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ktrgardiner

148 karma · joined August 15, 2011

t: @KatyGardiner e: katy@protiumco.com w: katygardiner.com

CEO & Co-Founder of Protium. Making things that at least one person wants.

(I am that one person)

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ktrgardiner··on The Soylent Revolution Will Not Be Pleasurable
Almost any vegetable tastes amazing sautéed in butter with shallots and garlic. You can also add plain breadcrumbs once done. I say this having just made brussel sprouts that way for dinner. Very simple and very delicious. And I used to hate brussel sprouts.
ktrgardiner··on Show HN: Snappy Checkout – Stripe Checkout with full-featured dashboard, admin
This looks great. I've already signed up as I've been looking for a replacement for Gumroad for awhile now. Their UI just isn't suited to physical subscriptions. This looks much better.

Found an error: My login date under sessions is "Sat, Dec 30, 1899 @"

Feature request: product variants ie. shirt sizes, phone types, colors, etc.

ktrgardiner··on Show HN: Customizable themes for iOS
Your templates are nice and have good use of color. But why would you have the stock photo promo pics as your product images instead of the mockups? I can't decide if it comes off as gimmicky, as in you're trying to be trendy with no justification beyond that, or deceitful, as in you're hiding the product/trying to make it look better than it is. Neither could be the case but that's how I interpret it. Either way, that's not good. You're clearly a good designer; own it!

Also, your Twitter link in the footer is broken.

ktrgardiner··on MailChimp Annual Report
I loved this up until the end when I went to hit the back button. Clearly the last number should be 29 (or whatever it actually is but I think it's somewhere around that): the number of times you'll have to hit back to get to the last page you were on. That's always a pain. Good thing they made up for it beforehand by making such a great report.
ktrgardiner··on Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are
That's much better. You're welcome.
ktrgardiner··on Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are
Good for you for accomplishing and creating so much. Congrats on that. But good god, the background of your site is an eyesore. It literally hurt my eyes as I read through your list. You're going to deter a lot of people with such a bright background. Beyond that you're detracting so much attention away from your content. Feel free to completely ignore this, but I would change the background to something subtler or at least monotone if I were you. It will bring the focus back to where it belongs, your content, and it will give a far better first impression to new visitors.
ktrgardiner··on Ask HN: Should I get mentored by this guy?
Mentorship does not mean being reshaped in the form of your mentor, as if you are supposed to become a carbon copy of them. It means learning from someone more experienced than you in a more controlled environment. And not just learning from situations you wouldn't normally find yourself in and thus benefitting greatly from specific context, but learning from a different perspective that you can incorporate into your own. You are being given an opportunity to grow and diversify your way of thinking and executing. Embrace it.
ktrgardiner··on Highly customizable checkboxes and radio buttons
These are great. Very well done. Two issues/suggestions. The checked radio button in Flat: the outer circle should either be thinner or the button should just be a circle with a hole in the middle. The checkbox in Polaris: don't have the check extend outside the box as it doesn't look consistent with the rest of the style.

Those are my suggestions. Do with them what you may.

ktrgardiner··on What Readers Found in Facebook’s ‘Other’ Folder
I agree with you. However, this was an invitation from the friend's sister, who I am not friends with (even on Facebook) and who was planning the party in secret. So Facebook was her only means of contacting me.
ktrgardiner··on What Readers Found in Facebook’s ‘Other’ Folder
Sigh. Like others posting here, I checked my other folder. I missed a message from May inviting me to a bachelorette party for a friend getting married in September. It was last month. I know this because I saw the pictures on Facebook and was saddened that I wasn't invited. Now I'm even more sad.

So thanks Facebook. You had one job: to facilitate my connections to people. And you royally screwed up and caused me to miss out on a very special day in a close friend's life that I will never be able to get back.

