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Comment by foulmouthboy | Hacker News Reader

Really? I understand the idea of bidding on these people to do some sort of work for me, but beyond that, it's not clear how any of it is supposed to work.

What does it take to bid on somebody? Do I need a credit card? If somebody has a city listed, does that mean they can only perform their task within that city? Within 50 miles of the city? Do I go to them? Can I cancel a bid? Etc. etc.

I know that some of these questions are answered, because I happened to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and click on FAQ, which appeared in very faint green letters in what's typically a blind spot anyway.

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I think all you can do as a designer is get the basic idea across in a 5 second read. Beyond that, it is a partnership between the end user and the site content to answer those questions.

Personally, I don't want all your questions answered on the first page. If your issue is that you couldn't find the FAQ then you are nit-picking.

Fair enough. As far as a main issue, what I should have articulated before is that the calls to action are poorly defined. I don't think it's nitpicking to say that most users aren't going to bother to scroll down or to control-F to find a FAQ if their personal 5 second read isn't as informative as someone else's.

It's not immediately obvious what you're supposed to do when you want somebody's service. When you click through, it's not obvious what you're getting when you click the bid button. A moment of panic sets in when I push the button and give some random price expecting some extra verification step and instead I suddenly think I might be on the hook for a $100 haircut.

good points. we may add a better FAQ at the top of the page.

What does it take to bid on somebody?

just an account. we manually monitor any questionable bids and will definitely have issues here with fake bids etc. but will improve this as we run into them.

Do I need a credit card?

No. However, many providers allow you to pay them online using a CC.

If somebody has a city listed, does that mean they can only perform their task within that city? Within 50 miles of the city? Do I go to them?

We need to do a better job at this but in some cases yes, in some cases no. We'll try and get providers to list better details on the location of service field.

Can I cancel a bid? Etc. etc.

Hmm, not yet, but we'll develop this policy tonight.

Thanks!

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