Hacker News Reader

Comment by nakedrobot2 | Hacker News Reader

It looks interesting.

On a presentation note:

1. Use a tripod for your camera. 2. please fix your lights! You probably aren't hung over, but the lighting suggests baggy eyes. Lighting is easy. Use window light. Heck, you are even shooting with with a front-facing camera on your phone, so it should be easy to pick some lighting that works nicely :-)

Both of these things are cheap or free, and will drastically improve your presentation, IMO.

Cheers!

View on HN

I think they were going for more of an authentic look rather than a polished look. What they are showing is more closer to what you are likely to see from your users.

If you're not taking simple, easy steps to improve your presentation, what you're being isn't authentic but sloppy. You dress down in old jeans and a t-shirt, not the shoes you work in the garden with.

vince, i think you're missing the point. the video stream is an integrated part of the product

Exactly, I don't think most participants will spend hours in front of a mirror to "casually dress down" before testing your product (nor do UX researchers, who are presumably the primary target audience care).

The entire application is centered around recording the users while they are really using your application. Nobody really uses a tripod on their phone and I would doubt you have the best lighting when you're just searching for a song on spotify.

> 1. Use a tripod for your camera.

I understood that this is the camera display from the phone as the user is using your app...is that not correct? Because I thought it was kinda cool...

EDIT: fellowshipofone's response seems to confirm :)

that doesn't mean you couldn't sit the phone on a tripod / stand (I think thats what the above post meant)

That would have lacked the realism of some one standing, holding their phone though.

Are the product shots of a big mac realistic? No, product shots are always studio lit and unrealistic, but you do what it takes to sell the product.

In this instance I agree that better (less realistic) lighting would show the product in a more favourable light. (excuse the pun).

It's not "deceiving the customer" it's just advertising, and it works, we shouldn't shy away from that because of some notion of "realism".

I still think this misses the point. We're looking at a 'report' of a fictional user session when suddenly the user, who we believe we're watching interact with the app, begins to address us. It's clever and shouldn't have been done any other way!

Users are not going to have lights, or stand in correct place for lights. So you would see awesome clean well lit video in their examples, and horrible dark noisy video from your users. Might feel like there was a disconnect. Better to get a realistic example in my opinion.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com