

Show HN: Chalkboard, a better way to plan/spec software projects - hajrice
http://chalkboardhq.com/

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thenotself
It's hard to review the app without bias when I immediately had to scroll to
the bottom to see if 37signals created this product. So much of the website,
sales pitch, and product sensibility has been inspired by 37signal that there
is some serious brand confusion. It makes me wonder how well you know your own
product, or how unique it is.

After registering, I see the value. 10 years ago, I used to have to plan
websites by mocking up each page, printing them out, and taping them all up
onto a giant wall with post-it notes explaining what the user can do on each
page. This was the only way that management could really visualize and
understand what changes we were making. This allows you to do that without the
wall, and the collaboration is a nice addition. It's also a great way to look
back and see how a project came to light. I often jot down these sorts of
notes when planning a web app.

I recommend you reconsider being so inspired by 37signals that it's hard to
tell your site apart from theirs. I think I'm being kind in how I'm describing
this to you. It's very confusing for any user who is familiar with 37signals
and it makes your product less trustworthy.

~~~
thenotself
One other note: it emails me about every change or addition I make to a
project. There appears to be no way to opt out of this. By creating a page
with 10 user actions, I'd get 11 different emails from you. Please add a way
to opt out, and consider instead sending a digest of all changes made daily.

~~~
hajrice
Great idea. We'll add that to our next release(should be implemented in a
matter of a couple hours). I'll disable the email notifications for now.

~~~
hajrice
Hi there. I just pushed the disabled email notifications. Sorry if Chalkboard
flooded you, it's totally our fault.

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hajrice
It’s a relatively scrappy MVP and there are a definitely going to be bugs and
kinks. The user interface definitely needs improvement. Regardless, we’re just
getting started and have gotten great amounts of feedback and now want to see
what Hacker News will think.

Chalkboard is a project my partner Abi and I started several months ago.
Chalkboard is a collaborative tool for laying out software features, user
stories, and screens in a way that is organized and communicative. Abi worked
in web consulting with remote teams and wanted a tool that let him easily
define project requirements with clients then hand the project off to
designers/developers.

Chalkboard lets you quickly define software features / user stories and then
create step-by-step user flows for them. User flows are linked up to
application screens that you specify and can upload mockups for.

A lot of people have suggested we integrate/tie into Balsamiq. We have been
talking about this since day one but have hesitated reaching out to them until
we are 100% sure that this app can become a useful product.

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carols10cents
I just crashed it. Signed up for an account with the same username as on here,
then tried to create a new project as directed and on submission of that form
I got a rails error page. The url was <http://chalkboardhq.com/projects/31>.
Please let me know if there is additional information that would be helpful...

ETA: Sorry, I didn't read the error message. It's a 404, not a 500.
Reproducible every time I try to create a project.

~~~
dabeeeenster
Me too

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mitko
Before I clicked the link the title seemed like an article which would argue
why a real chalkboard is better than computers for planning.

~~~
dhimes
Yes, the "Show HN" is essential in the title.

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bdclimber14
I checked it out, seems to be a decent MVP. I wouldn't focus on basamiq
integration yet. Seems to be too early. There's few easy tools for mapping out
agile software specs and it looks like this could be the answer. Others seem
to be too tightly tied to a certain process and this looks very flexible.

~~~
hajrice
Thanks for the positive feedback and endorsement..after working a couple
months on Chalkboad, its really nice to see people appreciating it.

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davidcann
A new structured way to plan apps sounds good, but what makes your site unique
and impressive?

My first impression is that it's a flow chart in the form of an outline. The
outline looks like something I could just as easily type into any text editor.
Why not make it a visual flow chart?

~~~
abinoda
David, that's a great question.

We actually started out by displaying user flows as flow charts... we quickly
realized that flow charts are an inefficient way to display a comprehensive
batch of sequential user actions and application flows. It IS easier to type
outlines in a text editor than mess around with flow charts.

We transferred that realization to this web app.

Our user actions are linked to application screens, which gives you a good
overview of how your user interacts with your application.

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ximeng
Created a test account and test project, and got redirected to
<http://chalkboardhq.com/projects/37> :

The page you were looking for doesn't exist.

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shawnbaden
I find the dark red text on red background (like what's used on
<http://chalkboardhq.com/pricing>) very hard to read. You might consider
changing that.

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Void_
You should make that "Create my account" button bigger, I almost missed it.

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hajrice
UPDATE: There seems to be a bug in with creating a project. I and my my
partner are working on it right now. We're very very sorry about this bug. An
update will arrive when we fix it.

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stefanobernardi
I'm a bit late to the party, but was just wondering how can you justify such a
price. Why don't you have a 1 project plan?

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josh_cutler
I'm also having issues with hitting the Rails 404 page after submitting the
Create a Project form

~~~
hajrice
Hi Josh. I'm very sorry about this bug happening. I'm working hard to fix it
asap.

~~~
josh_cutler
No worries, I'm looking forward to checking it out. Watching your videos I
immediately thought that it would be cool if I could export the flows my team
created into cucumber stories...

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jw84
1\. It would be awesome if you incorporate transitions between the single page
design elements instead of jumping back up then back down.

2\. On my 13" the screenshots are too big, then I have the chat widget
overlaying on top.

~~~
hajrice
Sorry about that! Regarding switching elements, there should be a TOP button
located at the top right of each element. We'll get this fixed as soon as the
HN burst stops, I'm very sorry, Jerry.

