This tool is a 3-hour hack that I did to solve my problem of concentration. It will be helpful for some one who has a similar problem.
Features:
- Simple, Clean & Minimal: No login, No permission, No big background images.
- Psychological move to concentrate: I tried using a lot of to-do apps, but It was hard for me to remember even the name and not a big fan of using mobile, I use only a laptop. Even on the laptop, I spent most of the day on the browser and design tools. So I thought of Hijacking my new tab with a to-do list. And when ever I open a new tab the todo list will come and it always reminds me about the tasks to do.
- Activity colouring: parse and colour a standard set of activities like mail, reply, call, draft, discuss, and 12 more. With the colouring, you can identify the activities quickly from the list.
I found some point to share with you about the website.
- add home link to the navbar
- Bring the get started button to top now its below fold.
- change the text of the button 'get started' to download.
- i think its better to collect user email id through the app rather than asking him. if you avoid this step, the number of download will be more.
- There is a slight possibility of user, he/she may drop of if you ask email id. Because there is no mention of why you collecting the email id. Especially professionals are very concerned about sharing the email id.
- Outlook 2007/2010/2013/2016 & Office 365 (Not compatible with Mac)(Exchange and POP accounts only) should need more font size. because the app is more windows focused
- you can give more focus to your features. try arranging the content in a good flow eg:- navbar, header, description, download button, video, features - (2 per row, increase font size to 16px line height 1.4), testimonial, download button,footer.
- the more link of the first feature is broken
- in the feature explanation page the video seems like a bit aside of the main content. put the video under right content better keep a flow to keep the page scanning easy. give more font weight to important terms/features like remove, mute, etc.
- all the buy now button are point to same item in the checkout cart. if click >20 users it showing $29.95, 5-20 showing same $29.95 and single user again same.
- give more importance to this line on pricing page - Subscription includes access to the latest versions of MailSortr which will ensure compatibility with newer versions of Outlook in addition to new features added to MailSortr.
I try to make some posters, graphic collections, etc during my free time and I like to sharing and hear what everybody like to say about it. These are my projects – http://behance.net/jaisonjustus. I thought of asking before posting. because here I don't see such posts. it's very rare.
Thank you for suggesting the book. It's a very nice book I really liked it. Written in simple language, very interesting to read and know the facts too. Thanks again. If you know more good books like this suggest me. Cheers mate!!
Peace
Yes you are right. Long back I asked a lot of people why they use Mac rather than other machines and Most the people said they became productive and more better because of certain features that Mac provides like smoother touchpad and the operating system is more optimised with respect to the hardware,so that the system through put is higher than average when you compare with any product. also Mac won't get old with in couple of years. I know lot of older plastic MacBook still runs and people still trusting the device for their daily use. I am developer converted to designer. And Mac help me in the transition buy providing good and affordable tools and as everyone started I used windows in my begin then switch to Linux and after that to Mac and never went back. I not saying I became a fan boy, but I trusting this product a lot.
-I think it is better to advance in the technologies that you know like HTML/CSS and PHP. Advance what I mean is learning about things like
- First of all don't worry about the new technologies coming out every day. Rather than that give more focus to architecture. learn more about Design patterns, its benefits, its implementation, Code structuring, Optimization, Scalability etc.
- If you don't know MVC architecture (the most popular architecture) then learn a PHP framework like Laravel or Yii. The framework also teaches you common methodologies like Object-oriented programming, Object-relational mapping, Templating, etc.
- Once you learned any framework, and, of course, like everyone you try to build an application. Go for it. But at this type when you deal with HTML try to improve it slowly. Like learning more about tags and setting up the layout. Updating to HTML5 won't be that difficult. It's all matter in practice and you can practice it while building the application. But don't think about CSS until you finish the app.
- After Building the app then think about CSS. now you spend time learning CSS. Because most of the people think it's a matter of learning the properties and use it. To some extent it's true, but when you deal with real scenarios it's not. A simple CSS issue can bring down the business for an hour. It's very critical. So give a bit time in learning CSS and CSS3. When you learning, understand more about Organizing, Layouts & Web Typography. The terms sound pretty big. But it's very easy to make it as a practice.
- Once you understand CSS, add that knowledge to the app you are building. But before that, I suggest you make a pencil and paper sketch of the page and components. You can search for grid paper (with browser template) download and print it. And use that for drawing, because it helps to calculate the pixel values. and it helps you writing CSS. The sketch acts as a blueprint for the CSS. and Its fun doing. you feel like an engineer.. :)
- After all, if you are still thirsty then learn jquery. after that, Javascript design patterns and then after any frameworks like ReactJS or AngularJs or etc.
- Learning a PHP frameworks help you a lot in learning HTML, CSS, and basic javascript uisng jquery. so its worth trying.
