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This really struck a chord because I've spent the last couple years working on a productivity app and it took me a few iterations to get people coming back. It

by willlma 11y ago

This really struck a chord because I've spent the last couple years working on a productivity app and it took me a few iterations to get people coming back. It uses spaced repetition to help users remember what they read on the web. I feel like I've removed a lot of the friction of apps that did this before (Anki, Supermemo) by making it really easy to add information to it. It would be possible to replicate it with a simple word processing tool, some copy-pasting, some typing, calculating review intervals, and adding reminders to a calendar to review a specific portion of a document. By eliminating that friction, I've appealed to a small but growing crowd of people, like us, who are too lazy for the pen and ledger approach, but are willing to put in some work (in this case, to reread a few lines of text each time they get a notification). The "productivity" designation is an inadequate one. There a few obvious productivity apps that translate well from processes that people are used to in the real world, like note-taking apps, that don't require much education for the user to understand. It's a notebook. Cool, got it. Onboarding is such an important facet of this discussion, and you do mention it below: > I'll need to spend just as much time making the interface discoverable Unfortunately, developers do get so close to their product that they forget that users often don't know where to start, so I think that having to build an onboarding process is something to be expected. Education is the only way to make one UI for many people. I think the questions that need to be asked are: 1. How long is it going to take to make my users proficient at my app? 2. Can I make it fun for them? I don't think the moral of the story is "Don't make productivity apps", I think it's "Don't make an app that's hard to explain to its users" Unless they have an external pressure like: - In the case of B2B, complying to company policy (Slack) - In the case of B2C, it's social and everyone is already on it (Facebook)

vinceguidry 11y ago
> This really struck a chord because I've spent the last couple years working on a productivity app and it took me a few iterations to get people coming back. It uses spaced repetition to help users remember what they read on the web. I wouldn't exactly classify this kind of app as a productivity app by my thinking. I would call it a utility app. I'll try to articulate my rationale. A productivity app, in order for it to be useful, has to take something people normally do as a routine task in their lives, like make purchases, somehow better / faster / more queryable / whatever. It aims to make everyday life better. A utility app aims to take something people have already chosen to make a real effort to do, like learn a language, and amplifies their efforts. Once you've chosen to undertake whatever task underlying the app, 90% of the onboarding is already done. Now it's a question of choosing which method or app to help out. Utility apps really do compete with other apps in their space. This is what separates enterprise expense tracking with what I'm building. Enterprises already have the legal and financial need to be aware of what they're spending, enough so they can hire people and pay them money to make it their quest in life. Most people, well, don't. They have this amorphous understanding of what's in their bank account and how much they have to spend and what their bills are, seeing this all down in black and white is likely only going to depress them. Even if their corporate job is accounting and they already have the skill to manage accounts, that won't necessarily translate into the need or desire to do it in their home life. A productivity app, as I've defined them, is categorically interested in changing a person's lifestyle. It's the whole point of the app, without lifestyle change there's nothing. I fully intend the to-do manager I'm building into my personal app to fully overtake how I conduct my work day, my after work time, and weekend time. That's the whole reason I'm building it, the vision in my head of how awesome that would be is so compelling, that it's worth spending 10000x the time I would spend earning the money to buy someone else's app, on building my own. It is for me, by me, can only work for me, because only I had the thoughts and lifestyle that makes building it worth it. I believe that this kind of integration is the desired end point of all productivity apps, if it doesn't accomplish this, then it's really a waste of time, bound to eventually end up in the dustbin. I read GTD awhile back and thought it was amazing. But there's a real reason he never really endorsed any software tools or made a software tool a primary component of his system. My to-do component is heavily GTD-influenced, but it is designed to work with other, physical aspects of my life.

by willlma 11y ago

vinceguidry 11y ago

> This really struck a chord because I've spent the last couple years working on a productivity app and it took me a few iterations to get people coming back. It uses spaced repetition to help users remember what they read on the web. I wouldn't exactly classify this kind of app as a productivity app by my thinking. I would call it a utility app. I'll try to articulate my rationale. A productivity app, in order for it to be useful, has to take something people normally do as a routine task in their lives, like make purchases, somehow better / faster / more queryable / whatever. It aims to make everyday life better. A utility app aims to take something people have already chosen to make a real effort to do, like learn a language, and amplifies their efforts. Once you've chosen to undertake whatever task underlying the app, 90% of the onboarding is already done. Now it's a question of choosing which method or app to help out. Utility apps really do compete with other apps in their space. This is what separates enterprise expense tracking with what I'm building. Enterprises already have the legal and financial need to be aware of what they're spending, enough so they can hire people and pay them money to make it their quest in life. Most people, well, don't. They have this amorphous understanding of what's in their bank account and how much they have to spend and what their bills are, seeing this all down in black and white is likely only going to depress them. Even if their corporate job is accounting and they already have the skill to manage accounts, that won't necessarily translate into the need or desire to do it in their home life. A productivity app, as I've defined them, is categorically interested in changing a person's lifestyle. It's the whole point of the app, without lifestyle change there's nothing. I fully intend the to-do manager I'm building into my personal app to fully overtake how I conduct my work day, my after work time, and weekend time. That's the whole reason I'm building it, the vision in my head of how awesome that would be is so compelling, that it's worth spending 10000x the time I would spend earning the money to buy someone else's app, on building my own. It is for me, by me, can only work for me, because only I had the thoughts and lifestyle that makes building it worth it. I believe that this kind of integration is the desired end point of all productivity apps, if it doesn't accomplish this, then it's really a waste of time, bound to eventually end up in the dustbin. I read GTD awhile back and thought it was amazing. But there's a real reason he never really endorsed any software tools or made a software tool a primary component of his system. My to-do component is heavily GTD-influenced, but it is designed to work with other, physical aspects of my life.