Hacker News Reader

Comment by csbartus | Hacker News Reader

I’ve checked the site. I was expecting something highly interesting due to the subject, and, the YC support. A magazine startup, ohyeah!!!

I couldn’t spend more than two seconds on it. I’m a designer and my eyes can’t stand this type of design: cheap, unreadable, probably a quickly modified free template.

I detest this trend. There are more and more startups with worse and worse cheap web design. How do you think you compete to our attention?

Especially true in this case, when the product is the content itself. Put together a few thousands, hire a proper designer.

View on HN

What would you change about the design? I'd love to hear the specifics! You can email me at snigdha@thejuggernaut.com and if you do do design, happy to figure out if we can work together.

To get a better sense of our stories, you can visit thejuggernaut.com/articles, which I think is far better designed. We're working on changing our landing page right now and our site is definitely a work in progress.

As per YC tradition, we wanted to launch early rather than get it perfect. We've also heard that if we're not embarrassed by what we've built, we've launched too late.

Our product at the end of the day isn't just the site (though it is part of it), it's the journalism. And we don't compromise on that. Do read a few of our stories there — I'd love to know what you think.

> What would you change about the design? I'd love to hear the specifics!

Just stopping by to say that I think you're replying in exactly the right way to criticism, and I hope you / the company embeds this in your company culture, which no doubt will face all kinds of criticism from many directions.

Good luck!

Thanks for dropping by! And definitely: our goal is to keep improving and company culture is very important to us. Some of our harshest critics will give us the best feedback and we have to be prepared for that, too.

Thanks ... and sorry for the harsh words :) At least they’ve reached the right audience.

I’ll send you an email these days with a complete set of suggestions.

And keep up! It is very professional how you tackle the various feedbacks on this thread.

I don't think the issue with your feedback is that it is unkind, but that it is not specific.

"Cheap" is not a type of design.

"Probably a quickly modified free template" does not say what you found wrong with it.

"Unreadable" is just, on the face of it, false since I could read it.

If you had been specific with your feedback -- even if it were negative -- I think it would have been better received.

Thanks - yes specific and actionable definitely helps us improve. So do keep the feedback coming

It really wouldn't kill you to be nice when giving this feedback.

Right ... It’s just a long term frustration which was versed here in two seconds ... where else ???? :)

Luckily, highly interesting and good design are not mutually exclusive.

I think Juggernaut tries to be "highly interesting" and "competes for our attention" with high quality content and writing. As they get their product out there they'll improve and mature their design.

I think the trend of startups with bad web design is actually interesting. If they can get away with something ugly maybe that means there's something intrinsically valuable in what they're building and their early customers/adopters are willing to look past that. Perhaps this trend is good and it indicates that these startups are focusing on their core value instead of a pretty facade?

If the product is content, then the text should be all that matters?

Interesting point of view - reminds me of how Solange Knowles for a long time (not anymore) had a website that looked straight from the early 1990s. Maybe to focus on the music?

Well, great web design doesn't pull you to engage in HN comments.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com