21–30 of 39 posts
Wow, this is really clever! At first I was thinking, "what is this? Why is there a story?" ...but if you stick with it it's very, very good. You're a very gifted illustrator and storyteller. I actually thought you borrowed the illustrations from a storybook. If things don't work out with the app you may have a future as a children's author. In fact, maybe you could publish a book version of this as a companion to the…
I dont suppose you have data on the age distribution of people using the site? My 13 year old self might have sniggered at the storybook style but the way you've dealt with the psychology of motivation and habits seems suitable for all ages.
Wow, this is really clever! At first I was thinking, "what is this? Why is there a story?" ...but if you stick with it it's very, very good. You're a very gifted illustrator and storyteller. I actually thought you borrowed the illustrations from a storybook. If things don't work out with the app you may have a future as a children's author. In fact, maybe you could publish a book version of this as a companion to the…
If all else fails though, I'm glad that I might have a career as a children's author! But really, thanks for your kind words about the illustrations and story-telling. They mean a lot to those countless drafts of redesigns and rewrites.
I especially like your idea of publishing a book version as a companion to the web. If the app grows big enough, I may very well do that!
Wow this is beautiful. The opening captured my attention well and it guided me through everything so that I knew exactly what was going on. I love the little story at the beginning. The site engages me emotionally which is something that a generic goal tracking site wouldn't do. I'm going to give the site a go around to start some habits I've been wanting to start and see if it helps. As an aside, do you have a monet…
I'll add my "wow" to the list. Based on the responses, you definitely hit the right chord. AND it's a problem worth solving.
Wow this is beautiful. The opening captured my attention well and it guided me through everything so that I knew exactly what was going on. I love the little story at the beginning. The site engages me emotionally which is something that a generic goal tracking site wouldn't do. I'm going to give the site a go around to start some habits I've been wanting to start and see if it helps. As an aside, do you have a monet…
Thank you for the kind words, I really appreciate you taking the time to review! As for my business model, you pay what you feel it's worth. At the end of every month, you can review your progress and set your price. While that might not be a contemporary method, I feel that each individual will probably derive different levels of value from Habbit. :)
I can't find the best one I saw (which I believe said to set a default price), but I found these others:
http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/07/20/how-to-maximize-pay-w...
this one is long, but has a section on "pay what you wish" midway through.
http://conversionxl.com/pricing-experiments-you-might-not-kn...
(1) I mean something like saying: "you accomplished X goal this month !!!". Probably someone else has more specific advice :) , I've never tried pay-as-you wish myself, but seen lots of previous advice here!
You say "where your main objective is to build your future ideal self (or selves -- you have a future self at every age)" in the OP. How can you have more than 1 future self?
Wow, honestly.. wow. My initial impressions are that this is fantastic and I am already planning on sticking with it! You say "where your main objective is to build your future ideal self (or selves -- you have a future self at every age)" in the OP. How can you have more than 1 future self?
As for future selves, I'm making the assumption that what you want to be at 30 is different from what you want to be at 60. So even if they're both in the future, they're in different stages of your future.
And in the short-term, I'm assuming that some might focus on improving a different aspect of themselves each year, like focusing on exercise and fitness for one year and master those habits, then move on the next year to focus on finance and career, and so on. From that perspective, you'll have slightly different selves and goals in each year.
Those are just my assumptions for now though. I'll probably observe and improve the use of future selves over time based on actual usage.
Since I'm following in your footsteps and about to start the 'build' phase, I'm curious about the tools you used: which host, stack, framework etc, and why did you choose them? Did you learn everything from scratch?
Congrats on the launch btw, it's quite a feat:)
This is so cool! There are a few issues (clock hands load before the face does; no detailed 'about' section) but it's pretty impressive as it is. Since I'm following in your footsteps and about to start the 'build' phase, I'm curious about the tools you used: which host, stack, framework etc, and why did you choose them? Did you learn everything from scratch? Congrats on the launch btw, it's quite a feat:)
As for the tools I used, it's currently hosted on Heroku and I built the app on the Meteor framework and MongoDB database. I chose them to let me focus primarily on the core app and design. That way, while I still had to know enough to use them, I didn't need to spend another couple months learning the deep ends of all the technology.
In so far as learning from scratch, I actually already had a basic foundation in the areas I needed to learn. In design, I grew up as an avid artist who enjoyed drawing, crafting, and doing some crappy graphic designs...at one point, I was even seriously considering becoming an architect. So picking up photoshop and building my graphic design skills weren't too bad for me.
In programming, I took an AP computer science course in high school and loved it. I unfortunately didn't continue programming afterward, so my ninja java skills are pretty non-existent by now. Nevertheless, it probably helped me see programming as something I could learn instead of this complete black box of mystery that truly non-technical people would see.
So I feel it would be unfair toward others who had none of these backgrounds to say that I truly learned everything from scratch. Beyond these basic skills though, yes, I had to start from all the itty-bitty basics of web development, such as the different languages available, figuring out what the heck is a library/plug-in/framework/jquery, using the console, how to deploy, and so many other first-time experiences that I can't list them all. I'm happy to say that these are second-nature to me by now though, so if I had to do it all again, I think I could probably build Habbit in half the time.