I've launched my alpha (using Heroku); thoughts? | Hacker News Reader

I've launched my alpha (using Heroku); thoughts?

18 pointsph0rque31 comments

I have just recently launched the alpha version of my app:

http://ezlearnz.com

There are still major pieces of functionality missing, e.g. anything that has to do with user profiles, comments, voting, and other things. I'll be implementing them in the coming weeks/months. But before I do so, I will eat my dogfood and create some lessons/courses.

Please be gentle in your (constructive) criticism; I was an absolute newbie when I got this idea ~9 months ago, so I had to learn html, css, a bit of javascript, and ruby on rails in order to make the app. Incidentally, I'm looking for a co-founder.

Thanks for your feedback!

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I think you should retool your design because:

1. The site requires me to have my browser window full screened at 1280x1024 resolution, otherwise it forces me to scroll horizontally.

2. The top of the site is wasted.

3. It looks strange to me for the background color to extend in to the main "content area" -- maybe consider making the background in the middle all the same color.

Beyond that... The site doesn't really tell me what it does, you should give me some more info, and don't assume that I know what SourceForge is, although I think Wikipedia is widespread enough to use that reference.

"try it out! In the left column..." -- the left column, immediately below that, is your Features image with the pic of the kid.

The "comment on this" link doesn't seem to do anything, neither does "vote on this" or "revision history." I click it and get a busy mouse cursor for a second, but nothing actually happens.

Whenever I saw a link to a quiz or test, it just takes me to a set of blank rich text input boxes. I don't see any questions or a way to submit what I assume are answers.

When editing a subject, I don't see any way to rearrange the Lessons. Drag and drop, ajax style, would be nice for that, in addition to an integer value for the position.

Beyond the usability stuff, I'm not sure how much sense it really makes for anyone to be able to edit the courses. It seems like only the teacher should be allowed to do that, as the teacher should be an expert in his field and should not need to have his lesson plan corrected in the middle of a "semester."

All in all, it looks like you've got an interesting concept there. One possible use I can see for the technology is that, once you get some courses on there that are proven to be correct, you could export the whole course, or a set of courses, to CD and sell or donate them to developing nations. You might even be able to partner with the XO and other laptops aimed for kids who might not have access to quality education.

You also will eventually need to get teachers to create lesson plans on the site. I think a good way to do that would be to approach private schools and sell them on the benefits of having that info online -- the parents can see exactly what their kids are studying, the teachers, if they're any good, will feel good because they're able to teach more kids than just those who sit in front of them, the school can get some philanthropic benefits out of it, etc.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll be working on design improvements over the next few days. Drag and drop, along with the things mentioned in the submission, is something I'll be working on in the near future.

You're right about the landing page not being informative enough as to what ezLearnz is. That's something that will probably take a while for me to be able to come up with a pithy one-liner to describe what it's about.

Once the user resource is implemented, it will be so that once you start editing a course, it is added to your "teaching cart", for lack of a better description. (To extend the analogy, if you add a course to your "learning cart", the editing ability disappears). Thanks for the business model suggestion, as well; I have lots more in mind; just need to make the site a reality first.

I know domain-names are tough to come by these days, but I just don't dig on slang mis-spellingz in an edumacational site. You feel me cuz?

Not everything that ends with a "z" is slang. I'll be happy to purchase ezlearn.com, or learn.com, once I have the money and they're available.

For the record, my first name for the app was wikinstitute.com :~).

i like the first name better. but use both is

For some reason I always associate the 'z' in place of an 's' as pretty juvenile slang (though funny its right place.) You'd be surprised, there are tons of good names still out there. This is probably not one, but may be a good jump off point:

wisdomgrasper.com

It's unregistered. I say this b/c I am in the midst of a name change. What was funny and cute late at night is now tedious, obscure and cumbersome. Best of luck to you...

Thanks for the tip. I guess I've thought in terms of ezLearnz for so long that it feels noble and dignified to me :~). Also, the tentative slogan is "making learning easy", so I thought ezLearnz was particularly appropriate. If anyone comes with any better suggestions, let me know...

The UI looks a lot better than the last time you submitted the link. The logo is slick, and looks quite cool all-round. I don't really know what it does (but I'm probably not the one who's going to be using it).

I am guessing it's a mix-and-match kind of coursework that can derive course credits (and/or such) from various sources, existing, new, contributed. I'm guessing this because I have thought of projects like this and this is wishful thinking, but I'm not sure if I'm right. If I am, it's not clear from looking at this.

