Show HN: Streak.ly tracks what you do daily and I'd love feedback on the concept
It's in private alpha/beta/gamma/whatever right now (has some rough edges to clean up), but is more or less functionally complete and pretty stable.
I'm a big fan of the Seinfeld calendar, and have seen other services which do similar things but were unsatisfying to use, either from an aesthetic or functional perspective. Streak.ly is designed to be simple, good-looking, fast, fun, (and hopefully addictive). (FWIW, it's also a place to experiment with user stickiness stuff I can potentially roll back in to Forrst.)
There are also some in-progress social/game/motivational features I plan to roll out in the next few weeks that hopefully contribute to the enjoyment factor of the app.
Streak.ly uses Twitter for authentication, and I've set up a URL to let HN folks in early: http://streak.ly/auth/twitter/start?secret=showhn
I'd love any and all feedback and/or criticism you may have.
Thanks!
50 comments
[ 175 ms ] story [ 1475 ms ] threadGenerate a unique URL for me to use, or hash my email address or something like that. Reduce friction, I want to be able to use this with 1 click.
If you absolutely must, then use OpenId. It is was pretty much made for that (and it works with twitter, facebook, gmail, your mom, etc).
i believe you're genuinely trying to be helpful with your suggestions, but comments like this reminds me of the vocal 0.1% of users who exercise troublesome preferences like disabling javascript, or installing ad-blocking plugins that break half the web, (which is fine!), but then complain that their (pathological) preferences prohibit them from enjoying the experience (which is not so helpful).
feedback like, "i can't be bothered to log in to give you feedback because i don't like your login" isn't great feedback. it might even be viewed as a sign to you that you're not the intended user. yet.
Why do I need to sign up for a microblogging platform to use a completely unrelated calendar app???
Anyway, my comments about reducing friction aren't based on my own preferences, they're based on dozens of multivariate split tests I have conducted across many thousand unique visitors.
Every single time, forcing the user to sign up, login, enter their email or anything of the sort before getting to use the site SIGNIFICANTLY decreases engagement, time on site, conversions, and pretty much every other metric you should care about.
The only way that would make sense is if beta testers don't have Twitter accounts, since OAuthing with an existing account reduces friction. Twitter's been around for four years and seems fairly well established among early adopters like HN readers, so counting on a critical mass of beta testers to have Twitter accounts hardly seems a stretch, even if those users aren't very active tweeters.
i for one was very glad not to need to enter an email address, pick a login name, etc; the oauth process handled that for me. ymmv
I was also pleasantly surprised when my login information was handled automatically as well.
Eh? I wanted to try this product out, but I don't have a Twitter account. In fact, I deleted it a few months ago. Now I have to create a new account just to use a (admittedly sorely needed) Seinfeld calendar? No thanks, I'll just use Vim and a text file.
I realize Streak.ly is a free application, so I have no right to complain. What bothered me about your comment was the assumption that everyone on the Internet should have a Twitter account.
> "i'm sure kyle will get around to supporting other login methods eventually."
I bet he will. But by the time he has a simpler login set up, people would have forgotten about Streak.ly altogether. The average Internet user (read: me) is a fickle being.
honestly, i'd prefer to have my own sign-in for your service and i think many other people would, too.
comments like yours remind me of the 0.1% of lazy programmers who would rather tell users that they're pathological than spend the day it would take to implement and test a simple user registration and sign-in system for people who would prefer that over using twitter sign-in. i, personally, will not be a customer of your service because of your customer service! :-)
Because there sure as shit isn't any way I will just give some random website my google account - they get a dummy email forward, just like everybody else.
Yes - I also do the dummy email forward. I agree about not giving random sites your google account. So create a dummy google account.
You see time spent (in minutes) coding (+) and anything else done at the computer (-) taken from RescueTime, along with basic efficiency score and stuff done / to be done for my main project (game) and everything else (misc). Coloring is manual, blue = "worked well", red = "could have done better".
The file sits on the desktop and is the place where I keep my general to-do lists, so it is always open. Works well for me.
Note: censored some "misc" stuff, so don't think I normally work 4 hours a day :)
This is great. Just signed up. I am familiar with the Seinfeld calendar. (Though not because I've seen it on the show, but it was explained to me in some other geek GTD blog/system/something.)
I have an idea for a visual aid that might appear in two places on your site for folks who might not know the basic idea behind the Seinfeld calendar, and for those who do know it, but might want to an incentive on their Streakly page:
A visual of a calendar week with a streak (or 2, or 3) through it.
This would appear on the front page, and in another form, on an individual's Streakly page.
I realize you probably already something similar to this already sketched out (along with many other features). So as you were, take your time!
I respect the MVP process :D
There are indeed plans for a more visual display of your completed days. The cool thing is that it's built in such a way that gives us a ton of cool data to play with. Just a matter of displaying it well.
1. i could get the notice as a tweet (DM) instead of an email. since you're using oauth, i'm betting you're facile w/the twitter api.
2. you offered a fuller range of hours for the reminder. the first task i added to streak.ly was, "cook breakfast", but 10am was the earliest reminder i could pick in the list, which is too late for me ;)
1. is a great idea and I'll definitely consider it (it does have the advantage of probably showing up as an SMS, too)
2. yep, I had a hunch the list was too short but wanted to try it out. I wonder if there's a happy medium between an 0-23 type list and what exists now.
For the record, I do realize that results will vary according to the type of person that uses the application. I'm a serial procrastinator, so maybe it'll be worth something for your Customer Development process.
tldr; use openID, nobody is going to want to share their twitter account with the world.
First thing I noticed was that there are only 3 "reminder times", but I'm sure that would change in the future.
And being able to set different "reminder times" to different things would be cool.
Basically you decide to do or practice something every day. If you forget or otherwise fail to keep up, you mark it in red on your calendar. Goal is to try to see how long you can go without a red mark. And get things done in the process.
He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain."
The only thing I'd add, besides the request for OpenID love, is that the FAQ needs to put "we won't spam your twitter" higher up - that's what I wanted to know _immediately_ after signing in for the first time(the serious faux pas being "My streakficiency is blahblah, what's yours?").
Besides that, just one detail: the FAQ(which is great, btw) wasn't in the first-login "we're very beta" notice at the top, which would have been easier to find.
What's your edge?
Looks like you've already given some thought to iPhone support. I might also suggest adding fullscreen mode once the app is added to the home screen: http://building-iphone-apps.labs.oreilly.com/ch03.html#ch03_...
The "new thing" text input could use some CSS for smaller screens too.
Apologies if you already knew all this...