My First App: Solveboard

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Good Afternoon Everyone,

Well most of us know that the hardest thing to do is put an app in front of the world to see. Much as one would like to continue to add, refine, and enhance, there has to be a point where you have to let your baby go out into the world. As an adherent to @NigelG philosophy that functionality trumps design at the beginning, I believe that my application is functional, if not beautiful. “If you aren’t embarrassed by your app then you waited too long to launch it”.

So what I am trying to do is create new ways to visually organize and share information and ideas. Think of it as an intersection between Powerpoint, Mindmapping, and Email. I work in a remote environment and I know how difficult it is to manage projects and share information through traditional tools like email. I set out to address this problem through what I believe is a unique approach that I call Solveboard.

So without further ado, I present www.solveboard.com

I built a few help videos “each a couple minutes long” that will help interested viewers understand the application and how to use it. I designed it to be intuitive and if it takes more then a few minutes to figure it out, then I have some more work to do!! Note that this is not a responsive design, because of the very nature of the app. I wanted it to work well on Smartboards for presentations, on Ipads for coffee house navigation, and desktops for development.

One of the elements on the Welcome to Solveboard homepage reads “This block is a rich block with many additional information pieces as seen in the attachment.” Click this element to get an idea of capabilities are included with a subscription.

What I am looking to get is some honest feedback. What do you love, what do you hate? Suggestions on where I can improve along with some practical Bubble improvements I can make. I have a pretty extensive roadmap for what will be added to this application going forward, but before proceeding I want to make sure I got the fundamentals nailed down.

And thanks to all the people that have helped me so far in my Bubble journey, with special thanks to @NigelG “seemingly the most patient man in the United Kingdom” @fayewatson @emmanuel and the whole Bubble team for their outstanding efforts to bring programming to the noncoder minds out there.

Thanks in advance for your interest and feedback,

Brad Luffy

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Great idea and always nice to read a user’s journey to their app/product!

indeed a bit greyish :slight_smile: One thing I notice myself do is click a lot of the cards but nothing happens. I see there is the hierarchy logo that wil help you go down a level, but its not clear which cards are clickable and which are not and what the difference is between them.

Is there a way to create my own board without signing up?

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Thanks for the feedback. If there is a little Information icon it means that the element is clickable. You can also click the information icon for the same effect.

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You can create a board by signing up without a subscription. You can always get a subscription after signing up but this is optional.

The subscription simply allows you to add additional attachments like files, images, specialty boards, etc.

Thanks again for taking a look!!

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gotcha.

I guess what I was trying to say was if it would be possible to create a board without first signing up. Then if you like the product and want to save your board or add features, you sign up for an account. I think this will definitely drive registrations.

Now, for me at least, its a lot of reading and I just want to start doing stuff right off the bat!

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Good point. Let me take a look at seeing how I might do that.

Thanks!!

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Definitely an issue you are solving! I can really see a use for this in things that the communication process, as well as functional access, play larger roles- storyboarding user experiences being a good example.

I see a lot of potential for scaling as well- which is a good thing!

JB

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Hey Brad,

Great job getting your app to this point and I will second your accolades for @NigelG and the entire Bubble team. I’ve been a troll on this forum everyday and I am continually impressed by the community, engagement and detail of information shared.

Congrats on sharing… it’s a bigger hurdle than people think until they have to put themselves out there. So, you are on the right track Collecting feedback is one of the most important things you can do. I would love to see this community spend as much time reviewing early versions of apps as helping with execution questions, especially as an initial launch is still a 1st draft.

I’ll do my best to provide feedback focused on UX and stay away from design. I know it is early, which I agree it’s better to share too soon, so some of my comments may be future points you already know or reiterate what others have said.

  1. Initial thoughts of viewing the landing page:

a. I really like the logo

b. The purpose of the app doesn’t jump off the page when first viewing. Using your app structure to explain the product is a great idea, but the core message get’s a bit lost as it is broken into box components. The two unique colors skip the descriptive box in the middle that really connect the two points.

c. The 3 bullets are only at the end of the last workflow. It’s not clear the purpose as there are other workflows that end without the 3 dots.

d. Current Board information is on the right side of the header while the workflow starts from the left side of the screen. The organization of what looks like a header and body on opposing sides creates some confusion on where to focus.

e. Some of the boxes have links below or info icons, but it’s not clear from the box why the links exists for some and not others.

f. There is not a clear call to action for the user and the unique, bright colors that draw my attention to click have no action.

g. Generally, too much text for a landing page.