Edit: on second glance, it seems to be exactly that. Kudos for taking it on; this is a very difficult problem, and has so many unknowns (to me) that I don't think I have a good strategy for it.

This is the first time I submitted the link to news.yc; I think we may have had private communications in the past perhaps.

Oops, you're right! :)

It seems like you have something decent going on here, but I'm so far out of your target audience that I won't try to review it. If you want teachers to use it, it's important that your CRUD screens closely resemble the tools that teachers already use. I've learned that from other contexts.

Drop the ads until you get traffic. I don't know how many times I've told people that.

Sidenote: This is a good example of how screwed up google's adsense is. I'm seeing all of these advertisements for "OpenVMS Support" and "VAX & Alpha migration"....all because he referred to his app as an "alpha" version. Geez.

You really have to make a better summary of what your product does. I'm not really sure what it does or it's purpose. The top "500 pixels" is really important to tell people what your product does.

Look at mint.com or backpackit.com for good examples. For example, mint.com says: we're a money manager (nice summarizing screenshots), and this is how we're better.

backpack says: We're your simple, easy small business intranet. (notice the feature summarizing keywords in the top 500 & the title. And WHAM, a demo video to see what it is right away.

I loved the idea! I would really make the subjects stand out a little more. It seems to me your site is all about content, and at the moment content is not king. Make the content column stand out more, and probably use different fonts for subject title and description.

I love the idea, and I think making the subject list stand out would make your sight more appealing

Agreed; content is probably the highest priority right now. I'll be working on that (and getting friends to help); if you have a subject you've been itching to teach, jump in ;~).

A couple things I would do for now is get rid of the ad's and add more initial content. I think more content would convey what you are trying to do better. I know this is supposed to be user generated content, but to bootstrap some of the content up maybe have some friends write some stuff. How do you like heroku ?

echo mk here. I'm not too sure what it is you're trying to do. Is it just a place to store lesson plans?

Also, Like ____ for _____ is evil. You should try to explain it without referencing another product.

Good luck to you!

I mostly agree with your second statement, though I'm not sure I'm convinced it's evil. "Like Flickr for video" worked out, in fact, far better than Flickr for photos.

Well, there's always an exception to the rule. :-)

"the rule is that there are no rules"

As mentioned in a sibling comment, I've struggled with coming up with a pithy one-liner to describe the ezLearnz idea. Right now, I'm considering Textbook 2.0, although I know that there's been a bit of a backlash to Web 2.0.

Heroku is great; I've been able to forget about dealing with set-up/deployment (actually, more like never had to learn it in the first place). There have been some glitches, but that's to be expected for a beta service.

Summary:

1. Improve Usability 2. Build Content "Content is King" 3. Make it claer to the user what your product does 4. Wasted space with the design, and the color may not go well 5. remove ads (I showed a friend and he said the same thing)

Great work so far.

I think you should come up with a clear plan and don't just keep coding.

I.e. how you will reach your audience/build content.

That's the biggest problem -- nobody, seemingly not even you, knows what your product is, who it is for, how people will use it, or how to take or teach classes.

I think that's an important thing to figure out.

"the future of learning is here and free"

It's not that I don't know my product; it just takes several paragraphs to describe it (http://blog.ezlearnz.com/post/29205280). It will take a while to distill that into the one-liner that I keep referring to. Thanks for the suggestion, tho.

I'll be removing ads in the next several days.

I'd love it if I had time to sit down and critique your site's design, but I don't. However, I do think the idea is great.

I'm not quite sure the name might is entirely relative to a powerful learning environment. It's the Z in 'learnz'.

In terms of the design, I think you could greatly benefit by comparing your site to the site http://quizlet.com/ . It's a great site with a similar goal in mind, and I think if you can match wits and be competitive with Quizlet, you have some great potential.

I agree with what others are saying about usability, but it's great that you're making your idea a reality.

Keep up the good work!

The intention needs to be a lot clearer, also you could do with some javascript pop ups on your controls up in the corner as the alt info isn't fast enough.

You need to hire someone with usability expertise.

p.s. Anyone as a spare Heroku invite (lpgauth at gmail)

I'd love to, once I have the money.

Also, invite sent; enjoy!

please send me one invite too. :) Thanks ajbatac gmail

If you can't pay for one, copy/inspire yourself from mainstream 2.0 website.

Thank you for the invite.

P.S. Don't quit, knowledge should be free!

i appreciate your effort to learn everything in 9 months to bring your dream come true - good luck

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