The original commenters critique is valid, as the discussion illustrates and ultimately vindicates. This comment you have left in response is dismissive, childish, and lacking of any meaningful contribution. Although, I suppose with a username like yours it should be of no surprise this is all you could meet them with. It is nevertheless disappointing to see such low-brow low-effort commentary on HN, and it is ironically your comment that is misplaced rather than the original commenter.
Editorial decisions and biases are relevant discussion points in writing. Subtext may be elusive amongst words, words, and words. You would benefit from embracing maturity and critical thought, as your contributions are a disservice to the community in present form, fart-fart-FART.
This is the first web app I've ever created.
I decided to take the dive and create something of my own. I'm really loving web development and I'm learning so much so fast.
I want to get the honest constructive criticism of the folks here at HN as I feel it would point out some weaknesses early in my game and help me grow as a developer.
So please, tell me what you liked or tell me what could be improved.
My two bits:
It's great that you're having fun developing apps. I can't say much as to the robustness of the app. But, you should not discount the user experience when developing an app.
What does the site do? Why is this easier/better/nicer than X/Y/Z? I have no idea.
What need or issue are you trying to address? Why should I use this over other services?
A reader for the lazy would ideally do something like NewsBlur (which is fabulous, BTW) and pick up my feeds from a competing service. Consider providing an 'import from Google Reader' option.
You're asking me to add sites one by one, in a non-intuitive manner - if there's only one feed, just let me click 'subscribe' - don't bother giving me a (non) choice.
I like that you're loading the actual site within your app.
However, I have a 13" screen at 1280x800 and there's all sorts of scrolling required, which makes for a messy experience. Gets worse when that lower frame is pulled up to view the site. Design for multiple resolutions.
From a usability perspective, the site is confusing. I've spent more time crafting this response than using the site because of this.
I could possibly click on things and see what they do, but that's 'risky' and not lazy. For instance:
1. What do the up & down arrows do?
2. What does pull up mean?
3. I clicked on a link in a feed and nothing happened. Oh no, this site doesn't work! (If I hadn't scrolled down, I would not have realized the site had loaded in the lower 'box', which I also had to then 'pull up'. This process is not obvious or easy.) Consider an email inbox view - just titles to click on, and full previews in lower 'box'.
4. Keyboard shortcuts?
5. Why is the default post count only 3? Once read, a post remains in my view instead of minimizing itself. Infinite scrolling would be great to load more posts.
6. UI-wise, what happens once I have 30 feeds? How does your horizontal nav handle that?
There's more obviously, but this hopefully this is a start.
It's always easier for someone (me) to criticize, so keep this in mind with my comments.
