

Ask HN: Review my startup, Wedoist - amix

I just launched http://wedoist.com/ and would like feedback.<p>Wedoist is a project manager that has status updates, a task manager and a comment system. It also uses game mechanics to increase productivity and usage.<p>Wedoist should be a lot more dynamic than most other applications as most of it is rendered in JavaScript and Comet is used for realtime updates. The future plan is to make the realtime aspect more central (such as adding a group chat).<p>Try it out and hopefully you can find it useful for managing your startup :)
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simplify
First off, I love the interface. It's simple, clean, and gets straight to the
point. That said:

* What's the difference between inbox and a new list? My first guess would be inbox holds all tasks assigned to me.

* Clicking the "attach label" button and then clicking "close" afterwards leaves an @ character in the description

* After clicking "Add an item", please display some ghost text like you do for status updates so I don't have to figure out what I'm typing

* In the "View all" list view, I suggest displaying only 5 or so tasks from each list

* Tasks should be sorted by due date

* Your link reads "Add an item". This should read "Add a Task" for consistency

* Changing "Completed items" to "View completed items" would be a better call to action

* Make the "no due date" an "Set due date" button instead. The fact that it's a text box makes me click on the "attach label" button in attempt to add a due date

* The label adding popup is effective only if you want to add a single label. Adding multiple labels becomes a nuisance, and the reordering of labels is confusing. You can also add a single label multiple times. Keep track of which ones are already on the task description, and have the user click a label to switch on/off.

If you're going to reorder based on usage, I suggest doing that after the user
navigates away from the Tasks page entirely; keep the workflow consistent.
Also, let the user click outside the popup to get the same effect as clicking
the "Close" link. That really bugged me.

* I'm not sure what I did, but due dates are being saved to one day before (e.g. selecting June 24 and saving results in June 23)

The badges seem really arbitrary; they don't have a sense of accomplishment to
them. If you really want to get into game mechanics, let the project manager
set the rules and rewards for badges. Allow rules based on not only quantity
of tasks, but types of tasks also (e.g. completed 5 @urgent tasks).

I can see this being really useful if you make your real time chat feature a
disguise for a web front to irc. The project owner could set the credentials,
and boom, you have real time chat with instant integration to many small
company's irc setups. You could also host an irc server yourself, and offer to
host project chat for a small fee.

Overall I really like the foundation you've built. Its simplicity will easily
let you expand your feature set. I think chat and online status will need to
be implemented before this can really take off. Adding an etherpad feature
would be killer imo. Etherpad is open source, after all.

~~~
bdickason
I voted this up solely to encourage you to keep giving great feedback and in
hopes that one day when I post my startup for review, someone will come along
and spend as much time critiquing it as you did!

I love this community.

~~~
jarsj
same here.

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fname
Click: <http://www.wedoist.com>

I like it.. Well designed and seemingly easy to use. The only thing I'd like
to see is a search feature for status updates... or am I missing it?

~~~
amix
Search, API, milestones, file uploads and a mobile version are planned. The
current form is a minimum viable product of what I think is the core of
project management.

~~~
ErrantX
Ability to assign arbritary titles to members would be cool (e.g. Mapping
Lead, Community Manager, Legal etc.)

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petervandijck
I know this sounds negative, but yet another "Easy Project Management"?

More constructively:

\- you should have a link to a pricing page up front.

\- you should have a tour (with screenshots)

Good luck!

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mbenjaminsmith
A few thoughts:

I signed up and like the ease of signup and the simplicity of the interface. I
was a bit annoyed that I couldn't find a page of features/benefits and that I
had to signup to see how it works, but your signup was painless enough that I
got over it.

I'm currently using manymoon. They have a similar feed style setup, but the
killer features for me are Google Apps/Google Docs integration. I don't know
if that's something you'd consider or how difficult it is to do, but I
personally wouldn't switch over without those features.

They also do a posterous-style email response to assigned tasks, which means
you can comment on a task without logging in. That's pretty cool.

If I were to build an app like this, I would expand on posterous-style email
task creation/control (I live out of a BB).

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robosox
Agreed with others about the interface - very slick. Great job getting it
launched. A few comments/thoughts:

\- I'm interested in the game mechanics portion. Would be interesting to have
additional badges based on whether a task is completed _on-time_ or ahead of
schedule rather than just completed at all.

\- Some kind of crossing-out animation when you mark a task as completed (like
w/Google Tasks) could make it more satisfying. Right now the item just
disappears quickly...I want to revel in my accomplishment of completing a
task!

\- In your welcome email you may want to include a confirmation mechanism to
ensure that person is indeed the owner of that email address.

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bdickason
simplify did an amazing job of critiquing the UI and what not so I'll take a
different perspective: the average end user experience of the landing page.

I understand the 'improve your productivity and collaboration' at the top but
I'd love a more specific description of the problem you solve. Personally I
see 5,000,000 tools every day that aim to 'improve productivity and
collaboration' so I'd love to see a more personal, unique subset of that issue
which you solve elegantly!

The #1 item I wanted to see after the big big big screenshot was a quick
3-column description (below it) of each tab on the UI.

Status Updates (with icon) -Description goes here

Tasks (with icon) -Description goes here

People (with icon) -Description goes here

I would love a setup like this! Perhaps even clicking could take you to an
enlarged screenshot of that specific tab.

Finally, the psychological effect of not linking directly to 'pricing' is very
very negative. I want to know what I'm getting myself into if I get 'hooked.'
Can you offer a clear 'Pricing' or 'How Much Does it Cost?' link somewhere on
the page please?

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ivenkys
Where is the "Take it For a Test Drive" , "See how it works" - Something along
those lines. With new "webapps", its important to show the features,L&F that
you bring to the table upfront without having to sign-up.

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dko
Could definitely use a pricing page, or at least a feature page. But otherwise
nice job. Oh and you probably want to rework the login error message system :)

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l4u
features like undo and search would be good the button "manage projects" is
difficult to see

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GrandMasterBirt
Completed is so final. I click the button and there is no way to undo it. On
that note, it is very unclear that the button is "completed" looks more like
an edit link.

Actually there is a way to "uncomplete it" by editing it via the comments
mechanism, but that is horribly unintuitive and actually does not work always.
Op, found a way to uncomplete that works, there is a link on the inbox header.
PLEASE stop hiding important links. I know the design is nice and simplistic
but sometimes hiding shit is bad.

Also when you edit comments for something from the status updates tab, it does
not update anything in the status updates tab list, it does only after a
refresh.

