News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mandarin Pronunciation.

Re:Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mand... by TheRealPomax on Saturday December 21, 2019 @04:43PM (#21853509)
Please do not block "using the website" until someone gives you access to the microphone. Simply make the parts of the page that rely on the microphone not work, and make it obvious they won't work until people give access to the devices you need access to.

And in the mean time let them browse the page as normal, instead of force-hiding the content scroll bar and presenting a full screen overlay modal. If your page explains what it's for, locking people out of that content just because they don't trust you yet is intentionally crippling the experience for no good reason.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mand... by drastorguev on Sunday December 22, 2019 @05:23AM (#21856326)
Thanks for the feedback! We didn't realise this would pose such a problem. We've updated the website so it asks for microphone permission after people press the 'Record' button.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mand... by TheRealPomax on Tuesday December 24, 2019 @11:45AM (#21873185)
Thank you, that's the perfect solution. Although you probably want to offer people a way to dismiss that modal, too: it's still "waiting" for permission rather than being able to go "wait this is not what I wanted to do how do I get back to the site".
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mand... by phyrex on Sunday December 22, 2019 @08:59AM (#21857128)
Not on my iPhone you haven’t
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mand... by unforeseen9991 on Sunday December 22, 2019 @10:49AM (#21857742)
Not on my PC running Chrome you haven't either
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mand... by drastorguev on Sunday December 22, 2019 @02:13PM (#21858988)
OK, could we please ask - did you access the website before we made the changes? If so - have you tried clearing your browser cache?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mand... by XOPJ on Sunday December 22, 2019 @10:41PM (#21861345)
Just tried is now for the first time, 8 hours since you commented and it instantly asked for my microphone and I instinctively blocked it.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mand... by drastorguev on Monday December 23, 2019 @01:54AM (#21861947)
Thanks for letting us know - we've realised we were unclear with our initial correction: the modal that asks for mic permission and explains that all audio processing is done in-browser now only appears when 'Record' is pressed, so users can check out the rest of the website.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mand... by phyrex on Wednesday December 25, 2019 @01:01PM (#21879647)
No I don't think so. It definitely popped up before I pressed anything for me.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mand... by kanwisher on Sunday December 22, 2019 @02:08PM (#21858961)
Still broken on IOS
[ Parent | on HN ]