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Re:Ask HN: Please review our site FourthBranch.us by noodle on Thursday March 26, 2009 @03:05PM (#533947)
imo, just right off the top of my head, the design and presentation needs work. what exactly does the site do? what is it for? how do i use it? etc..

i can't really tell just looking at the first page, so, you're probably going to have a high bounce rate (especially since its such a crowded-with-information, not-aesthetically-appealing page). you want that first page to explain and draw people in. you have more leeway for ugliness and untidiness once people understand whats happening.

Re:Ask HN: Please review our site FourthBranch.us by profgubler on Thursday March 26, 2009 @03:08PM (#533953)
I second this. I know that you are addressing bills going through congress, but I don't know what you want me to do. I also had a hard time trying to reading the bills in the list.
Re:Ask HN: Please review our site FourthBranch.us by ryanmnly on Thursday March 26, 2009 @04:35PM (#534116)
You are both right, thanks for the feedback. These are the types of things we need to iron out immediately. We've been working with a few different layouts, but without users actually engaging, it is difficult to assess what works best. We will change it tonight, and through some trial error, hopefully we can express what the site actually does. The concept is sound but what good is it if nobody can figure out how to use it?
Re:Ask HN: Please review our site FourthBranch.us by krisneuharth on Thursday March 26, 2009 @03:13PM (#533961)
We are in the process of adding a landing page right now that will better explain how the site works. We really focused on just a quick and dirty approach to getting the site working with the basic features we wanted to showcase for the YC application demo and let the look and feel suffer some as a result. I agree that we are a little overwhelming with our current information representation, we are working on streamlining the content.