UX Design for Startups | Hacker News Reader

UX Design for Startups

uxpin.com

109 pointsmtreder58 comments

Thanks for the ebook, a little feedback in return:

After providing my email address for the ebook, I followed through and created a trial account for your site, and checked out the wireframing tool.

At first glance it looks nice, but I've been a happy subscriber to Balsamiq for over a year now and have no reason to leave at this point.

If there are any major advantages of UXPin over Balsamiq, it's not clear from a cursory look, which is all I have time for at the moment.

I'm also somewhat locked into Balsamiq, given that I have several ongoing projects there.

Hence, your 7-day trial probably won't be long enough to have any effect on people like me. Most likely I'll continue using Balsamiq for the foreseeable future, the trial will expire, and I'll forget about UXPin.

An alternative that might work better, would be to have a non-expiring free tier instead of the trial, with up to, say, 3 projects or something like that. Knowing that I can experiment with UXPin in my own time, when I'm ready (say the start of a new project which could be weeks or months away), and not lose my work, or not lose access to it in 7 days, would be more likely to tempt me to take the time to try it out, and ease into it if I find it better in ways worth making the transition for.

Hope that gives you a little insight into potential customers, good luck!

Thank you very much! Lovely feedback!

First of all I really respect what Peldi and Balsamiq did. Balsamiq is a decent (to say the least) wireframing tool with an amazing marketing. They deserve the number of customers they've got.

UXPin is a different tool. We're a young company established by UX Designers and backed up with VC money, aiming at one goal: creation of The UX Design App.

UX Design is much more than mere wireframing and we're here to provide full, well designed, solution for any web, mobile and software team, that cares for stunning user experience.

If you feel that you match this description, I'm sure, pretty soon, you'll find no excuses not to join UXPin :).

We're improving our tool every day and step by step we're getting closer to the ultimate goal.

The trial time is extendable to 30 days (click on 'extend trial' on the top of your dashboard). What's more you can always ping us and we'll be glad to give you further time to work with UXPin.

Cheers!

I tried to get the book and a message appeared on the next page: "The following From address failed: hello@uxpin.com"

I got that too, and have not seen an email after 5 minutes.

See mtreder's reply below, for a download link. According to Twitter they're having some email issues.

Popularity of the ebook totally surprised us. 700 downloads in 30 minutes killed gmail. We're working on the problem right now. In about 10 minutes, we'll post links to download on the landing page.

My sincere apologizes!

app doesnt scale , that's a poor user experience , use a webservice like mailgun or sendgrid at least ...

We've switched to mandrill. Cheers! :)

google apps and gmail has a 500 per day send limit - try a service like sendgrid or mandrill instead, I think most of them have a free tier.

After you submit your email, the big white sign-up box led me to believe you had to sign up to actually get the book. Only after had I signed up did I notice the little paragraph saying the email had been sent.

Personally, "EBOOK WAS SENT TO YOUR E-MAIL" should be much bigger compared to sign up. I understand you want people to sign up but concerning UX, its not pleasant.

Rereading this, I come of as not grateful. Thanks for this it looks great!

Agree that might be seen as a dark pattern. We were trying to play with the colors and labels to emphasize that signing up is next, not required, step.

If you felt bad about it - we failed. Apologizes!

We're working on the landing page right now. Thanks for your feedback!

Fixed! Now it's bigger :) Thank you!

Hi! Just a friendly suggestion, please correct the spelling of "conquer" on your page as it's spelled wrongly as "conquare"...that might leave a bad impression on your users. Otherwise, great job!

Thanks mate! We've missed that one. Correction on the way :) Cheers!

Glad to help! Cheers!

They should listen to Seth Godin and make submitting email optional. Earn our permission to be contacted.

Trying 10 minute mail. :-)

Also hey.. Why am I falling for this. I have no preview, I don't even know these guys, and it seems like it is a UX consulting shop. So their marketing worked. I know shall remember there are some lads called UXPin.

Well done. But not downloading the book. Being about UX, I don't think they would be the best - making me give them my email on a viral marketing campaign. Doesn't seem to clever to me.

I had no problem just giving my email address. As amazing as Seth Godin is, blindly following (or recommending) every one of his suggestions in every situation is not a good idea, and I doubt he would say it is either.

Er, opting in to get a freebie IS permission marketing. Exactly so.

Getting a free ebook isn't compulsory.

I would think that downloading the book might constitute permission to be contacted :)

I would have thought that by now every HN'er has at least one account strictly for signups and a separate account/s for personal/business.

Lets stop pretending there's some kind of cost in signing up for something like this.

Please let me download it without giving you my mail address :/ If you don't spam me, you don't need it..

Well you're right. I prefer you to read the book, than fear the e-mail from me :).

Hope you'll like it! http://uxpin.com/upload/ux-design-for-startups-marcin-treder...

Thank you. The mail form does not seem to work anyway ;)

We've posted links to ebook on the landing page + we've changed e-mail server. The amount of requests is so huge that we have delay in sending e-mails. Apologizes :(

We didn't expect such a success.

Anyway you can download ebook here: * http://uxpin.com/upload/ux-design-for-startups-marcin-treder... * http://uxpin.com/upload/ux-design-for-startups-marcin-treder... * http://uxpin.com/upload/ux-design-for-startups-marcin-treder...

Thank you so much!

Thanks. Works for .mobi, too.

Just see it as a transaction: your email and permission to send you at least one newsletter (you can always unsubscribe) in exchange for the book.

