August, 2009

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
2
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.