New Features — No comments
10
Aug 09

Add chores 25% faster!

I made a little tweak yesterday that should help people “set-it-and-forget-it” even faster. Thanks a bunch to Janine C. for the suggestion.

Save and add another

Before, after saving a new chore, you were sent back to the “My Household” page. Now, if you click “Save and add another,” you get a new blank “Add Chore” form.

I think the most common use case for the “Add Chore” page comes right after signing up, when the user first sets up all of his or her chores. In this case, assuming the user is on the “My Household” page, the process was as follows:

  1. Click “Add a chore”.
  2. Fill in the information.
  3. Click “Save chore”.
  4. If there are more chores to add, start back at Step 1.

This new button allows you to jump over Step 1, cutting 25% of the steps out of the process.

It’s nothing groundbreaking, but one of my goals with PowrHouse is to make the user spend as little time on the website as possible, and I think this furthers that goal.

New Features — 2 comments
02
Aug 09

New “What do I do now” notice

I just uploaded a new feature: The “What do I do now” list at the top of the pages.

now_what

I think one of the more difficult things about PowrHouse is figuring out what the next step is (”OK I logged in, where are the chores?” or “How do I assign the chores to people?”). I think that’s because it’s a different workflow than people are used to. Most web apps have you logging in every few days to make changes or talk to people or set things up. PowrHouse was built around the idea of “set it and forget it”; after logging in and doing the initial work (setting up your household, housemates, and chores), you should never have to log in again (unless someone moves in or out, or you decide you want a new chore, or something like that). I think it makes things much more convenient and easy, but it’s probably unnatural for a lot of people.

That’s why I added the “Now what do I do” notice. It breaks things into four easy steps, with the fourth being assurance that you’re “done”, and that PowrHouse will do the rest. I think it makes the whole process a lot clearer. I’d like to hear what other people think though; the process makes perfect sense to me (as it should), but I want to know if the notice helps other people. So please give me some feedback.

Growth — No comments
30
Jul 09

First registered users!

A woman and her husband just registered their household on PowrHouse and created six chores. They are the first people to register for PowrHouse (aside from myself and testers).

This is a really exciting moment for me. Every web app I’ve made before PowrHouse was internal in some way (only for my household, only for my school, etc.). PowrHouse is my first web app that’s been completely public, with no impetus to register except for perceiving value in the service. Seeing someone register and use it is extremely exciting for me, and increases my drive to make PowrHouse as good as possible.

Product Upgrade — No comments
16
Jul 09

Public alpha of PowrHouse is available now!

I finally finished working out all the obvious kinks in PowrHouse, polishing the design to the point where I don’t hate it, and fighting with the Media Temple Django GridContainer setup (it actually wasn’t too bad, but it could’ve been much better documented). Thus, I am able to present the public alpha of PowrHouse.

What’s alpha? I guess it means different things when different people say it. When I say it, it means I’m almost positive there are many bugs, and a lot of the design still makes me want to puke, but it’s finished enough that other people can start using it and providing me with meaningful feedback. If you’d like to do that, please go to powrhouse.net and register.

If you do decide to register, please email me as much as possible. I don’t care what it is; bugs, error messages, comments, compliments, criticisms, invitations to classy dinner parties, they’re all good. I just want to hear from my users (it feels weird typing the phrase “my users”, since I’ve never had any before). Having people use my software gives me a great thrill, and if they send me bugs/errors, it’s the most invaluable testing tool I could ever have. So please, if you use PowrHouse, send me as many emails as you can, because each one will help me make a better product in one way or another.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Like I alluded to before, this is the first web app I’ve ever launched, and it’s a wicked exciting moment for me. I hope to hear from a few users soon!

Server — 1 comment
24
Jun 09

Hosting with Media Temple

Just set up a hosting account for PowrHouse, which is the reason I’m able to make this first blog post. I’ve chosen Media Temple for their Django container and good word-of-mouth.

However, I’ve also heard some not-so-good things about the reliability of Grid-Service (their hosting package I’m currently using). Quite a few reports of serious downtime. Because of that, I’m paying month-to-month. I have high hopes, but there are plenty of other options, so I’m prepared to jump ship the moment my worries are confirmed.