Comment by jedberg
4 years ago
This is a good start, but I'm not a huge fan of this the way it is now.
First, the font is tiny for my old eyes. Not all of us, especially hiring managers, are still in their 20s and can read these tiny fonts. I measured it with a ruler and the text is 1mm tall. Also, the font is gray on white, which is pretty but hard to read. In contrast, Linkedin is three times bigger and black on white, much easier to read.
Second, after looking at the example, I have almost no idea what you've done. All I see are job titles. I don't see any accomplishments or even job duties. It looks like I could add those things when I create my own profile, but having them missing on the example isn't a good look.
Third, the face circles. I see face circles under each job, but they aren't clickable nor are there tooltips. I have no idea what those are. I assume they're other people who worked at the same place? Maybe connections of yours who have worked at the same place? That's a cool idea, but it needs to be more discoverable. At the very least a tooltip would be good.
Overall, when I'm looking at a professional profile, I'm usually doing it because I want to hire or work with someone. The main information I want to know is 1) Do we have anyone in common I can ask about you? 2) What did you accomplish at your previous workplaces or otherwise? 3) Have you worked anywhere that I recognize and when, so I can ask my other friends who worked there if they know you?
The face circles accomplish #1, so that's great. #2 looks possible, but the design seems to minimize the accomplishments, as opposed to Linkedin which sort of puts it in your face. And #3 seems to be covered but again the design minimizes the information I want most.
I would say a good place to start would be asking yourself, "Why does Linkedin look the way it does?". A lot of their design comes from customer feedback, and their main customers are recruiters and hiring managers. Steal their good stuff and leave their dark patterns behind.
In addition to being tiny, the font color used for the text is a light gray that just hurts my 40 year old eyes. As a hiring manager, I'd pass this and just read a PDF or LinkedIn.
Click "View example" and 1, 2, and 3 will go away.
2 definitely doesn't.
These are fantastic criticisms. Almost exactly what I was thinking verbatim.
Back in 1960's, my dad worked as a draftsman. His work was impeccable. But once in a while, he got told, pretty harshly that this is a piece of shit. And he had to work 15 hours to fix a mistake. No, I am not talking about a typo which can be marked with a white marker. Hard-to-objectively-evaluate things like "Dimensions are just not as readable as they can be. You could arrange them this way, look. It's better." He told me to face criticisms, the harsher it is, the more passionate the criticizer is. Find out why they're passionately criticizing it.
I feel like criticisms on HN, Product Hunt, r/photography, r/design, etc. - we are too soft to not offend people.
I personally would want to be criticized as harshly as possible. I'd like to face reality in all its glory without drinking the soft-mannerism bs. If the design is shit, say it. If its great, praise it. Tell people why its great. Be honest why it sucks.
It's hard but if I am really interested in improving my skills, I don't want to be given lipservice. It is worse than not seeking feedback because it leads to self-delusion. It goes the other way too, don't be afraid to praise something passionately if you resonate with it and explain the reasons.
This is the society's mechanism for improvement and filtering out noise. If we don't do this, society becomes noisy and people who are really good at stuff are drowned in the noise.
> Find out why they're passionately criticizing it.
Sometimes this is just "because they're an arsehole" and the criticism is garbage.
> people who are really good at stuff are drowned in the noise
Or people who could be really good at stuff get disheartened by the harsh criticism and we as a society lose out.
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Its always to the advantage of the entrepreneur who can at once be passionate about their work and yet also take criticism in stride, turning it into the kind of useful feedback you describe. That being said, we all know constructive criticism will be likely uptaken, so its also on us (as a community) to foster it if we want the best outcomes all around. Though in general I agree, and have found this is the hardest part of both evaluating friend's works, and also getting friends to evaluate yours. I always feel the need to say "Please, don't be nice. I'm not looking for handouts. I don't want to spend time on this if no one is going to like it."
Most of the content disappears when viewed in Safari's Reader View.
> Steal their good stuff and leave their dark patterns behind.
Their dark patterns make them money. That said, at this point, a LinkedIn competitor would look nothing like it...
Curious, what do you think a LinkedIn competitor would it look like?
I'm not qualified to answer that. Plus, I'm not sure I've seen it (obvious LinkedIn competition) yet, but there are shades of things that might upend the recruitment industry resulting in LinkedIn's cash cow taking a hit: Lambda School, Scaler Academy, EightFold.ai, Upwork/Fiverr, Creator economy etc
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I think the font thing might be a failure in displaying properly rather than an intentional choice. It's no smaller than the font here on HN or anywhere else for me.
I don’t understand the font feedback... can’t you just increase the font size? (The design is responsive to it).
Yes, that is an option, but should the default be so difficult to read especially for a CV?
I thought it was fine. But sure “make the font bigger”
Pinch to zoom doesn't work, and I can't find another option to increase the font size. This is on mobile. Are you by chance on pc?
No. Pinch to zoom works fine. PC zoom text works fine.
Hence my comment :/
> the text is 1mm tall.
That's relative.. But maybe it was as a joke. Because it's funny to imagine someone with a ruler measuring their screen ^^
> I would say a good place to start would be asking yourself, "Why does Linkedin look the way it does?".
I don't like this trope personally. It works for linkedIn because it was what Monster and other sites were not.
If its to be different, embrace it, listen to customers as you say. Don't just take what's already been done with a slight knock off feel.
As for the site itself and concept its nice and super clean, definitely fits into a lot of designers/developers ideals. Recruiters will want the analytic data but doesnt seem thats the market.
An exportable html/pdf page of your profile would be nice to give users too. Just because it gives ossum designers and whoever to extend on the clean template for themselves.
I use 1mm quite a lot, if I want to hide legalese from interested eyes, to be able to state afterwards, that everything was written on the page …