Thanks for the feedback winslow - we didn't mean to dampen your vibe. The idea is as the challenges get harder we want to make sure you get ones you care about (interest area, difficulty) - that's a good idea on rephrasing it, we could make that more apparent and give more challenges before requiring signup.
Critique really helps us improve, we love hearing it, everyone should feel free to reach out: nathan@codewars.com
Well, they are programmers, I think they are more than conscious about how we (others too, but especially programmers) feel about that! Also, we can always pest them back with auto response filters[1] :-)
[1]: A Croatian (I'm Croatian, too) website made me submit my email for a Web purchase, but they started sending newsletters they have no unsubscribtion mechanism, and they send the newsletter from <newsletter id>-newsletter@..., which I could filter and send to spam (which I also do) , but instead, I forward the email back to them and also send a reply that I'd like to stop receiving these emails. Ironically, they asked me on a few occasions to stop emailing them, I simply respond with the same reply they sent me when I asked to be unsubscribe: "It's automatic, there's nothing I can do about it." There's always a way to fuck with those who try to fuck with you. :-)
Of course, I know you didn't mean to dampen the vibe. I really love the site and the love idea as it got my brain thinking which is why I was really bummed to see a forced login. Obviously you want to track progress, difficulty, and customize per user which is understandable and smart. I could be an outlier to the enlist statement/requirement so please grab other data points on this subject ;)
We want to make sure to keep the intrigue and flow going. So we're seriously thinking about how we can open more challenges while balancing it with a customized experience, great advice. Appreciate the help.
- The main call to action should be "Try Codewars" instead of "Join Codewars" so it'd feel like "no compromise just try it", also it'd be clearer that you can actually try it out before signing up. I agree that the teaser should be longer than the 2 small exercises.
- The webcam in the monitor kinda creeps me out and draws my attention away from the important stuff.
Yep the landing page navigation, I actually didn't notice there was more to it than the landing page. I felt kinda lost in the landing page cause there's no much else than the "Join us" thing. I'm a programmer, my eyes have been trained to ignore marketing copy and search for code examples and documentation.
Thanks, a couple people here also seem confused by the join button, perhaps take it to a sign-up form, or change the join button text to be a little more descriptive of what you want the user to accomplish.
Critique really helps us improve, we love hearing it, everyone should feel free to reach out: nathan@codewars.com