Ask HN: Check out my side project
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2009 where @pkulak convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.
First of all, this seems like a great app; it has a very nice usability in its current form. That said, it seems like there are just a few ideas that could really improve the app:
1. A real homepage. For example, notice how the homepage on www.freshbooks.com shows a decently sized screen shot, followed by a list of the major features, and an invitation to either take a tour or jump right in to "try FreshBooks for free"
2. A tour, FAQ, contextual help, or some method of introducing users to features they may not have noticed otherwise. For an example of where this would be useful: I added a recipe right away and was impressed with the interface, but only after I added all the ingredients did I discover that I could, in fact, group elements together (under "more options").
3. Insert the "add ingredients" and "add directions" buttons directly into their respective boxes.
4. Make the list of ingredients drag-and-drop? I can't say for sure whether this would be useful or just get in the way, but it seems like a good idea to me.
Awesome! I always get excited when I see other food related apps on hn.
A bug: All of the blue buttons in the content area(ie Create Shopping List) do not work for me because the ul with id header links is covering them.
I signed up and then wanted to get the bookmarklet, and I had to log out to find it. When I did find it I ended up bookmarking the page with the bookmarklet on it rather than the actual bookmark.
I run a recipe search engine(recipepuppy.com), so we do a lot of the same things. If you need any tips streamlining the parsing of recipe sites or anything else let me know. kris@recipepuppy.com
You really need a real home page. Having a guest account they can play with is awesome ... but it's not a good way to start it off.
When I come to the site for the first time, the first thing I see is an unexplained empty calendar. That's very confusing. You need a "this is what mealfire is and why it's cool" page.
UX is nice. I really like the way you do bulk-adding of ingredients and directions.
Nice idea. I can definitely see using it once I'm responsible for my meals.
Bottom-line, everything is good but the very-first impression, which is what's most important.
I think it's a bad idea to punish people who register by locking them out unless they pay $5. At least warn them of what's going to happen...
I liked the idea so I thought I would register right away. Now I'm prevented from trying it out. Why would I shell out $5 now?
One thing that I noticed:
- Maybe move the "add X" to inside the box, on the bottom right corner.
I really liked the "create shopping list" feature. The way you do the items aggregation is very useful.
I've been working on this for a couple months in my spare time, and I think it's turned out pretty well. It's a meal planning site. It's really simple, but it really helps when you want to eat at home more instead of going out. Check it out and let me know what you think. If you want to register, use this link (to avoid the 5 bucks):
http://mealfire.com?promo=hackernews
There's still a million things I want to add/improve, but it's at a point now where it's been working great for me and my wife (especially since we just had our first kid), so hopefully it can be helpful to some other people too.