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Show HN: I made a simple generator to create UX design exercises to practice

fakeclients.com

39 pointsaugustvdv13 comments

Some UX feedback:

Your "Start" CTA has no hover cursor (and none of your buttons have hover state), making it difficult to discern if it does anything.

This is further exacerbated that clicking it appears to do nothing on many screens (including mine) because the action triggered by that button happens off-screen (the briefs are generated below the fold).

Even if the briefs appear on-screen, the fact they're separated from the button by the Pro advertisement make the whole thing very unintuitive.

I like the idea, but hate the “sign up for a free trial”.

Its something ive been pondering lately. Why not open source it, and offer paid certificates ?

Not sure how involved that is, but im partially sick of signing up for things that take my credit card.

Im just one kind of client, so take this with a bit of salt

I have similar feelings about this as a user. Recently though, I am starting to think that this is a better idea than I want it to be. People with low aversion to providing credit card information are probably more likely to become paying customers if the product is any good. At small scale, avoiding most tire-kickers is might easily be worth a few conversions in the steeper part of the sigmoid curve.

Yeah I was intrigued to just try a demo to get an idea of what it was about but closed it after I realized I would have to sign up for something.

> Why not open source it, and offer paid certificates ?

Why can't programmers just code for a living, instead of inventing and testing new business models?

Im unsure about why you ask me that question, and its not always easy to show restraint to argument bait.

So look, I am simply one kind of client - i enjoy buying things i know i want. I buy certificates, and software as one thing, using a single payment, if i choose to. I dont like “cancel if you like” trials, or running subs.

lets not turn this into what it isnt.

Selling things for a fixed price Is an established model. Coders get paid in any form they choose to, by those who want the service. I simply told the OP what model works for people like me, and in not alone here. OP is infact under no obligation to listen to me.

i saw his product, said its good, and gave him my take on it.

You are welcome to yours.

This perhaps makes someone faster at implementation, but it's not possible for it to help with the most important UX design skill: analyzing real users' needs and behaviors, and then synthesizing that into a useful/usable design.

How can I improve that skill?

Honestly it's more of a full-time job than just a skill.

The long way: A master's degree or PhD in Human Computer Interaction or similar field, frequently doing things like usability testing, user interviews, statistical analysis, thematic analysis etc. Not joking, this is what I'm currently doing. Coming from practicing UX in industry, I thought I wouldn't learn much from academia, but it's been eye-opening.

The short way: Read About Face - Alan Cooper, then try and do some of the techniques in there. It may seem excessively detailed, but frankly it only covers a small portion of techniques that UX researchers actually use. This is really quite a shortcut but it will get you started.

You could have fake interviews with clients as chat bots. It wouldn’t have to be a great bot as clients often ignore your question, give very vague responses. As long as you had a few responses lined up that had to be triggered by asking the right keyword. Eg “target audience” or “budget”. You could probably recycle or generate responses by slot filling different values for template answers based off a little properties table for each client. The designers goal is to try and extract info to make a more functional brief before starting work. Is there a rating system for submissions? Why would people do these projects vs. those sites that have a marketplace for logo design where the client just pays for the one they like?

I like the domain name / branding ;)

But eventually this will evolve to be a real exchange, matching clients with designers no?

The main line of the page is an ad of skillshare, seriously?

The generated blurbs/client briefs are deep linked to skillshare as well [1].

[1] https://fakeclients.com/jsarray.js

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