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Ask HN: Review Habbit - An App to Build Your Ideal Future Self with Habits

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Ask HN: Review Habbit - An App to Build Your Ideal Future Self with Habits

#1
Site: www.habbit.me

Some Background: 2 years ago, I was a non-technical college student. At the time, I was homeschooling my younger sister when we had some difficulties with her self-discipline and productivity.

The Problem I'm Trying to Solve: We tried quite a number of productivity apps but they never really worked out in the long run. They were great at efficiently tracking, reminding, or organizing things, but they never really dealt with the psychological problem of motivation and perseverance. Then again, they probably weren't meant to since most developers aren't exactly behavior psychologists and most psychologists share their expertise by writing books, not programs.

And that's how I ended up spending an entire year researching habits, learning to code, and learning to design in photoshop in my spare time. Then it took another year to actually build the app. I managed to take care of all the designs, illustrations, writing, coding, hosting, etc.

First Experimental Solution: And what came out is Habbit, where your main objective is to build your future ideal self (or selves -- you have a future self at every age). And you do that by mastering the habits needed to create that future self, whether it's exercising for future fitness, learning for future knowledge, etc. For more details, there's a walkthrough demo you can try.

Hope you guys can try it out and let me know what works and what doesn't. Ideally, I'd like to make it a useful complement to your arsenal of productivity or self-development tools.

Re: Ask HN: Review Habbit - An App to Build Your Ideal Future Self with Habits

#2
clickable link: http://www.habbit.me

This is interesting from other productivity apps (namely calendars and to do lists) that I've seen in the past. The witticism in your name reinforces the theme with the story, and the design for 'Mr.Habbit' is also unique. Design aside (which is nice, by the way), the interface is relatively easy to use and I've set a few habits for tomorrow.

edit: Found some areas of improvement, I'll add more to it if I can think of anything.

- The site (mainly images) take some time to load, and vary between three to five seconds. Still an OK waiting time -- not the best. More importantly, it takes some waiting time for logging in and out. The clock animation also lags a bit as it turns and zooms in. I like that it goes from sketchbook / drawing to cg art.

- There isn't an easy way to go to the "future self" section of the site other than manually typing or bookmarking "habbit.me/futureself". The other way is through clicking "Enter Time" at your account's dashboard. Might it be better to start right at the future self page (especially for logged in users), rather than starting at the dashboard every time?

That's pretty much all I can think of, if there's any more I'll add to this post. With a few improvements, I think that you definitely can go far and I wish you the best of luck.

Re: Ask HN: Review Habbit - An App to Build Your Ideal Future Self with Habits

#3
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 monetization strategy for this site?

Re: Ask HN: Review Habbit - An App to Build Your Ideal Future Self with Habits

#4
Wow. Just wow is all I can say. HUGE props to anyone who can learn to code and design in just a year and put out the kind of website you did (design, illustrations, interaction etc). I was expecting to see a cliche SaaS app website, but love that you took a story approach which brought me right in.

A few thoughts:

- Very hard to see the logo. I respect and understand that you are going for a subtle look with it, but maybe a hint brighter would be nice.

- Didn't realize when I was creating my "self" that I had to click the speech bubbles from my future "self" in order to advance forward.

Other than that - awesome work.

Re: Ask HN: Review Habbit - An App to Build Your Ideal Future Self with Habits

#5
post #3

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…

Also, it seems that if you click on the Enter button on the first page under the clock more than once, it will zoom in too far.

Re: Ask HN: Review Habbit - An App to Build Your Ideal Future Self with Habits

#6
post #3

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. :)

Re: Ask HN: Review Habbit - An App to Build Your Ideal Future Self with Habits

#7

Wow. Just wow is all I can say. HUGE props to anyone who can learn to code and design in just a year and put out the kind of website you did (design, illustrations, interaction etc). I was expecting to see a cliche SaaS app website, but love that you took a story approach which brought me right in. A few thoughts: - Very hard to see the logo. I respect and understand that you are going for a subtle look with it, but…

Thanks for your feedback! And certainly - I realize that the site title is a little difficult to see. I'll try to improve that in my next design iteration. (Same goes for the second point that you mentioned.)

Re: Ask HN: Review Habbit - An App to Build Your Ideal Future Self with Habits

#8
post #5
post #3

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…

Also, it seems that if you click on the Enter button on the first page under the clock more than once, it will zoom in too far.

Oh boy, thanks for catching that!

Re: Ask HN: Review Habbit - An App to Build Your Ideal Future Self with Habits

#9
post #2

clickable link: http://www.habbit.me This is interesting from other productivity apps (namely calendars and to do lists) that I've seen in the past. The witticism in your name reinforces the theme with the story, and the design for 'Mr.Habbit' is also unique. Design aside (which is nice, by the way), the interface is relatively easy to use and I've set a few habits for tomorrow. edit: Found some areas of improvement,…

Thanks for the insight, especially on the second point about the future self. I'll fix that when I can.

Re: Ask HN: Review Habbit - An App to Build Your Ideal Future Self with Habits

#10
post #7

Wow. Just wow is all I can say. HUGE props to anyone who can learn to code and design in just a year and put out the kind of website you did (design, illustrations, interaction etc). I was expecting to see a cliche SaaS app website, but love that you took a story approach which brought me right in. A few thoughts: - Very hard to see the logo. I respect and understand that you are going for a subtle look with it, but…

Thanks for your feedback! And certainly - I realize that the site title is a little difficult to see. I'll try to improve that in my next design iteration. (Same goes for the second point that you mentioned.)

No problem. What do you do full-time?
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