

Show HN: An easier way to manage beta tests & get insightful feedback  - awo
http://www.userdiary.com/

======
awo
Hi there. UserDiary was conceived about a month ago at the Box.com hackathon.
We won the Parse API prize. That was the initial encouragement to keep pushing
forward.

Our mission at UserDiary is to break down barriers between product people and
their users. Our goal is to make the process of qualitative user studies
painless for the researcher and the participants, so that feedback can be
shared freely and data is organized to yeild the clearest insights. The end
result, we hope, are better designed products and happier users.

Right now we're in closed alpha with a very raw MVP. But I'd love to hear your
thoughts and feedback. Thanks HN community!

~~~
awo
If you are getting 404 issues with the Launchrock sign up, just email us at
greentealabs@gmail.com. We'll manually add you to the beta list. Thanks!

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woah
Nicely done, I have no idea what it has to do with user tests though. Could
one not simply get the exact same functionality by having user send emails,
and then viewing them _in your inbox_? Don't get it.

~~~
tucson
"Communicate with users from an integrated dashboard Free your inbox. Forget
BCC & mail merge." The other two benefits are not so clear to me... "No messy
onboarding required." what does that mean?

~~~
awo
"No messy onboarding required" - it means that your testers don't have to
signup or login to send feedback. Their interface is purely email. You pose
questions from our dashboard, they get sent an email secretly on the backend.
When they reply to that email, it comes back into their feed (which is the
third benefit).

Think of it as if you wanted each user to use Posterous to send feedback,
except their blog is already private, and they just reply to an email prompt
from you to post to it.

Does that make more sense and seem valuable? How might you rephrase the last 2
benefits to make it more clear?

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pestaa
I actually watched the demo video without sound and saw an email client-like
experience with a bunch of pictures of the same dog.

It didn't look bad, but wasn't particularly relevant to feedback management
either.

~~~
awo
Thanks for the feedback. Seems like we're missing the mark a bit with our
story telling. Maybe the audio might have helped. The demo showed a study
where the reseracher wanted understand the user behavior of rescue dog owners,
maybe to launch a community website for these owners.

The target right now is for people who want to collect a lot of qualitative
feedback over time from a select user group. Use cases include beta tests or a
screened users from a particular segment (new users, freelancers vs.
enterprise, etc.). The goal is to understand user behavior so you can solve
real pain points or tweak your value prop to reach them better. One powerful
reserach technique is user diary studies (which is where we got our namesake).

We think that user diary studies can be pretty powerful, but they take a lot
of time and effort to run. All methods out there are a trade off between ease
of use or high maintenance. We want there to be free communication (more
qualitative data) yet preserve organization (each user gets their own feed).
That way, over time, you get a rich story about Jane, the freelance designer
in the midwest, versus John, the cupcake shop owner in Manhattan. Then you can
really understand what's driving user behavior for each, and you can take
those insights and focus your product accordingly.

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huhtenberg
Got the following when trying to sign-up:

    
    
      405 Method Not Allowed
      The method POST is not allowed for this resource. 
    

Typed in an email and clicked Go.

~~~
awo
Hrm, just tested it on Chrome on my Mac and it worked. We're using Launchrock
to collect signups. Maybe they were down temporarily? Try again or email us
directly at greentealabs@gmail.com. Thanks for your interest!

~~~
huhtenberg
Tried again just now - same problem. Looks like some sort of a persistent
issue with Launchrock, I mustn't be the only one hitting it.

~~~
awo
Hrm, that is weird, we got a lot of other sign ups on Launchrock. Pls email us
at greentealabs@gmail.com. Can you give some details on your browser too. I'll
report to Launchrock. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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xingdongjin
I want to find out more about your service.

~~~
awo
Great! Sign up on our landing page or use the contact us link at the bottom.

