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Having built an app that was used for a one time event by a group of people that weren't necessarily tech savvy, I do empathize with the situation. However, If

Having built an app that was used for a one time event by a group of people that weren't necessarily tech savvy, I do empathize with the situation. However, If I had $63,000 to build a solution (a price mentioned in a wsj article), I think there are better ways to do this without an app. The problem with relying on an app for a one-time, time-sensitive event is that you'll ultimately run into people that don't know how to download the app, have a phone that can't run the app, don't remember how to authenticate, or are simply confused as to how to use it. No matter how many emails you send out before hand reminding people to install the app and how to use it, some amount of people simply ignore it.

cableshaft 7y ago
This was a hard lesson my wife and I learned on our wedding night. For pictures, instead of a Polaroid style camera (which I had bought originally for the purpose but we decided against it later) we thought it would be great if people could use their own phones to take their own reception pictures and then print them off a Bluetooth photo printer we brought, and then put those pictures into a photo guestbook. Instead, no one could get the app downloaded or working (well almost no one) the night of, and one person in the wedding party had to act as a technology liaison and get pictures from other people, then print them from his phone. We ended up with around 14 pictures in the photo guestbook. If we had just gone with the polaroid camera we probably would have had 3 or 4 times that many pictures. All because we assumed the technology would work as easily as we were able to get it working at home, for everyone else.
cm2187 7y ago
A simple website that doesn't need to be pretty. Raw html, no css, no javascript.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  You also need authentication and security. HN has a definite anti-JS fanaticism that strikes me as unhelpful.
  - cm2187 7y ago
    If you think javascript is of any use to authentication and security... In this case stripping out css and javascript is to make the website functional in low bandwidth conditions.
    - rtkwe 7y ago
      If we're optimizing for low bandwidth the app they went with is even better (with captains actually preloading) because all you have to pass is the auth and results information no html at all...

cableshaft 7y ago

This was a hard lesson my wife and I learned on our wedding night. For pictures, instead of a Polaroid style camera (which I had bought originally for the purpose but we decided against it later) we thought it would be great if people could use their own phones to take their own reception pictures and then print them off a Bluetooth photo printer we brought, and then put those pictures into a photo guestbook. Instead, no one could get the app downloaded or working (well almost no one) the night of, and one person in the wedding party had to act as a technology liaison and get pictures from other people, then print them from his phone. We ended up with around 14 pictures in the photo guestbook. If we had just gone with the polaroid camera we probably would have had 3 or 4 times that many pictures. All because we assumed the technology would work as easily as we were able to get it working at home, for everyone else.

cm2187 7y ago

A simple website that doesn't need to be pretty. Raw html, no css, no javascript.

rtkwe 7y ago
You also need authentication and security. HN has a definite anti-JS fanaticism that strikes me as unhelpful.
- cm2187 7y ago
  If you think javascript is of any use to authentication and security... In this case stripping out css and javascript is to make the website functional in low bandwidth conditions.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    If we're optimizing for low bandwidth the app they went with is even better (with captains actually preloading) because all you have to pass is the auth and results information no html at all...