* This is my modified based on my real experience. Long ago I started from system maintenance to a Geographical information system engineer to a backend developer to a frontend developer and now to a designer. and I also travel through the same path you travelled PHP, HTML and CSS. and little bit python. This is just a vague suggestion. feel free to ask more. All the best
I like your page, good minimalism. Also, I like the why you handled branding. I got a good feel of the talent behind the scene. But there are couple of things you need to take care. Some are critical too.
The main thing as everyone spotted you required a good short description. It's better to put a short description just below the message about the problem that you are trying to solve. for example, if you take basecamp landing page, they give more focus to the heading - “Work together the easy way”. Just after that, they had a short description about the problem they solve - “Basecamp’s unique blend of tools is everything any team needs to stay on the same page about whatever they’re working on. There’s nothing else like it!”. From this, I got a gist of what basecamp do.
Once you add the short description, bring the early access button to upfront. Then it makes sense. It will be like in an order message, short description and call to action. check this http://i.imgur.com/vUxKt5B.png I made small modification on your web page.
Another thing I like to say is about the timeline. For me, When I saw it in first glance, I felt it as a screenshot of actual product. But I later got confused. it seems more like a design that you added for aesthetic because inside the timeline slice there is no text saying like for example “Release 1.0.5” instead a green rectangle. If it's an actual screenshot make it a bit more intuitive. It's just a suggestion.
If possible, try to add a bit more drilled down information on page scrolling. Because sometimes people require a bit more details. for example, you can refer basecamp website. On the website as you scroll more details information starts coming and make more sense to the app. Even you are in early access stage but still you require some more supporting descriptions. Which helps you to get more clicks from your target audience.
Also, I suggest putting your address/country. Becuase I like to know where are you from? :). Nice to see a lot of energy. All the best to your team.
Our main metrics for hiring are be based on Skill, Knowledge, Quality, Ownership and Collaboration. Which is similar to @ruraltechnocrat. But I will explain how our process is and at what point we measure qualities.
1. Skill: we review his works in Github, Behance etc. If he made an application and release we will go through it also.
2. Knowledge: through interview
3. Quality: We will give him a one-week test task to make a small application using some web services like Flickr, Instagram etc.
4. Ownership & Collaboration: After reviewing the test task we will invite him to the office and work with the team on the real project. may be peer program with a developer.
This is a very long process but we got a better result from out old fashion of hiring. But Still @dsacco quote is very true, there is no universal sign for a good candidate.
Most of the candidates are like the yin-yang. but I had seen and inspired a lot of good managers who maintained the equilibrium in the team. This is something out of the scope of the question but shared the thought.
We're currently building a desktop based time tracking application for ourselves, later we will release to everyone. Our main goal is to bring us back on track on our personal projects. Also billing solution for our consulting work.
I'm really interested in this! I've basically strung together some text files but occasionally lose a couple of hours tinkering to see if there's a better way. What backend are you going for? If it's Linux-compatible I'd love to beta test for you when you're ready.
Nice to hear that you are interested in out application. We are making it compatible for all platforms. Application base is Electron/NodeJS and views using ReactJS. Sure we will send you the application once the beta is ready. Thanks. Peace
Out of curiosity, have you seen Toggl? We use it at work for time tracking and find it mostly quite good. Would be curious to know what's different about your use case.
I had seen Toggl, But not yet used. What's new in my app? that's a good question. Time tracking is one of the main features in the app. but the main focus of the app is to help and keep track of personal projects. Normally in our case, (me & my friends) we have a lot of personal projects. Some are finished, some in prototyping state, some in debt. Now the main problem we are facing is to track and measure the effort that we put in our personal projects. Also, we need to bring back the project to track if it slips away. We observed the reason why your personal projects slip away and we found some reasons. First thing is the issue regarding the management and you are not aware of the effort that you put for the project like the time you took to think, design, structure, code etc. So we thought of an assistance/motivator who take can take care of managing the projects and provide you with vital information which proves that you are progressing. This is purely an experimental project, but we are trying our best to bring good solutions.
This you can still achieve in other apps like toggl or freckle. But they lack the management and we are focusing on the managing part. Once the beta is ready i will send it to you. Happy to get your feedbacks.
Features:
- Simple, Clean & Minimal: No login, No permission, No big background images.
- Psychological move to concentrate: I tried using a lot of to-do apps, but It was hard for me to remember even the name and not a big fan of using mobile, I use only a laptop. Even on the laptop, I spent most of the day on the browser and design tools. So I thought of Hijacking my new tab with a to-do list. And when ever I open a new tab the todo list will come and it always reminds me about the tasks to do.
- Activity colouring: parse and colour a standard set of activities like mail, reply, call, draft, discuss, and 12 more. With the colouring, you can identify the activities quickly from the list.