ktrgardiner··on Designer News + Hacker News = The News
The HN side goes from 19 to 21.
ktrgardiner··on John Gruber and friends launch Vesper note capture app
To attempt to answer your question of what is the opposite of flat design: I refer to it simply as detailed and minimalist. Therefore, skeumorphism would be a specific type of detailed design. Flat and minimalist are far more similar but I think flat has a more restrictive meaning. This also allows for the middle grounds of semi-detailed and semi-minimalist.
ktrgardiner··on The Hidden Costs of Starting a Company
It seems as if the college idiom has graduated alongside the people going on to found startups. In college it was "Good grades. A social life. Sleep. Choose two because you can't have all three." Now it's the more mature but still very similar "Startup. Significant other. Health."
ktrgardiner··on 10 years later, ‘Star Wars Kid’ speaks out
And then of course there is further segregation based on academic ability, which may be even worse than age segregation.
ktrgardiner··on A Sandwich, a Startup, and Soon, a Lawsuit? The Crunchbutton Story
I'm not sure about Brown, but at my school we had student IDs which could also act as credit cards for "school money". Meal plans would come with a set amount of school money and you could load more on the card. This money could then be used at places around campus as well as local restaurants and grocery stores that would accept the card. Certain services (such as delivery.com which was popular in the area) also accepted school cards. So my guess is that the student IDs were simply the number associated with the credit card for using special school money.
ktrgardiner··on Show HN: Evernote powered website/blogging platform
When will custom domains be rolled out then?
ktrgardiner··on Sketchfab: 3D Portfolio website
Your site and product look great. But just a heads up, under the students section you put an extra l in eligible. The padding in your search bar is also off (at least in Safari) so Search is flush against the top instead of being centered.
ktrgardiner··on Poll: What was your financial situation when you started your startup?
You can find more information at http://www.labor.ny.gov/ui/claimantinfo/specialprovisions.sh...
ktrgardiner··on Poll: What was your financial situation when you started your startup?
These programs also exist and are active in Delaware, Maine, New Jersey and New York.
ktrgardiner··on Show HN: My all-nighter project to find the best Google Reader alternative
But it's certainly a format which can be expanded upon and applied to the recommending of any number of things.
ktrgardiner··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (March 2013)
SEEKING WORK - Remote/NYC Area

Brand consultation: naming, brand identity, logo and web design.

email me at ktrgardiner@gmail.com

ktrgardiner··on Show HN: Research Design Repeat - An Analytical Approach to Web Design
Hi all. I've spent around a year writing this book. As someone who began as a self-taught designer, I understand the struggles involved in trying to create a unique and awesome website. With this book I broke web design down into a process that is easy to execute regardless of design experience or understanding. I'd like to think of it as a web design choose your own adventure as the way you progress through the process is dependent upon your specific project. This is design-focused rather than HTML/CSS-focused. I'll be around to answer questions should anyone have any.
ktrgardiner··on Show HN: Finally, You Can Accept Pre-Orders after Kickstarter with Celery
I feel compelled to say this as a rabbit owner; they do like celery (because they like most things) but eating too much or too large pieces can lead to digestion problems because of the strings in the celery. The more you know.
ktrgardiner··on Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem
I was referring more toward not being able to save/load but as I read this awhile ago, the case may have changed.
ktrgardiner··on Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem
If I recall correctly, this is only the case for the beta version of the game so that people can become familiar with the gameplay but won't be the case for the retail version.
ktrgardiner··on Implore HN: Celebrate and encourage young developers who post here
That is very true. But that's on us for being disingenuous and watering ourselves down; not on the kids for revealing their age.
ktrgardiner··on Implore HN: Celebrate and encourage young developers who post here
I think announcing your young age alongside your project is important because it opens up more opportunities for others to guide you and help fuel your passion and talent. Without the age, people will assume that the creator is old enough to know what they enjoy and what they want to pursue. But with the age, you'll have people with more experience saying "Since you obviously like X, you should look into Y and Z. Here are some great resources on those topics." Advice like that is invaluable and we should encourage scenarios that result in it.
ktrgardiner··on Designer News
Then you are optimizing for a minority of your audience and alienating the majority, all for a shade of gray. Readability should never be compromised.

edit: And before this is perceived as me being hostile rather than my intention of helpful (though it seems it already has), let me say that this is the kind of site I have been looking for. And thus I want to use it and want it to succeed. But certain design decisions can imply things to users that may not be intended. Content that is difficult to read, especially content which calls for interaction, does the opposite of what its intended for. And that makes users feel as if they're not wanted.

ktrgardiner··on Designer News
For something aimed at designers, it's disappointing that the design is lacking. The font color is too light. I have young eyes and I found myself straining a little to read. This is especially poor since the number of points is in this light color. Points are what people look for and yet they don't pop out at you.

Another issue is the menu at the top; I didn't know the clock meant new until I clicked it. Adding a hover (at the very least) would make it more friendly to new users.

The key is to not go overboard with minimalism. At the end of the day, certain details that people look for in order to familiarize themselves with something cannot be eliminated for the sake of aesthetic.

ktrgardiner··on Introducing Graph Search
This is exactly what I was thinking. I had about 5 seconds of thinking that this was very intriguing. But then I stopped thinking about it abstractly and imagined it in the context of my life. I just can't think of any situation where my desire to connect with a stranger would be stronger than my aversion to attempting to do so. I feel awkward, creepy, and a little unsafe just imagining it. And the feeling is multiplied when I imagine being on the other end.
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