top | item 5036342

You cannot read this, but you can tell how it appeals to you

27 points| jorgenhorstink | 13 years ago |moneymonk.nl | reply

51 comments

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[+] drharris|13 years ago|reply
Non designer here. I like the overall design, but I do have a few things I'd personally change (nit picky, might not change my desire to click through):

1) The top screenshots coming into foreground is a nice touch, but something seems choppy about the animation. I think it's less to do with the currently hovered image, but what happens to the previous image you had selected. It seems to just drop away in one frame, which looks awkward. Maybe moving it to background instantly, but putting a delay to slide back down would be better; it's difficult to visualize though.

2) Nobody really clicks through carousels anymore, and waiting for them to move automatically is irritating. Not sure what would be better, but consider something else if that information is important.

3) The sticky header at the top is not my favorite thing, and this may just be personal preference. I will actually close a website that does that to me. I may be alone here.

[+] Toshio|13 years ago|reply
> Nobody really clicks through carousels anymore

Is there a data point to back up this statement? I know I definitely do click through carousels, if I'm intrigued enough about what might be there.

[+] groovy2shoes|13 years ago|reply
"You cannot read this"

That's a little presumptuous, don't you think? I can read it, as can many other people who have commented. Don't assume no one here can understand Dutch or any other language for that matter.

[+] jorgenhorstink|13 years ago|reply
You're totally right. It was a little presumptuous. You know the saying: "Assumption is the mother of all..."? From an autistic, mathematical point of view you are right, but if I look into the stats of my Google Analytics, I see less then 4.1% Dutch. If I take into account that especially Dutch people would click on a link ending with .nl, I think I may assume the percentage of Dutch HN readers is even low.

What I meant of course is: most of the people cannot read it. So, lets trigger them to judge the design, just by its design. This gave me a lot of new insights I want to thank everyone for :)

[+] dochtman|13 years ago|reply
(I can read it; and, I also like the anchors in the main nav.)

The pricing table seems a little silly, since most of the points are similar across all three price levels... It's a table for the table's sake, I guess.

Also, I personally think the pricing is fairly steep for what you're offering. I actually have an eenmansbedrijf and I spend very little time per year doing invoicing and taxes, let alone per month. Maybe you need different price differentiation, i.e. make it cheap for < 20 invoices / year. That would actually let me ease into it.

[+] MJR|13 years ago|reply
The pricing is based on the length of the term that you want to pre-pay. If you pay monthly it's going to be be €19, if you pay yearly it's €190 - saving you 2 months of fees, if you pay for 2 years its €342 - saving you 6 months of fees. It's a standard pricing paradigm, but I do agree that this specific table doesn't really highlight the fact that it's the same PLAN for each price point. They should lay out this information differently so that you can see it's one plan and make it that there are discounts for pre-paying.
[+] mtrimpe|13 years ago|reply
When scrolling the "Probeer MoneyMonk 14 dagen vrijblijvend!" button moves into the header but only for a very short time.

I don't think many poeple will actually click through the carrousel "Dit kan MoneyMonk voor jou betekenen..." so it might be better to condense it down a bit and make it into a long-form page.

Also, that the screenshots at the top move up is nice but I still can't see enough to figure out what they're actually saying...

But al met al zeker wel een mooie site...

[+] jorgenhorstink|13 years ago|reply
Hmm, I guess I was wrong you cannot read it ;) The button moves to the header to make sure a Call To Action button is always visible. The CTA in the header disappears if a CTA button on the website is visible.

Good point about the carrousel. I might want to track some events to see if people actually use it. But if it is a long form, doesn't that hurt the experience? On massive long page?

You are actually able to click on the screenshots, but I guess we could make that more clear? Thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated!

[+] sjmulder|13 years ago|reply
I can read it and it does appeal to me. The flow and explanation is really good. I’d like some more screen shots but then the lack of them might make people more likely to sign up and see for themselves. Bookmarking for later.

By the way, I dig the anchor name of the pricing section.

