What would you change on Product Hunt?

Question

I was wondering: how would you change Product Hunt to make it better?

Answers can be anything from high level conceptual/strategic things down to feature level or even micro changes like renaming or moving a button.

I have a short list of my own & will post after a few comments.

Looking forward to what your thoughts are!

Maxwell Davis · Accepted Answer

I would do the following:

- Implement a feature like Indie Hackers for Projects
 - Ability to DM others on the platform (sometimes hard to contact other makers if they haven't linked there Twitter)
 - Nocode the Upcoming Products pages and make them more linked with the other updates you do for your products on other platforms
 - Only allow launches by the makers and set the time that everyone launches at the same time (or has to launch the following day)
 - Rethink the "Hunter" feature so that it provides some proper value benefit again
 - Improve the content generated - most is just self promotion
 - Provide some additional benefits for members that are here regularly and contribute

Ezzat Suhaime · Answer

@maxwellcdavis The dm’ing feature would be really good. And yes, having the launch at the same time would be much more effective in having a “fair launch” only problem are time zones

Ezzat Suhaime · Answer

I would update the app. I think right now the app is very limited. For example, there's no way to access discussions within the app. 
Using the mobile website to participate in discussions is fine, but it's still significantly harder to use than on a desktop/laptop browser.

Maxwell Davis · Answer

@ezzat Totally support this - the App is very poor compared to the desktop version.

mustafa ilker sarac · Answer

@ezzat when you are active via app, it doesn't count towards the day streak. I do not know if it is known or fixed. I think PH should be a very nice PWA and pull out the mobile apps.

WJ · Answer

@maxwellcdavis great list, Maxwell.
To DM others would be useful. (this option existed for some time?)

Maxwell Davis · Answer

@w_j It was there before

Thomas Schranz ⛄️ · Answer

I don't have fundamental suggestions for change, just little adjustments that would make everything that's already great even better imho:

⏰ Fix Launch time confusion

The launch time is a source of errors and anxiety (especially for makers launching for the first time). Many people aren't familiar with US-style time information (12 am is before 1am etc) which leads to mistakes when scheduling launches if people do not pick the default setting.

I would disable the ability to set the time and only allow to set the day and then clearly communicate + add feature for "add to calendar" when that is (+ switch to 24h time format in wording). Alternatively if you need to preserve the ability for custom times I would hide (de-emphasise) it in the UI so it is still there for advanced users but not part of the "happy path" user journey.

People get super stressed out when they prepared everything for their launch and then screw up the time.

🧭 Fix navigation for iPad

The navigation does not work on iPad using touch because the navigation subitems only shows on "hover"

📺 Weekly Kitty Awards

Produce a weekly / monthly / quarterly format similar to the Kitty awards (can be live or recorded, video or audio or written) but the idea is basically to help spotlight the best products / launches even more.

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Btw: opening up scheduling for everyone was a huge quality of life improvement @ hunter/maker interaction!

Maxwell Davis · Answer

@ezzat Well the best time to launch is just past midnight PST - as long as it's that time it doesn't matter

What would you change on Product Hunt?

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