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vector_spaces • today at 7:15 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

You need to do some serious work on your presentation, both in your write-up here and in what you show on your homepage.

You spend far too much time interrupting the flow of your write-up describing the product with biographical asides and implementation details. I would place each of these in their own sections/paragraphs -- first few paragraphs describe the product, the next few describe how you did it, the last is for you to talk about your background. This is roughly in order of what your readers are prioritizing and skimming for.

Next, what is shown on the landing page looks like a trivial to-do application with additional polish. Only from reading your write-up do I know it's somewhat more sophisticated than that. I'm not a designer so I can't provide guidance here, but there should be some signal that this app is doing more if you want to command even half of what you're asking pricewise.

And for the love of all that is good, you need to drop the bracketed parentheticals. They are an eye-sore and make your writing painful to read and skim.

Parentheses signal to the reader that while their contents are not essential to understanding the sentence, they might provide useful additional detail. Therefore each time you use one, you impose a little extra friction for the reader. You are asking them to hold a little extra information in mind to understand the sentence.

If your instinct is to bracket something, usually it's a sign you should simply leave it out. But if you really can't imagine leaving it out, then a bracket is probably inappropriate anyway. Most of yours fall into the former category. I would budget at most 2 parentheses for a write-up like this. Most of your sentences contain one, and some have two!


Replies

calculated • today at 8:39 PM

Am I the bad guy here - I felt great to hear more than just about the features. It's supposed to be adding a cultural backstory, it's not a rocket that the guy is building.

dmayle • today at 7:41 PM

Thank you. It's a fair criticism, and I'll take note.

For the landing page, that's good to know. I didn't catch that, and I need to fix it, though I could definitely use your help with some specifics, if you're willing. I linked straight to the trial page. Is your criticism about that page, specifically, or about the home page?

What came out here that did not come across over there? Not speaking to design elements, but what could have told you it does more?