Asking for a download without having to give your email is a little strange, after all the book's seller is allowed to set the "price" they want.

thank you for the book and the good links inside.

@ HN community, @mtreder, I'd love to hear what you think about Axure http://www.axure.com/ ? I'm currently studing it and it has a lot of great features (more than most tools), including the ability o generate a spec sheet and html/css prototype without actually requiring me to do the actual html/css just for a prototype. Have any of you got any experience with Axure? Pro's? con's?

Thank you for your kind words! Since I'm owner of UXPin (http://uxpin.com), I shouldn't really discussing pros and cons of competitors.

I really respect guys at Axure and I used Axure for couple of years. Still I've created my own prototyping and wireframing software, so you know ;)

Silly me! I scanned the ebook, looked at the examples and visited some links you put in there but hadn't yet taken a good look at your company. My apologies, sir.

I briefly used Axure and found it to be pretty solid. I know a lot of UX professionals that swear by it, but frankly it was not for me. For lo-fi prototypes, I still use paper. And, as I move into higher fidelity prototypes, I find it much easier to just code the prototype in HTML/CSS/JS. The primary benefit being that I can easily prototype responsive layouts without double (or triple) work, and the final product can be used as an input to the development process.

Thank you! I see the ability to communicate within the file (working assumptions, feedback and priorities) as a real pro. Also; I've tried html/css and as a designer I'm just not fast enough in it. I don't have the time to keep learning design, ui, ux and html/css. Axure looks like it allows me to concentrate on the user, the flow and the ui/design without worrying about the code and all the browser-stuff related to it. The generated prototyes allow for good testing.

My only cautionary advice is that it is becoming more common to see the UI/UX role to encompass design, HCI, and front-end development. You might be limiting yourself by having a narrow focus.

Thank you, I see a much bigger role for UI/UX these days. It's everywhere and -as I see it- it working with Axure would allow me to create high fidelity prototypes, much better than my old friend OmniGraffle. I enjoy working with wireframes, flows and solving problems. It's what I do, even more than designing. I'd like to be able to build html prototypes without the 'hassle'. (Dangerous thing to say here at HN, but I don't much like coding and html/css. I do like working with developers/frontend pro's).

Completely understand. I know a number of successful, well-respected UI/UX folk who do not code.

I've used Axure quite a bit, since v5. There's a steep learning curve once you want to use any of those advanced features.

I'm not sure how good your front-end coding knowledge is, but these days I find it's just as quick to prototype with Bootstrap.

Of all the features I use regularly, the main one is a hand-drawn library which is great for showing people rough layouts without them focusing on colours and typography.

On the front page, it should be "advice" not "advices".

Fixed, thank you! :)

On the confirmation page after you submit your email you big giant headline seems to have a typo:

"UX DESIGN TOOLS BUILD BY UX DESIGNERS"

Should be BUILT not BUILD no?

Fixed, thanks!

Sweet, thanks! I will suggest that the "Email This eBook To Me" button have a 'cursor: pointer' CSS property.

Done:) Thanks!

fyi if you click on the ebook link to read the pdf in the browser (ie on Chrome) and try to click back in order to sign up to uxpin then you get an error message.

The ebook itself is an excellent introduction to UX.

Thanks! We're checking it right now.

Great job.

Thanks! :)

My advice is not to listen to the no doubt tiny percentage of people complaining about the email delivery. Hard fact of business: if people hate commerce, they won't buy from you. It's a mistake to tailor your business around people you can't sell to… probably sounds obvious, but we're all built to respond to the squeaky wheel instead of the 4 other wheels who roll along happily.

Don't hamstring your future business success simply because your offer isn't right for everyone with an "add comment" button!

Email newsletters -- opt in, permission marketing, like yours -- are gold. Readers love them, and they do gangbusters for your sales!

Thanks. That's a wise advice! Appreciate it.

I 100% agree with you. It's a 127 page book on UX design written by someone with what appears to be a great deal of knowledge on the subject.

The bottom line is when you're trying to run a business, leads and exposure cost money. They wrote a book and asked for an email in return. To me, that seems like a fair trade - especially for something as critical as UX.

Downloading the book is a poor user experience at first place ... just let me download it right away or even better , just let me read that thing online... and make me download the book only if i'm interested in it. That's what user experience is about.

We've updated our landing page and now you can download ebook directly from the www.

Thanks for your feedback!

Agreed. I know that having the email submitted might be part of a larger communication strategy, but it lowers my interest right away.

When did this get to be a Java forum with 27 "send me the codes" posts at the bottom of each thread?

User experience is indeed about making things smooth for viewers, but considering you could probably sell an eBook like this for $29 to $39, I think asking your email in exchange is fair! :) Especially considering you can unsubscribe with a click or two if you're unhappy about it.

You're asking for my email address? What're you trying to do, hack into my bank accounts? Might as well ask for my social security too!

What's wrong with just giving me the ebook without expecting anything in return? Now that's good design.

Anyway, overlooking that, this actually looks pretty interesting. I'll make my way through it this week!

That is why I provided an email address which I don't use frequently. I am expecting it to be spammed badly. Well...

Don't expect to be spammed, but rather expect to get an occasional e-mail from me (with UX-oriented stuff only). It won't be regular. It won't even be once a month. Obviously it's a form of gratitude for the effort of writing a free ebook.

I don't take it too serious though. In the comments below you'll find links to the ebook :).

I was being totally sarcastic there. You have every right to ask people for their email addresses, especially because it looks like you've put a ton of work into producing this ebook.

Damn, sorry I didn't get it. Thanks mate!

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