Show HN: I built an app to improve your Vocabulary
wordstash.com
wordstash.com
- Most of all, radically simplify. For now, I think it's better to just explain what it is and put forward a simple call to action (create your account and get started!) All of the accoutrements of a "professional website", the images with overlaid text (test tubes because it's scientific, for example) are distracting and too difficult to execute. Put all that energy into the app and market later.
- The cloud tile background is random and totally dominating. The first thing I do when I visit is cycle my eyes around the strange margins full of clouds, because they're the brightest thing on the page.
- The color palette is nuts. Pick 3 colors that you've seen together on other sites and stick to them.
- Add a little more padding to all of the various boxes you're using. In almost every case, the edge of the box is way too close to the text.
- Swap out the squirrel clip art for a word mark. Pick one of these fonts you like and write the name of the app in it:
http://www.google.com/webfonts
- Add a wrapper to the whole website if you want a margin around the fixed-width background. It looks really strange not to have consistent margins, especially with the intense background.
I agree that the clouds are distracting, though.
Whether you're familiar with it or not, the trio of stock photos with marketing messages listed over top is already cliche, but more importantly is very poorly executed here. I think he should get rid of it because it's a waste of time to try to learn how to execute it well, not because it's never a good idea to have it.
As I tried to explain, I'm not arguing that all sites should look a certain way, just that in my judgment this particular guy is better off making design a non-issue rather than trying to trail-blaze.
... you're just giving him advice that would make his site look like every other site following the conventional wisdom. I agree his site needs work, but it would be more constructive to identify something unique and salvageable about his site instead of saying he needs to completely remove his design skills (or lack thereof) from the equation. It feels a bit negative and mercenary for a site that he's put a lot of personal work into and doesn't seem interested in monetizing.
Personally, I think the way he's done the text on the photos feels original in this context. A professional analyzing the structure of the page might find a cliche, but that doesn't mean much if the users don't see it. Otherwise everything would feel cliche all the time. The solid background behind the text isn't original (A Softer World uses it, and it might feel stale in a magazine advertisement) but it puts you off the "product page" scent.
I originally gave him a big list of concrete ideas of how to improve, it's not like I just said "boy this looks crappy" and told him to rip off existing sites. My broader point is that questions of originality and uniqueness are moot when you haven't crossed the threshold of basic quality, so it's counterproductive to worry about them.
I can definitely appreciate your suggestion that I coat criticism with more than just the "constructive" preface, and I could have offered that I think it's a cool idea and that it looks like he's put in a lot of hard work. I'll do that next time.
Could you fix that please? There is no reason to restrict what a password may contain.
Also, up the max password length -- 20 is far too small for those who use password managers. Not that I am terribly worried about someone breaking into my WordStash account, but I don't want to have to change the settings on my password generator.
1) Anu Garg's "A Word A Day" (wordsmith.org), back then it was just a daily email subscription that emailed out an advanced vocabulary word. One per day, simple and effective back in th'day when people received a volume of email that was actually consumable in one day.
2) A buddy passed on to me a huge stack of index cards each one containing a turgid vocabulary word that you would never use in real life but that would be common on the GRE or in a George Will essay.
I recall that when I took the GRE, there were a couple of words that I would not have known if I had not prepared with the cards and at least one that was on a word a day. A few words is enough to seriously boost your GRE score and totally worth the small investment in time (a few minutes everyday for ~6 months).
(I just checked Anki in the app store, and it's priced at $25 [1]. For the record, I paid less than that when I bought it, but I would have gladly paid $25.)
Also, make sure you test and advertise your support for non-ASCII characters and non-English dictionaries.
Tenjack---drop me a line if you want to chat about collaborating on some of this. We got our definitions from Wiktionary as well, but we're looking around for other resources.
Best example is a known war between iOS and Android. Even if the latter has more functionality most users are still appealed by the simplicity and the aesthetic of the former.
With a fresh coat of paint and some more organization, you will have an amazing little site!
From the top 100 list, churlish is defined as having the qualities of a serf or peasant. This is correct, but in common usage it generally means 'surly'. Knowing the latter definition makes the word far more useful.
Similarly, epiphany (appearance of the divine) is almost always used (if you're not discussing the holiday or Christian mythology) to mean 'a sudden understanding'.
There are probably others, these were just on the first page.
Having to click 'next word' after each word gets old fast, and seriously slows down your studying.
This doesn't offer any way to learn the words, only to remember them. An SRS is only half of the solution for learning new things. You need a learning module for when they encounter new words.
May be the next word button should only display if you don't make a 100% score ?
The app is really useful for me actually.
If not already, make it searchable by school, class, and textbook.
Good luck.
In case it helps: http://i.imgur.com/xvEZE.png
I'll use it to brush up my spanish. :)
just for fun here's a sentence with 11 of those words: my fatuous and vacuous chicanery in pecuniary jejune only serve to inculcate me the quotidian need to abrogate the belie of ego--my circumlocutious lexicon aside.
A bookmarklet that acts as mouse over dictionary, added with a system that saves the whole context (and its distinguishing look) of whatever user is reading on browser, combined with a repetitive learning aid (like one you have as flashcard) is the right approach to assistive vocab learning.