Comment by optymizer
4 years ago
Andy, congratulations on shipping a product! It's a good idea and using .cv for CVs is a nice touch.
That said, here's how your website looks on my 27" 2560x1440 display: https://i.imgur.com/5dsRIlN.png
I'm sorry, but I have to be harsher than usual with my (granted, unsolicited) feedback now because you've been a designer for 11 years and I find your design - to be blunt - inconsiderate and inconsistent.
I hope you can school me on design in general by answering these questions:
1. Why is 3/4 of my screen empty space, while 1/2 of the content is invisible, forcing me to scroll down like I ran out of screen space? Seems inconsiderate.
2. Did you make this website for your own use, or for other people to use as well? If for other people, then why are you not accounting for the fact that lightgray on white is difficult to read in general, but especially hard to read for older folks? Seems inconsiderate.
3. What are the tiny circles with pictures supposed to tell me on the home page? They're just super tiny images with no information or tooltips. Seems inconsiderate.
4. Why do the "Create profile" and "View examples" CTAs look like buttons, but the mouse pointer is different when hovering on them? Seems inconsistent.
5. Why are you messing with the scrollbar to force me to scroll through the main CV? Seems inconsiderate.
6. Why is the "View example" button taking me to a page that wastes my time by showing me the exact same CV that I am forced to scroll through on the main page? Seems inconsiderate.
7. Why is the text on the main CV not selectable, yet on the "View Example" page it is selectable? Seems inconsistent.
8. Why are the links in the footer so close together? Seems inconsistent with the rest of the spacing on the page.
Why are you being an asshole? Seems Inconsiderate.
You can remove those "Seems Inconsiderate" and still give feedback.
Andy should be experienced enough to be able to handle non-sugar-coated feedback, unlike you, it seems (based on your comment).
My sugarcoated feedback to you is to please try to refrain from resorting to name calling when disagreeing with another person. It shifts the discussion from facts to feelings and that's typically counter-productive. I hope you'll take the time to reflect on this and attempt to change your approach in the future. Thank you and good luck with your endeavors in 2021 and beyond.
Two people can be inconsiderate at the same time.
That reminds of what - I think, not sure - Paul Graham once said, that what is applied to stupidity of the founders is just that they have little time and other priorities. Don't remember the exact quote. You are saying that Andy is inconsiderate in every other line. When most likely he had tons of other things to do. You can either make sure all your hover cursors and the spacing between links are consistent. Or you can ship.
I see all this stylish eye candy on the page (animated transitions, rounded corners, dialogs with dark overlay) that takes time and care to implement, but there was just not enough time to make the text legible before shipping, eh?
It's clear that some of these were design choices and have nothing to do with shipping faster. The others are just inconsistencies that go against the general polish that the design aspires to convey.