Introduction
The development of my Invoice Maker application continues. In the last article I wrote, some people gave me some great feedbacks, and I decided to act on them. The result was that this iteration of the product feels like the application is not moving much.
However, because I jumped in the creation of the application without thinking too much beforehand, it seems only natural that there is now a moment of reflection, pausing and ultimately, going back on a few things.
Changing the UI completely
One of the feedbacks I receive mentioned this application. After playing around with it, it was really clear that the UI felt a lot more fluid, easier and clearer. So, I decided to just steal how the interface was implemented in this application for mine :D
The number of clicks is greatly reduced. The template is immediately accessible to the user instead of being on another page. I'm quite happy with the results and the new found fluidity and clarity.
Feedbacks possibility
Another commenter asked me if I considered having a way to receive feedbacks from users. I didn't, and I should have! So, I've added two ways to get feedbacks from users:
A chat plugin using Facebook's messenger ( with the react-messenger-customer-chat package )
A form in the About page. Using nodemailer, users can now send an email with their name, email and their feedback.
Rolling back on some things
Because of the UI changes, the Account functionality I had added didn't really feel useful ( ability to save your organisation's infos ), or needs to be re-thought.
All in all, I think that going back and re-thinking certain things is only natural considering how I launched my application. I didn't do much planning, and started coding right away to have something in production quickly. That pace comes at a price, and now, I'm starting to roll back on certain functionalities I had to create something better. I don't see this as a setback, or a failure, or something bad. It just had to happen.
I'm not quite sure where I want to go from here. This is probably the right moment to take some time and think about it :D
Happy coding <3
Top comments (4)
Hey Damien, I saw your post this morning and wanted enough time to write a proper comment.
First of all, the mentioned app has its own problems, so I wouldn't use it as a reference. Instead I would focus on your own app. I have few points that I think are interesting for you to review and not all of them are related to software:
Those are not only a bunch of buzzy words. That statement defined why people should buy in amazon instead other places. And take this into consideration, it's not about looking for something fancy to say, your brand promise must be real.
So again, why should I use your invoice maker and why it's different from other similar apps? How can I benefit as a user with your app?
Answering those questions will help define features in your product. A pretty UI will not make you succeed, thinking in your users and solving pain points will.
I think with this you have enough work in front of you so I'll leave you to it!
And a side note, your app takes a big amount of time to load, check that!
This should be paid advice, much better than mine.
It would be nice to tip Florian right here & now for this stellar help. Like Brave on Twitter. 👍
@jess @peter then you don't need an ad supported model, you can hodl on the through transfer with the interest earning ledger balance with less CC support, backend mgt, usable for merch purch & bringing in new ppl (if I devtocoin tip you elsewhere it will end back here on fanny pack towels). Nice & anon, chill & tomorrow with a press-getter built in. 🤯 Put it early in the onboard, it's easy too. Opsec risk, dev effort low, existing coin (optional rebrand).
Florian will be rich (if not already), you will be richer, devto will be selfgov, Damien will get amazing answers from a large pool of coin hunters (paid expert advice is best advice, always). Even investors will benefit & can trade/hodl outside. Aligned incentives all round.
There is a post around here about that somewhere. 👀
Thank you for the feedback :) Will definitely think about those things in priority!
Your invoice maker is looking good Damien & the write up is interesting. 👍
My main suggestion would be increase performance. Devs have less patience than the average user.
Good luck.