[SamBam]

How is a user supposed to find out what this site really does without putting in an email address and agreeing to terms of service?

So many sites do this:

> Cool Title!

> Sign up here.

> Some Web 2.0-looking boxes with a few words about how cool the thing is.

> Sign up here.

With no obvious way to something that isn't either a sign-up box or a few more meaningless words.

And then way down at the bottom in tiny font I see "Music Score Editor." Ah-ha! I think, and click. No... that just scrolls me back up to those meaningless words.

Next to that is "Guitar Tabs." Now that one DOES lead to an example. There is a real example! With no way of guiding me to this link, in tiny font at the bottom, and under the previous meaningless link.

And finally I realize that there's a link to the top, "Popular", which is not a helpful word and is, again, next to a meaningless link ("Education", which leads you to more words).

[cpayne]

I think you might be a bit harsh.

First thing on the landing page, it says: "Write your music scores online" Create, collaborate and discover sheet music with your web browser

I found the "popular" link pretty quickly. Click that, and if you STILL unclear on the site, then no matter what they do, you're unlikely to be happy...

[jdcarter]

Harsh, yes, but I had the same experience. I scrolled around looking for some actual music, then left the site to check HN news comments.

Thanks for the tip about the "popular" link, I had missed it. After checking out a couple scores I signed up, looks like a cool site. Had the site simply put their top 4-8 songs (with that nifty preview-on-hover) on their landing page, I imagine their sign-up rate would skyrocket.

[noahlt]

I agree. If "Write your music scores online" is not enough for you to understand the product, then you are probably not a target user.

Similarly, lots of ad tech and dev tools landing pages are unintelligible to people who probably don't want to use the product, but perfectly reasonable to those who might.

[logicrook]

I can't see how you can make such a comment while being efficient. When you're looking for some software, you don't want "X that does Y". There are already solutions (maybe hacky ones) to do Y, so you want some X that will be good in your workflow. And this is not something you can decide with "Do Y. Awesomely." Honestly the current page is not so bad, but it is still a far-cry that the convincing thing: a demo, a quickstart tutorial, or a video.

[peoplee]

For me it was ultra easy to get what the side does...

[rannoup]

You got a point on the demo example. This is something coming in with our next major version :)