searched "Washington" (my home state),
nothing came up. Then when I clicked the 'States' link, I saw it was not for
the U.S.

But I think you are doing something that truly matters.

Keep up the good work, I think every country needs a Sunlight Foundation!

------
okeumeni
Search need more work. I search for ‘Vishnu’ I get two names ‘Sai,Shri Vishnu
Dev’ is one of them. Then I type ‘Vishnu sai’ nothing comes up. It tells me
that you are doing a simple database search.

Database typical search is not going to cut it, think of other ways to do
search; why not open source.

~~~
rmanocha
Yes - the search right now is a simple database search. Fixing it is high on
my todo list - I've been debating between implementing something on my own or
just farming it out to google custom search. Which is more recommended (given
that I don't want to do anything fancy with search right now - just looking up
names of Representatives, States etc. would suffice for now).

~~~
okeumeni
For Google custom search you will need to expose all your content, I’m not
sure if you want to do that. I will advice for you to look at open source,
stuff like Lucerne.

Who knows later in your evolution you may want to get Intelliverb DBCSS
(<http://intelliverb.com/DBCSS.htm>) we are currently doing a private beta for
enterprise level; the hosted solution will be a perfect fit for you but that
is down the line.

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moe
I, too, like the idea very much. But the color scheme could use some work. The
red/blue contrast of the logo against the background is evil. Also orange on
purple doesn't work too well for me.

I don't think I could use this site for longer than a few minutes before the
colors drive me away. But well, that should be an easy fix...

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paraschopra
You know, today morning I was thinking of exactly same project. A bit like
everyblock.com

I am interested in contributing to the project, if you need help. Let me know.

------
marram
The purple logo on the blue background is a bit hard on the eyes. Maybe a
softer purple?

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xenophanes
you're not helping me get the US government to send me a check? what _do_ you
do? make it more obvious.

