Same goes for websites. People send in "HN please review my site" all the time.
Anyone know if a service exists (-MTurk) where you can pay people to constantly review your site?
I think that'd be an awesome way to evolve a website. Just apply constant feedback by paying people to launching fast and iterating.
OOC, why -MTurk? Because you knew about them and were looking for alternatives, or because you don't like them?
Long answer: My imagination was something designed specifically for pushing websites to some degree of success. So without me having to think of all of the different dimensions that bring a site to success (clearly state what it is, beautiful design, something people want, easy to use) -- the site I have in mind would walk you through that process taking your money at iterations of each step. In the end, you should have a site that meets the standards of sites which are already winners with most if not all of the dimensions in question.
you have to be hitting the right crowd. asking advice from HN or random people only works if your site is meant to have universal appeal. HN in particular is a heavily skewed audience.
It's very hard to pretend to yourself that you haven't seen something before and imagine your reaction - was that logo clear in its affordance?, etc..
[please don't crucify me for my punctuation!]
It never hurts to read aloud your email to be sure it "sounds" right but that is, I assume, something everyone practices before they post, email, or submit.
Finally, you would want to bounce it to a few customers. Everyone inside the company is going to have a similar set of knowledge and assumptions when they look at the email, the only way to really be sure is to send it out.
I don't think he's saying you should write down some random thoughts and test them, but rather as a final proof-reading step before sending it out to everyone.
The problem is that, for you, the abstract thoughts in your head came first, and the prose came second. When you re-read your prose, you're reminded about all of the implications of the abstract thoughts in your head. When someone else reads your text for the first time, they have to construct the abstract thoughts from your words alone. This process reveals confusion that you probably would not find on your own.