  1. Additional thoughts after navigation

a. The shading of boxes is confusing as it does not correlate to what can be selected.

b. Navigating into a board is difficult to navigate as the path at the header is right aligned and the arrows point up to the top level nav instead of down, which would indicate where the user is in the website.

c. I don’t see a way to add a new board. If this can only be done via sign up, then maybe an option to “create your own board” that opens a sign up could be useful.

d. I like the navigation and use of colors when viewing more info in an element. It is very clear and quick.

e. The ability to subscribe before signing up or being prompted to sign up is confusing.

I hope this was helpful and not too critical.

Please let me know if you have any follow up questions.

Drew

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This was awesome!!! You have definitely gave me some stuff to think about and work on this weekend. I am really glad you brought up the navigation points. When you are working on an app it naturally becomes intuitive since you are designing it, hence the importance of hearing outside feedback.

There are no criticisms buddy, only suggestions that guide me to a better app. I will be making some updates based on the feedback received and let you know when I am done.

Thanks again and keep the comments coming!!!

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Yeah Storyboarding is definitely something I was thinking about when designing the app, being able to really drill down into individual interactions.

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Quick question about this one piece? Where did you see the ability to subscribe before signing up? I was looking around to see if I missed something and can’t spot it. Thanks a bunch.

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Very glad to help out! Maybe you can do the same for me one day:slight_smile:

Ping me anytime, I’m basically living in Bubble right now.

When I said subscribe, I actually meant bookmark. The bookmark is found in the last box above the three dots.

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@Bradluffy I love the idea behind this! I especially like how you can see everything in one ‘view’, and then click to further drill-down for each card - that is extremely helpful. At first glance - it reminds me a bit like a mind-map, with really helpful functionality built behind each card to organize the card’s information and media. Beyond awesome work, Brad!! :slight_smile:

The video was very helpful in understanding Solveboard as well! I agree that by just looking at the Solveboard landing page the first time, I wasn’t 100% clear of the possibilities (but that could just be me of course). Perhaps there could be a few different examples with concepts people are more familiar with such as ‘Building a Photo-Sharing App’. Then website visitors can see how that type of content would be organized (Dev, Design, UX, Marketing) in a Solveboard.

These are just little details, but just wanted to send along incase they might help!

  1. In the live-view of a Solveboard, it might help to put the little ‘i’ and ‘chart’ icons in the top right corner within each card, instead of just below the card. This way it seems like they’re more in a group together. In the editor view, I think it would be helpful to have both options grouped in the card as well, with the grid view icon in the bottom left and information icon in the bottom right, all with a board around them and the text input.

  2. Have the board breadcrumb be on the top left side of the screen (instead of the right) in order to have the order be:
    "Welcome Board >> Current Board " versus “Welcome Board << Current Board”

  3. I’m not sure if this would work, but it might help the User focus in the editor mode by having the empty/non-utilized cards, icons, and + signs an even lighter grey by default (to make them seem more in-active). Then when the group for a new card is hovered/focused, or an icon or + sign is hovered - that ‘card group’ becomes darker (sort of like an ‘active’ state).

With that said, again, really fantastic work here, Brad! Looking forward to following this and seeing how it evolves! :slight_smile:

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@fayewatson @andrewngilbert @jballou @vincent56

Thanks so much for your feedback. It kept me up most of the night and I have made some big changes as a result. I definitely got a lot of value out of what you had to say. I especially love working off of lists and so I appreciate you taking the time to make them for me!!

So

This is ready to go now. You can start creating a board and then if you want to save it you can create an account. Awesome advice. I am sure a bug or two will pop out as a result of this change but I am ready for it.

This was a misguided attempt to demonstrate that there are several icons available for use between elements. It had no purpose outside of that, but inadvertantly only confused people. I have removed this icon.

I have made a major change in the header in response to both yours and Faye’s advice. I have set it so the current board is always on the left side and as you work your way into the boards they go from left to right as opposed to right to left. Let me know what you think.

and

Since users choose which elements have their own boards and attachments, it is hard to develop a mechanism for why a user chooses an attachment for a particular element and not another. However I see why it might be confusing. I think Faye has a good idea of somehow grouping the icons together with the element. I could not unfortunately figure out how to incorporate the icons within the text element without a lot of other things going wrong.However what I did was attach the icons to the element so to speak.I think this makes it all look a lot cleaner and less cluttered. The editor I left the way it was because of the shape and color. However I do like Faye’s idea of adding shading based on active/inactive.

I have removed the shading from the elements when hovering. If the element can be clicked then it will have the hand cursor visible to click it.

I have added a call to action right at the top of the landing page to “Create a New Board” This will not require a signup but if you want to save your board you would then have to sign up.

This was a bug:( Fixed

This is going to take some thought but I do love the idea!!

I am planning on making a much simpler to navigate and understand landing page that hopefully will reduce clutter and confusion while still demonstrating the capabilities of the application.

Thanks again for the feedback and please keep it coming!!

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