Ask HN: How's my landing page?

[johnhok]

Recently worked on a personal project this summer and finally soft launched it with a private beta. I've created this landing page for it at:

http://www.dailychomp.com

I'd like some feedback on the landing page design and ways you think I could improve it as I've never really done landing page designs before.

Just want to see if others could pick out ways to improve it.

Thanks!

[danielhunt]

edit typo

Nice twist on not collecting email addresses into some bucket that will sit dormant for 2 years - pretty clever of you to poke twitter & facebook instead (which, I imagine, would result in more 'OMGVIRALZ' too).

I had actually had a very similar idea to this myself, but never got around to implementing it.

The design looks clean and very appealing, but why did you create it with a hashbang link approach? It doesn't appear to gain anything by doing that (click on the 'about' link)

[johnhok]

Thanks for the feedback.

It's using hashbang links simply because the mobile web application uses a similar approach in order to reduce the assets being transferred over 3g connections.

The desktop web application is bootstrapping the same JavaScript at the moment so it uses a similar approach in requesting the assets that change.

The idea is so the desktop can easily inherit most of the functionality of the mobile web application with minimal modifications.

[glimcat]

The page is basically blank if JavaScript isn't available. Turning it on shows that it is only being used to populate the main content pane.

This is a bad design decision since (a) not everyone with JavaScript off will bother to enable it if they haven't already seen something interesting, (b) not everyone with JavaScript off can enable it, and (c) you're giving yourself this problem in exchange for no apparent benefit.

Your main pitch should always, always, always be visible in the broadest compatibility case - even if that means falling back on a static mockup.

[dgunn]

Currently at work so I'm using IE8. It seems to be completely unusable. I hate thinking about it just as much as the next guy, but it's probably wise to support at least 2 versions back for IE.

I recommend keeping the landing much simpler and more focused. I have no idea what is trying to run when I load the page, but whatever it is probably isn't strictly necessary for the front page. Link to the more complicated stuff for those who become interested.

[johnhok]

Guilty as charged. I did absolutely no cross browser testing with IE for DailyChomp mainly due to time constraints with school starting. No excuse but thanks for the good reminder. I will try to fix up the IE issues as soon as I can. Sorry about that!

I've made a screenshot for you to see how it looks at the moment: http://f.cl.ly/items/3r1H280A2U3G1w0N1d1w/Screen%20Shot%2020...

I did try to put a focus on simplicity. Let me know if you think there's still some unnecessary stuff on the page :)

[dgunn]

Looks great. I love the subtle rainbow effect on the left side of the header. Those little things are what usually impresses me the most because they're so subtle I'm surprised anyone ever thought to do it.

I think the message is perfect. The complication I was talking about is the (likely) unnecessary script running on a landing page. It seems like the intention of the page is simple enough that very little (if any) scripting is necessary. For example, I have a "coming soon" page that is solely meant to collect email addresses (http://soupnextdoor.com) and I'm more interested in everyone being able to see it than how it looks, so I made sure it will work for anyone. I may be wrong about your page's need for scripting since I haven't seen it with a browser that can handle it. I'll take another look with chrome when I get home. Great design tho, and the message is clear. Good idea btw. :)

[duck]

Looks good overall. Couple small things: 1) Show a couple more screenshots so we know what exactly it does 2) I see this a lot and it drives me nuts: DailyChomp, but the logo shows dailychomp. The logo also looks a little out of place. 3) I would give the option to collect email addresses too.

Lastly, and the most important... start A/B testing right now. Try testing the wording in that button first and go from there.

[johnhok]

1) For sure! I thought about sliding through screenshots on the mobile device's screen. Do you think there is a better approach? Bigger screenshots maybe?

2) I actually looked around a bit at places like Facebook and Twitter and noticed a similar approach with logos designed however but the formal name when referencing it in sentences is with the proper capitalizations. Not sure if this is the best way to do it but I just tried to follow 'conventions' I've seen around.

3) Probably a good idea, always good to give several options.

Will go about implementing some of your feedback, thanks a lot!

[danielhunt]

Just on 2) - I actually prefer to see all lower case in the logo, as opposed to CamelCasing the whole lot

Certainly agree on 1) though

[duck]

I'm fine with logos being all lower case or whatever, but to me it should match how you write it in the text. If you don't do that, it is hard for people to write about you because they don't know how to write the name.

[xutopia]

What does it matter what it looks like if it is effective? The stats you get from this should matter more than our opinions.

[ryankals]

I think it looks pretty good. The best landing pages are the ones that simply explain the idea. Perhaps you could create a short video to let us know how it works once you launch.

[shiftpgdn]

You need to have a way to go back to the main site from mobile browsers. I'm on Firefox/Ubuntu and it takes me to your mobile site with no way to get back to the normal site.

[johnhok]

Here's a link for convenience.

http://www.dailychomp.com

[johnhok]

For those who just want to see a screenshot: http://f.cl.ly/items/3r1H280A2U3G1w0N1d1w/Screen%20Shot%2020...