[wells-riley]

It really sucks. In fact, I wholly believe that many people will turn away from Hack Design because there's essentially a paywall right out of the gate. I don't regret my choice to start with this film, though.

Objectified had a profound impact on me as a designer. I first watched it in a slump of disenchantment that my "web design" skills would never amount to anything valuable or earth-shattering. This film gave me perspective. It showed me that, in extreme cases, design can make the world a better place.

There are moments in this film that give me the shakes. It resonates so deeply with what I believe, and what I want to achieve during my career. I can't think of any better way to help put hackers into the mindset that I believe is most conducive to learning the basics of design.

I hope you figure out a way around paying an exorbitant amount of money to watch the film, and hopefully see you next week for Lesson 1.

[titlex]

I'm glad that Objectified seems to have had such a large impact on you, but this really isn't a good way of starting this course, or any course for that matter. Reading Dieter Rams' ten principles of "good design"[1] would be much more practical.

Also, if the site is going to be focused on helping people with design, you should make sure the design of the actual site is good. Few issues that I saw:

-404 page should at least have the logo to know you're still on the same site

-/courses & /lessons/0 should have the full logo with the page title elsewhere

-Log in page animation does nothing for design and can confuse people into thinking they can type after the text

-Has already been mentioned, but the contrast in some areas could use work. Tasks for example should be the main focus point, yet the text is light grey.

-Using social media icons everywhere takes away from design IMO

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Rams#Rams.27_ten_princip...

[rickmb]

If it wasn't for the conversation here on HN, I would have assumed the whole site was just a referral-scam. Not just a paywall, but a scam, since there is zero warning upfront until after you've subscribed.

And please, unless what you do is explicitly aimed at the US, treat all users as equal. We're not "international users", just list the options equally for everyone.

[Syssiphus]

It's a very interesting documentary, thanks for the tip. I am looking forward to the rest of the course.