

Ask YC: Which looks better? (Website design feedback) - yourmomis1337

We're trying to figure out a good way to list items on the 'browse' page of our site... the problem is that there is a lot of info we want to display for each item, and it gets pretty busy.  We've been playing with different solutions, and we want to know which one looks best.  Or maybe we need something completely different.<p>The comment below has the live links, basically they are all of the form http://www.siafoo.net/snippet?style= and then a number between 0 and 4.
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yourmomis1337
These are all variations on the same thing. Notice in particular what happens
when you mouse over one of the snippets.

<http://www.siafoo.net/snippet>

<http://www.siafoo.net/snippet?style=0>

<http://www.siafoo.net/snippet?style=1>

<http://www.siafoo.net/snippet?style=2>

<http://www.siafoo.net/snippet?style=3>

<http://www.siafoo.net/snippet?style=4>

~~~
SwellJoe
s/These are all variations on the same thing./These are all the same thing./

Fixed that for you.

The differences between them are close to irrelevant. Though I find the mouse
following a little irritating, so the last one is a wee bit better.

But, the things I think are wrong:

Too much. Over overwhelmed.

The Filters interface is horrible. I couldn't find what I was looking for at
all. Sliding through the list looks awesome...but it's really time-consuming
to use. A dropdown would have been faster, and would be what users expect. A
simple textbox with auto-complete might also be a way to go about it.

There are too many types of filters for a front page. Make it keywords by
default, and hide the rest on an advanced search page.

Or, simply get rid of "filters" and make search work really nicely. That'd
remove a huge amount of the confusing stuff on your page...but maybe filters
are worth having, regardless of clutter...you can decide that. But you
definitely need to do something about those filters.

The rest of the page might be a bit busy...but it looks pretty nice.

One thing you might consider is making a bunch of language specific versions,
e.g.:

perl.siafoo.net python.siafoo.net java.siafoo.net

Or siafoo.net/perl, /python, etc.

Most people looking for a snippet of code will need it in their own language.
Sure, a lot of developers are happy to learn new techniques in many languages,
but if it's a "here's where you go to find the bit of code to do this tiny
thing" kind of site, then you probably want it to be obvious how to find the
right language. The "Languages" filter obviously already provides the
functionality...so maybe a direct link is trivial to add.

~~~
stou
I made the filters interface and I agree that its horrible.

Maybe only the keywords and languages filter should be shown by default with a
small '|> more filters` link that expands the rest of them.

We could have an autocompleter for all the different filter types but then one
can not 'browse' things when bored... but I guess if it's a drop-down box it
may work as well.

Also making the search 'really nice' would be awesome but it's the same
problem as above... there's no way to randomly browse for stuff. Although
having the search nice and the filters hidden would allow people to find stuff
and also browse for things.

The search is currently 'not so bad'... it takes into account language,
keywords, license etc. So you could do 'Python UTF-8' and it will return the
correct things.

Having language specific versions is a good idea, and it would be fairly
trivial to add.

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pg
That's a very busy site. That problem is shared by all the snippets. Start
deleting stuff that doesn't change (e.g. the icons), till what's left is
mostly stuff that does (titles, usernames).

~~~
stou
But if all that's left is the title and user name how would someone know what
language or license the thing is under? Or if all the icons are deleted how
would you know that 'Python' is the language and not the license...

Also stuff kind of gets deleted as you apply the filters:

[http://www.siafoo.net/snippet?owner_id=5&language_id=59&...](http://www.siafoo.net/snippet?owner_id=5&language_id=59&license_id=0&owner_gid=2&keyword_id=266)

But it is true that most people will not care who owns something or what the
license is... so maybe that sort of thing should only be displayed in some
kind of 'advanced view'

~~~
pg
I didn't mean only leave titles and usernames, just to cut everything you can.

