C
Contrast Blog
contrast.ie · Company blog · on HN since 2008
Contrast, an Irish software consultancy, writes about web analytics, product design, startups, and hiring consultants.
What HN saysHN commenters link it for the author's own follow-up posts on analytics, SEO, and user onboarding, and discuss the Exceptional and Airbrake acquisition.
37HN people shared it
11linked it in comments
72stories submitted
1.5Kstory points
13 years agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
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What HN people wrote when they linked it
dedene · 2012-02-07
Is anyone else getting confused too? who did acquired who?
On http://contrast.ie/ is stated Exceptional is acquired by Airbrake.io (Hoptoad). And here is state the opposite... will Exceptional continue to exist or Airbrake? Or Both?
destraynor · 2011-07-29
Even if Henry Ford did say that, it's still an if.
i.e. Henry Ford did NOT ask his customers, at best he guessed at what they might respond.
I wrote about this here: http://contrast.ie/blog/faster-horses (Which was previously picked up by HN)
jsavimbi · 2011-03-14
Sorry to leave you hanging on the metrics, here's a great resource:
http://www.contrast.ie/blog/the-future-of-analytics-products/
Also, with a Rails app, be sure to give http://gaug.es/ a whirl.
unalone · 2008-10-27
For people who want a more detailed follow-up: http://www.contrast.ie/blog/seo-is-still-bullshit/
harrybr · 2011-01-09
People have been suggesting this design is some sort of mistake. I don't think so:
1. Email notifications have a very high value for Quora - they drive users back to the site.
2. A fair number of users unsubscribe by clicking the "unsubscribe" link at the footer of emails
3. This design ensures users clicking this link will only ever unsubscribe from a subset of email notifications.
This way, users end up with an inbox that looks like this:
http://www.contrast.ie/blog/getting-your-users-on-board/
If a user wants to unsubscribe from everything, they have to have the presence of mind to visit this page, and then untick every single checkbox. This is effortful. Geni.com were criticised for using this exact dark pattern and ended up adding a single-click "Unsubscribe me from all Geni emails" feature:
http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/Roach_Motel#Example:_geni.com
The real question is whether Quora should be criticised for using this design pattern, or is it an acceptable practice?
duggan · 2014-01-22
Intercom's story has been a wonderful one to watch. They're a particular inspiration for those of us in Ireland; they've consistently aimed high, have set high standards for themselves, and generally raised the bar for Irish companies.
Their blogging has been interesting since before Intercom was even incorporated (at their consultancy company, Contrast's[1], blog).
They're also a bunch of smart, down to earth people.
Exceptional folks. Congratulations.
[1] http://contrast.ie/blog/
vippi · 2011-03-22
As suggested in previous reply http://www.contrast.ie/blog/the-future-of-analytics-products/ has good information about different analytics systems.
But if your business growth depends on analytics then investing into home grown analytics solution would be a good strategy. Investing in a home grown analytics system not only provide flexibility in gathering any kind of analytics for your web app but also lay the ground work for home grown A/B testing and continuous deployment frameworks. But it depends on how much you want to invest and its ROI which can vary a lot based on your business.
drKarl · 2011-03-22
A recent post in Hacker News:
http://www.contrast.ie/blog/the-future-of-analytics-products/
aymeric · 2011-01-19
evlapix · 2012-03-22
Awesome. I've been wanting to see this in analytics for a long time. Not because I would use it, but because I thought it made the most sense. I came across this article on HN a while back that seems to hint at the same thing: http://www.contrast.ie/blog/the-future-of-analytics-products/
I believed it was such a necessity that I worked on building a MVP for about a year, but then gave it up a few months ago. The project was way outside my technical ability even after all that I learned and I had absolutely no experience with analytics in general. It was a bad decision to work on it for any period of time, let alone a year. Especially since I had other ideas that I was better suited to build and believed more in.
Now all that's left of the project is a demo video I put together for a job application. This isn't really what I had in mind then, but what the hell...
Show HN: Real-time, visual, click-path, analytics (pathtrends.com)
http://vimeo.com/27327367
techiferous · 2010-10-17
Reference
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Tutorials
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Demos
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Sandboxes
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Tools
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http://www.contrast.ie/blog/speeding-up-with-modernizr/
http://css-tricks.com/examples/ButtonMaker/
http://labs.thecssninja.com/font_dragr/
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fontface/generator
http://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/wiki/HTML5-Cross-browser-Polyfil…
Compatibility
http://caniuse.com/
http://html5readiness.com/
http://www.quirksmode.org/compatibility.html
Detecting HTML5 Support
http://diveintohtml5.org/detect.html
http://www.modernizr.com/