Comment by bootload | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bootload | Hacker News Reader

"... HN provided some great feedback and advice on the initial launch of Streetread over 2 months ago ... I'm looking forward to any feedback you might have. ...."

5m test, here's what I found:

- I tried to enter googles stock quote but couldn't find it. How do I find a stock quote of a company I don't know? Maybe this is a useless edge case but it was a problem for me.

- lots of words "Click here to login", "Click here to register (free)" so they can be simplified

- sampled text news article headlines from http://www.streetread.com/m/feed/site_Yahoo and got 203, 148, 168, 178, 193 without the headings .. bit wordy. Maybe the suggestion is keep the length but decrease the item count?

- monkey test for input & doesn't barf when unicode entered

- tried getting news from WSJ, the page responded "PAGE UNAVAILABLE" from WSJ side. This exposed a problem that I can't get back home. Is there a back button on the devices? Should a home logo always be there?

Works. Is there any chance of a Video demo on the site?

Thank you for the feedback.

1. I don't have access to an adequate data feed to be able to search based on company names - and no it's not useless, it's needed.

2. I understand where you're coming from, but if there is one thing I've learned, it's that 99% of users need to be spoon fed.

3. I don't understand what you're saying with the numbers. I just checked the page and it looks fine.

4. Nice.

5. Strange error. Being that the news content is hosted on other sites gives me no way of including a Streetread logo or button to return. I don't know of any mobile browser that doesn't have a back button. What would you suggest?

Video - maybe. Good idea. I thought the interactive demo was enough. I never had the patience to ever watch an app demo.

Thanks again

In regards to a video app demo, I'd recommend giving it a chance if you've got time for it. People have different learning styles and some will have an easier time learning to use this app if they "see" it first. This will become more important when you reach further beyond the early adopter crowd.

- #3 - just character counter/news item sans the header. You get 10 x 150char thats a lot for a phone. Is it?

- #5 might be a problem with the demo. I simply clicked a link & got transported to an error page. Is it the demo? Take your point about the back button.

- #1 I don't think it would be as much a problem if users know their stock name. But as a secondary service.

"... I thought the interactive demo was enough ..."

Good way to show the best features w/o users having to experiment.

Good demo btw. Works as advertised.

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