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Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

Scrolled all the way to the bottom (didn't hover over anything) and all I know is it connects to the internet and mentioned being used in Africa twice.

So many product web sites are lacking a simple "how it works" section (I'd say 75%).

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Not to mention that Africa is kind of a big place, you know? With plenty of locations inside it that aren't untracked, howling wilderness.

I understand what they're trying to get at, but it annoys me to see them say "used in Africa" as if that were functionally equivalent to "used on the Moon." And I'm American! I have to think it'd sound even more tin-eared to someone from an African country.

It reminds me of broadband deployment hitting one house in a zip code which makes it look like that whole zip code is covered.

If it works in Cape Town South Africa, it'll work anywhere.

Exactly! When it said "works in Africa", my first thought was woah, so how does it work without cell coverage - satellite?, APRS?, etc. etc. Only to realize that it is probably just a rugged 3G-Wifi bridge.

Seriously, I even looked through specs and still not sure what it does!

As someone who has done integration with Iridium and Inmarsat for the NSF, I both love and hate this product. It looks like a ruggedized wifi hotspot, but their claim of "works anywhere" is disingenuous.

This is a hotspot that works anywhere in Africa: http://www.groundcontrol.com/MCD-4800_BGAN_Terminal.htm

Iridium, neat. What was integrating it like?

Very straightforward. Iridium phones have a module you can use that exposes an RS232 interface; integration with either a microcontroller or a full blown computer is trivial.

> As someone who has done integration with Iridium and Inmarsat for the NSF

USAP vessels?

Very close :) Weather stations, same region.

Ah, neato. I spent a lot of time staring at the Inmarsat signal strength down there!

I hear they have Cinnabon in Africa; they could even power this thing with tasty pastry and call it Africa-ready.

And worse no call to action!

I blame Bootstrap's "scrolling story" for worsening this problem of late.

So much fun to build as a web dev, so sexy for exec's to check off.

But message gets lost and nobody wants to scroll.

An implementation of the scrolling-style that I respect is https://www.pingdom.com

Strong headline to capture attention, solid paragraph explaining the details and what problem they're solving, and BOOM a "Get Started Now" button to guide me.

There's no problem with scrolling. That's a usability fallacy from the 90s.

The problem is not communicating what your users care about. Thats such a big part of UX, looking at it from a new customers perspective, instead of your own.

I don't like scrolling to get to the main point. Doesn't journalism follow the inverse pyramid paradigm where each sentence is less important than the last? If so, one would expect PR releases to follow a similar idea.

Yes, succinct and concrete headlines are important. "Not burying the lead". But my criticism is a lack of specific "How it works" copy on most product websites.

The problem is often one of having to lead the customer through a sales process. For eg

1) I want a reliable product... like BRCK .. okay.

2) This product really meets that criteria. Prove it.

3) So, is it useful?

4) Fine. Because of 1..3 I want more detail and to buy one.

For instance with http://gridspy.com (my site)

1) So, why should I monitor (energy usage) at all?

2) Okay, so why GridSpy (not a competitor)...

3) Fine, tell me more about what you do...

4) Lets get started. Give me a quote on some hardware.

It's a process. You can't just lead with (4) because the customer hasn't yet decided that they want your class of product at all.

Good points. We'll rework some of the messaging.

You should also make sure the site is readable on a desktop computer. Everything was in the wrong place for me. Everything it seemed like I should be reading was yellow-on-yellow or completely invisible.

rspeer, what browser are you? if you can send a screenshot to info@brck.com we'll get on it.

Erik, also the dots at the bottom for me indicate that i can click to see other images. They do not actually do that. Small UX issue

There is one part of the features section that mentions a SIM card.

It must be a wifi hotspot using cellular data.

Yep - was curious about how it connected to the internet and had to drill down through the dots (which at first I didn't realize were clickable) to find out. Would be good to point that out at the very top!

You learn a little more if you actually hover over the icons in the "Features" section (which is very poorly disoverable, I scrolled past it and then back again and on a hunch tried hovering on the icons). You actually find out what it is on the "Specs" page. http://www.brck.com/specifications/

  The BRCK is a rugged, cloud managed, full-featured router 
  with built in failover and programmable GPIO expansion. 
  BRCK can connect to the internet through RJ47, GSM, Wifi 
  Bridge, as well as Ethernet Over USB via the GPIO 
  Breakout. It’s rugged build and cloud managed interface 
  make it ideal for “away teams”, monitoring systems in 
  remote locations, and businesses with challenging 
  infrastructure. BRCK’s GPIO breakout provides 20 pins for 
  digital and alaouge Read/Write as well as I2C, SPI and 
  UART. This, combined with BRCK’s Arduino Profile, make it 
  ideal for quickly connecting hardware to the Internet of 
  Things.

RJ47 is also a connector I'm not familiar with. According to this site http://www.accesscomms.com.au/reference/RJreference.htm it's for "Programmed data equipment connected to a key system where the registered terminal equipment is not compatible with electrical characteristics of tip and ring behind line circuit." which really doesn't clarify anything. Given that it's an 8 position jack, however, I think that they meant the same thing as "RJ45" or "Ethernet"; but they don't seem to be good at communicating this.

Same here... I had to look up what RJ47 was. Probably just a typo.

I feel ashamed to say that I clicked "Meet the Brick" twice (link to home page, apparently) before I tried scrolling.

But, I bet I'm not alone.

Yeah, the "Features" section of the home page has some mystery meat navigation. Lots of useful information hidden behind 9 click/hovers.

It mentions that it's SIM driven, but that bit is difficult to find.

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