[+] CamperBob2|13 years ago|reply
Locks up Firefox 18 with a "busy script" warning.
[+] dochtman|13 years ago|reply
It's fine in Firefox 19 (Aurora), OS X.
[+] speedyrev|13 years ago|reply
You will be happy to know that with Chrome and clicking the translate button, your site translates well.
[+] teilo|13 years ago|reply
That's because Dutch and English grammar and syntax are remarkably similar.
[+] TomPC|13 years ago|reply
The site has some issue's ;) http://imgur.com/PvdrJ
[+] jorgenhorstink|13 years ago|reply
Wauw, that doesn't look pretty indeed. Would help a lot if you could tell me which browser you're using. I haven't tested in IE at all yet. * shame shame
[+] TomPC|13 years ago|reply
hint: try to resize your screen
[+] wwdevries|13 years ago|reply
Within the Netherlands there are far more appealing solutions, such as MoneyBird. They've been rockin' at it for a few years now. To be honest, to me MoneyMonk looks like a limited clone of MoneyBird.

(I'm a happy customer of MoneyBird)

[+] jorgenhorstink|13 years ago|reply
I am glad you are a happy customer of MoneyBird. This tells me there is at least a market of 1 person ;) I am quite surprised you can tell from only a couple of screenshots, MoneyMonk is a limited clone.

Of course there are similarities, giving the fact we target the same audience. But I really think we have a different kind of product. This sort of competition is only a good thing. It keeps us all motivated to make the best software for our customers. In the end it is the customer who wins.

[+] icambron|13 years ago|reply
This served as my annual reminder that Google Translate really is very good.
[+] roel_v|13 years ago|reply
Does it keep a ledger, i.e. double entry? As far as I can tell no, how would one generate a balance and profit-and-loss statement from this?
[+] jorgenhorstink|13 years ago|reply
Well, it actually does. Where classical accountancy software (Unit4, Exact, etc.) focusses on the ledger aspect, making it hardly impossible for human beings to use the software, we take a different approach.

We thought: what is accounting about? It is about registering financial facts. That's what we actually do. We optimized the user interface for normal human beings registering financial facts. We are then able to derive the entire accountancy fundament with double entries, ledgers, etc.

Suppose one transfers 100 euro from their bank book to the cash book. This should be registered using a cross post (don't know if this is the correct term). No human being (freelancer) understands this. But if they can select: oh, this was a cash withdrawal, Money Monk knows how to register the financial facts.

[+] jlengrand|13 years ago|reply
I can read this :D
[+] jorgenhorstink|13 years ago|reply
And you're living in Utrecht as well I see :) If you want to grab a coffee the other day, drop me an e-mail. My username at gmail...
[+] jw79|13 years ago|reply
Looks nice. Small note: the top logo does not fit in IE8.

How does moneymonk compare to moneybird?

[+] jorgenhorstink|13 years ago|reply
As I said in another comment, I haven't tested in IE entirely. Going to buy a windows laptop today :). I don't know MoneyBird that well (except for the invoicing part), so I can't tell you exactly. What I do know is, we have streamlined the entire process of sending invoices and reminders. We take a fundamental different approach to MoneyBird.
[+] Zr40|13 years ago|reply
I'm not the target audience, but I can read it. Love the anchor names!
[+] jorgenhorstink|13 years ago|reply
Thanks :) I would never have thought anyone would actually notice the silly language joke at all... If you happen to know Dutch freelancers who still do their accounting in Excel, you know where to send them to ;)
[+] werner34|13 years ago|reply
is this the dutch version of billmonk?
[+] jorgenhorstink|13 years ago|reply
I had never heard of it, but billmonk seems to me more for personal use. MoneyMonk is accounting software targeted to freelancers and people running a company without employees (ZZP is the Dutch abbr), including tax reports etc, creating invoices.
[+] Toshio|13 years ago|reply
Congrats on the pretty design. As a student of UX, I would be fascinated if you could summarize in a short braindump the UX design principles and thought processes that went into making this. You already mentioned how you think about the CTA in another comment, how about all the rest of it?
[+] jorgenhorstink|13 years ago|reply
Thanks! Good suggestion. The original design framework (color scheme, font's etc) is made by someone else. That design was absolutely beautiful, but not from a conversion point of view. There were no clear CTA buttons, etc.

The past couple of weeks I've been reading a lot of great articles online, viewed a couple of inspiring TED talks and other video's, and I used that information to build the landing page.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to recap which articles I read, which video's I watched, and I'll write about it in a blogpost.