We love Twitter. And we love user feedback. So we figured, why not marry the two? So, starting today, we have asked our Twitter networks to take part in our very first usability test via Twitter! The form is below. Even if you didn’t hear about this on Twitter, you can still take part! 
Update: The usability test has ended. Thanks to everyone who helped out!
Thanks! You can now get back to your tweeting workday!
Tags: twitter, usability, User Experience
This round of changes includes a lot of suggestions from our beta users, more so than any other code push we have done so far:
- To-Dos now support entering natural language date entry. What is this you say? Well, it’s possibly my favorite feature right now in BatchBook. Now instead of having to use the calendar pop-up to enter dates, you can just enter something like ‘next wednesday’ in the text field and it figures out the date for you. This is really useful for entering terms like ‘tomorrow’, ‘today’ , ‘next month’ etc. It will also support dates like “1/31″ and will just default to the current year. Give it a try; it’s so fun it makes you wish you had more To-Dos to enter.
- Another change is that overdue To-Dos are now styled in red with an exclamation point in front of them. This makes it much easier to quickly scan the page and see what tasks are in need of attention.
- For Contacts, we’ve removed the requirement of needing a last name for an individual contact. Sometimes you just do not have a persons last name, which shouldn’t prevent you from getting the contact in BatchBook. Editor’s note: like if you know Madonna! Or Cher!
- We also made a change to the Contact detail page that makes it much easier to log location information. You’ll now see a blank form ready to fill out. This is just the start of a major revamp to this page we have in the works. Stay tuned…
- The Login page now has a “Remember me” checkbox which will keep you logged into BatchBook for two weeks. This is really nice for accessing BatchBook on mobile devices so that you can stay logged into the app without having to re-enter your email and password everyday.
There have also been a bunch of little UI tweaks here which should make for a better experience all around, especially in IE7.
It’s very cool to be getting such great feedback from our users, so keep sending it in.
Tags: Customer Service, usability, User Experience
I’m a big fan of Peapod.com, Stop & Shop’s online grocery store. Their website is a little unwieldy and the selection is not always great, but the nice thing about it is that once you’ve shopped there, it creates a list of items you’ve purchased in the past. Your weekly shopping can be done by simply selecting the items you need to replace from your past lists. Very convenient for a busy family.
However, my last order contained an unexpected surprise. Actually, two:
It wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened. To order from a past list, you need to enter a number in the quantity box next to the item. For the Boca sausage and the granola bars, I had entered “11″ instead of “1″, blasted right by the order total, and placed my order.
It’s not uncommon for users to make mistakes on forms or web applications. But how easy would it have been to program a “You sure about that?” prompt for what I imagine is a somewhat common mistake? When I added eleven boxes of granola, a message could have come up to say “It looks like you are ordering 11 of these items. Is that what you intended?” If I was going on a week-long camping trip or stocking my basement bunker, I could have selected yes and continued with my order. If not, I could have said “Oops!” and corrected the amount. A much better customer experience then getting an avalanche of unwanted products!
As an advocate for BatchBook users, part of my job is to ensure our software takes human error into account and helps to prevent or correct it. We don’t always get it right; sometimes something that made perfect sense to us trips up a customer, or we didn’t think of an issue that real-world testing has demonstrated. Getting this feedback from our users while we’re in beta is invaluable. I’m hopeful that it will result in a lot less granola in people’s virtual pantries.
Tags: batchbook, peapod, usability
When the Macintosh was first released, it was touted as “the computer for the rest of us.” To that point, many “personal” computers were still mishmashes of DIY kits, mutt hardware, and unusable user interfaces. The focus was not on the tasks one could complete with a personal computer. In these early days, the focus was on stretching of the boundaries to see what technologies would eventually be usable on a day-to-day basis.
Once the Mac came along, suddenly the big picture became clearer. The hardware and software worked seamlessly, meaning that technology took a back seat. The user was free to worry about completing the task at hand, not tinkering with the machine itself. The barely noticed the underlying technologies—unless, of course, that was of interest to the user.
I see some similarities between the early days of the personal computer and the early days of web application development. Web apps are still a fairly new frontier. We are just now shaking the notion that the web should be “just like print” or “just like TV”. I’m not saying that the majority of web apps out there are unusable hodgepodges. In fact, many are tremendously useful. What I specifically see as similar with the PC’s early days is the fact that there is still a heavy focus on the technology and not the task.
Today is my first day as part of the BatchBlue team. As a User Interface Designer, I was attracted to BatchBlue because they aren’t creating web applications simply to flex their technological muscle. They’re not all about using the latest whiz-bang Ajax effects to make the Web 2.0 kids go “oooh, ahhh.” They—err, we—are about creating software that simply helps small businesses get their jobs done.
If Carol, the owner of an up-and-coming flower shop, has dozens of orders to fill by Friday, the last thing on her mind is whether BatchBook’s Ajax is done with a pre-existing framework or is handmade. To her, Ajax cleans the counters at the end of the day. She doesn’t care if BatchBook plays nice with Microformats and why. She just wants a way to quickly get her vendors’ and customers’ information in one place quickly so she can get these orders filled and shipped.
In my eyes, BatchBlue is embarking on a refreshing journey. Instead of creating web apps with high profile bloggers, venture capitalists, and the Web 2.0 kids in mind, we are creating web apps with Carol in mind. We are creating web apps “for the rest of us.”
Tags: batchblue, macs, small business, usability, user interface
