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Show HN: Launched my side project: DecideOnADate

5 points by mdoerneman ↗ HN
http://decideonadate.com

I know the market is saturated with event planning applications but I was finally able to get one of my side projects launched to completion so I wanted to show it off.

The goal of DecideOnADate is to be a dead-simple way for a group of friends to decide on a date for any event.

Let me know what you think!

9 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 34.7 ms ] thread
frankdenbow
Looks good, although it would be helpful to know more about how this works before pushing us to create an account. Good luck!
mdoerneman
You're right! Previously users could create an event without creating an account, but I was worried that people would abuse the system. Therefore I added mandatory accounts and email verification. Thanks for the feedback.
billycao
I might subscribe to the oft-repeated mantra to not fix what isn't broken, especially considering that users cannot view other users' calendars, so mediocrity or spam is not of a major concern to you.

That said, awesome app. It's certainly a problem I'm sure many are constantly faced with. (I know I am) My first impressions though include a lack of detailed info (how does it work?) compounded by the inconvenience of making an account for the site. (I still haven't registered)

Edit: As for a small change you can do right away, I feel like users would consider "John Doe" <jdoe@example.com> more intuitive than "Invite Name" <Invite Email>. (Consider making the name optional altogether or just having a more intuitive input method, like multiple <input> prompts)

neuromancer2600
Looks pretty. Would you mind explaining how this is different from existing apps (e.g. doodle.com)? And I agree with frankdenbow on the email issue. Maybe a screencast or some more elaborating would help (by the way: doodle.com doesn't require an email address).
mdoerneman
Without knowing too much about these other sites, what sets DecideOnADate apart is that we focus on driving a group towards a date that works for as many as possible and doing so with the least amount of effort as possible on part of the organizer. Our goal is for the organizer to create the event, and then not have to do a thing. We will notify them when a date is decided on.
bigohms
Hope this helps....

Overall interesting start, you did execute on an implementation which deserves kudos for that. I like the simplicity but the UI does leave much to be desired. Needs a little polish to take it away from the standard output from Rails (aka looks too Railsy, if such terminology usage exists). I'd try picking one market segment initially to design towards (one underserved by the current event app market) and go more in that direction to establish a beachhead.

Homepage, consider an easier to read font. The background color of the center content area doesn't match the white background. Make the facebook like way more prominent! Make the support/feedback also more prominent! Perhaps don't show the app quite yet, but illustrate the steps to convey the message more clearly than a block of text.

Consider teasing functionality and increasing investment of users time by creating the first panel of the event before getting hit with the reg page.

Consider making the reg a modal window.

At login/reg screens, until mass audience is registered, make it smaller component to the right.

The password match can be ajaxed without the page reload needing to take effect.

Consider date entry as a calendar control

Consider adding end date to the date options. Duration won't be needed if end date is there. I would actually use this tool for proposing dates for our annual weekend trips. But no end date makes that very difficult.

Invite entry screen is too cumbersome for the lazy (like me) to use. Consider integration with Gmail or Fb.

A word on the logo is to take it out of that box, leave it on the background and make the stroke around the words thicker and white. Try to soften the entire interface up so that less harsh box structures exist. There is great opportunities to do something fun and interesting with the center -- so try it out.

mdoerneman
Thank you very much for the helpful feedback!