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Review My App: Zen

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11–20 of 39 posts

Re: Review My App: Zen

#11
post #4

Using the phrase "crush the competition" seems to go against the rest of your site - calling the product "Zen," the bonsai tree, and the logo. At the least, it's a jarring contrast that distracts me from your product.

Pretty sure the contrast is on purpose, for humorous effect. It's just not very funny.

Re: Review My App: Zen

#12

What is Kanban? Was that the original name? I ask because it's on all of your page titles.

Kanban just means "visual card" or "sign", but it's a name for a technique used in lean software practices. (Specifically, the board display in Zen is called a "kanban board".) It comes from the JIT inventory system of the Toyota Production System.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_software_development

Re: Review My App: Zen

#13
post #4

Using the phrase "crush the competition" seems to go against the rest of your site - calling the product "Zen," the bonsai tree, and the logo. At the least, it's a jarring contrast that distracts me from your product.

Pretty sure the contrast is on purpose, for humorous effect. It's just not very funny.

Actually I never thought of it that way. :)

Re: Review My App: Zen

#14
post #9

You should combine your JavaScript. Also, the querystring timestamps break caching in some proxies. It's a bit of a pain, but it's best to integrate the timestamp into the filename.

Yeah, there are definitely opportunities for performance tweaks. I left it as-is until I can integrate it into our build process.

Re: Review My App: Zen

#15
The UI is really clean, and the workflow seems pretty straighforward. Great job!

The "Add Story" sidebar doesn't render properly for me when hints are enabled (FF 3.5, Windows 7). The submit button is hidden behind the hint bar -- maybe the sidebar could be shorter so it's not covered by the hint.

Re: Review My App: Zen

#16
post #15

The UI is really clean, and the workflow seems pretty straighforward. Great job! The "Add Story" sidebar doesn't render properly for me when hints are enabled (FF 3.5, Windows 7). The submit button is hidden behind the hint bar -- maybe the sidebar could be shorter so it's not covered by the hint.

Thanks... and yeah, several others have said that as well. The hint panel was meant to be an overlay, but it does tend to get in the way. I'll have to tweak it. :)

Re: Review My App: Zen

#17
On the landing page the headers don't actually say much – the real lines are underneath, which I didn't read while skimming. Instead of:

"Enhances visibility and communication" -> "Make it easy to understand the status of your project at a glance"

"Simple and flexible" doesn't really have any meat in it. See Kawasaki's opposite rule – your competition doesn't describe their product as "Complicated and rigid."

"Easy to get started" -> "Get started in seconds"

Specific claims add a lot more punch and right now they're ousted from prominent positioning by phrases that don't say much.

Re: Review My App: Zen

#18
post #4

Using the phrase "crush the competition" seems to go against the rest of your site - calling the product "Zen," the bonsai tree, and the logo. At the least, it's a jarring contrast that distracts me from your product.

Agreed; I would definitely get rid of that part. Zen isn't so much about crushing others. I feel like it should be a requirement to study a philosophy before using it to promote a product.

Edit: Signed up; looked around; certainly appears to be a solid product. I kinda like the story-board style stuff. Good luck! :)

Re: Review My App: Zen

#19

Some full size screenshots would be good to have on the Tour page rather than the current lengthy text descriptions. After skimming through the whole tour, I still don't have a sense of whether or not your app is better than Basecamp.

Of course it's better! :D Kidding. Yeah, actually, we launched the marketing site almost a month ago to build buzz before the launch, and since parts of the application weren't finished, the screenshots are outdated. I need to take the shots again and sprinkle them around the site.

Re: Review My App: Zen

#20
post #17

On the landing page the headers don't actually say much – the real lines are underneath, which I didn't read while skimming. Instead of: "Enhances visibility and communication" -> "Make it easy to understand the status of your project at a glance" "Simple and flexible" doesn't really have any meat in it. See Kawasaki's opposite rule – your competition doesn't describe their product as "Complicated and rigid." "Easy t…

All very good points. I'll take another look at our features page to see if we can improve.
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