A lot can happen in 6 weeks. Check out daytender to see the massive updates. New/updated features on the site have pink stars. Look for them and comment!
Thanks for filling out comments and leaving ratings. We have read every one and have worked to address as many as possible. We've had a couple of changes since the launch day, though today we're releasing tons and tons of stuff. You might not see everything that you've asked for, though we're looking at it, and in some cases designing for it. Please continue to provide us with your feedback, so we can keep making this better and better. You're a hugely important part of the process.
The big stuff for this release:
- Improved communication, especially around the feedback system. We've made the star rating interface much better, separated out the comments, made it possible to leave multiple comments on a single feature, and now daytender admins can respond back to your feedback directly, allowing for a dialogue.
- Responding to your feedback. We've done so much based on your feedback.
- Design improvements. None of us are professional designers, but we keep tweaking, tweaking, tweaking, and we hope that we're getting our chops.
- DailyMirror is smoooooooooth… we've done a lot to improve the DailyMirror experience, include free-form plan and history entry (you can still access counters).
- Dashboard is much more useful. You've gotta check out the word clouds. Fill in at least 3 Daily Mirrors, with relevant data for Body, Emotions, Thoughts, and Gratitude. Good stuff will happen. :)
- It seems that the counters aren't ready to be the main dish, so we've left them on the side table while we work out more important things. We'll come back to them, though, since we've got the feeling that they're really important.
Here's a bunch of the stuff that we heard and some of the things that we did about it. This is just a small fraction of what we've done based on your feedback, though hopefully it gives you a good idea that we're for real about co-developing this with you.
BIG BAD BUG
"My profile disappeared between yesterday and today - all data seem to be gone from the site. Strange, as I did get a reminder mail this morning." Several people hit this issue that we found on day 1. If you log in at daytender.com and www.daytender.com, it creates 2 accounts for you with 2 different sets of data.
This was a really tough one, but Scott came through and fixed this issue. If it happened to you, your accounts have been merged. It also won't happen again. The merging might not be perfect, though we've tried to do the best that we can. You might want to check out the Counters page if you customized that.
We've even helped fix this especially for a number of users.
COMMENTS
"how come I can't comment more than once on some feature, hmm? "
You can now. Have at it! We've actually done a ton in this area
DESIGN
A number of people told us that our site doesn't help a new user understand why they'd use it.
We've iterated and iterated and iterated on the site for this and hope that the front page experience and the initial daily mirror experience gets us part of the way there.
"I would like a short sentence under each of the four tabs describing what I am getting into. But maybe that is just because this is new to me."
We added new text on tooltips for the updated dashboard and added richer descriptions on each of the pages to make them more explanatory.
"The emotion petals didn't load fully"
We've greatly improved image hosting and file loading on the site.
COUNTERS
Almost all of the comments here were about specific counters: "Ok- I want minutes of exercise w/ customizable labels"
This helped us realize that people didn't know that counters are completely customizable for the users. You can create whatever you want here. We hope that we've made the site more clear so that you can discover this.
DAILY MIRROR
About the DailyMirror Summary - "I like these. I think they are cute and I like the visuals. It would be sad to see if all the emotions were negative though, and might make someone "modify" their input to avoid seeing a negative word pile."
We built the word clouds into the dashboard. If you don't see them, yet, you just need to fill in more DailyMirrors on your account. :) As for the negativity part, that's exactly the value of this. Awareness of negativity can go a long way.
On the DailyMirror Plan - "I really like the interface on this tracking system!"
Thanks! We think that we've made it even better.
A few comments about colors: "Font color challenging to see on iTouch."
We've completely reworked the colors schemes, keeping iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad in mind.
"The star is too close to the mantra. When my mouse got close to it, the popup appeared and killed my meditation time. Then I had to take time and attention away to click on the x to close the popup."
Completely redesigned the Focus page for usability.
"On my third or fourth visit to DailyMirror, I got a nice screen introducing me to the feature. However, when I refreshed the page, it went away. Daily Mirror needs some introductory material to set up expectations and guide me to success. I also need a "START" button so that I consciously start the routine."
The intro screen is both improved, and always present. This will continue to evolve in the future.
You love the gratitude step. "I like this part a lot! It's important to remember what we are grateful for to counter the negative." "Love this!"
Woot!
Many love the relax step. "This is my favorite minute of the day. Otherwise, I might not take the time to relax and breathe for weeks on end."
Testify!
Regarding the Plan step: "I'd like for this step to be optional, because it doesn't fit with the contemplative, serene nature of the rest of the routine for me. "
We changed this to free-form planning by default. This removes the distraction of contemplating on what the next 24 hours can be.
"I appreciate the timers keeping me on a 5 minute pace"
Expect this to get even better, soon.
"I would still like a different picture every day please! As I said before- like natn'l geo's photo of the day, but more zen.
xoxo"
We hear you, and plan to get there soon. We've gone a baby step forward and given you a new one for today.
"I definitely want the word clouds to reflect MY emotions and gratitudes. That'd be awesome."
You got it!
Opening DailyMirror piece still says "6 minutes"
Doh! That was the easiest change.
What are the members up to?
Some other nifty things that happened along the way:
- Scott became an uncle (yesterday)!
- Ed got ordained.
- Brother Ed became dev #2.
- Dean is building his first commercial kitchen.
- The team got a projector for design meetings.
Woohoo!
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