We worked really hard to make Rollover 2 a success. and it has been, but not to the level we were hoping for. We made some blunders.. and today's post is an honest look at the mistakes we made, the lessons we learned and the ways we changed to avoid making them again.
Mistake #1: Bugs
Dammit. Bugs. They are annoying, unexpected, and hard to trace. Despite a ton of testing before launch, a couple of small changes we made, had a huge and unforeseen impact. We set the default effert trigger to be onClick and not as was before onHover - this was only supposed to affect new widgets, but alas no.
Bug Squishing
We bought in new devs, and a new, more rigid testing program. Now, all features undergo a three cycle review, with a team of five people. Each person has to review and approve each new feature. This should stop errors.
We also changed how the user can use the app. Before, it was possible to switch between effects packs, but with so many variables, and differing variables per pack, this led to problems.
Now, users pick an effect from a pack, and if they want to switch to another pack, they can do so by adding another widget from the Main tab.
Mistake #2: Delays in launching
The plan was a three month build, and a three month test phase. Well, double that and add some extra. Technical problems, a bad decision to develop in parallel for another platform and finding the right dev team for the job, meant we were constantly on the edge of launch, and what was cutting edge in 2016, was not quite so upfront in 2018.
Lessons we learnt.
Focus. Don't over stretch, don't over promise, deliver on time.
Mistake #3: Over complicating up the UX
Rollover 1, was a success, partly because the product was so simple to understand and use. For our second iteration of the app, we tried too hard to deliver too many design options. We had a blind spot because we were the ones developing the product, we thought it made sense - but no.
How we fixed it
Once we'd done the Dev work, we needed to take a step back. We bought in a new team of testers, who gave us fresh insight. We simplified everything, and reordered the content of the tabs so that the flow was better.
Mistake #4: Ineffective communication
In version one of the app we were not able to collect users' email addresses.. We hoped that by making announcements on Social Media, and with messages inside the app and on our website, that it would be clear about our change in pricing policy. That might have been OK, but when we launched the new app, our contact form in the app was broken, meaning those who complained, got nothing back. That lead to a lot of frustrated users. Apologies
How we fixed it.
We fixed the form. And with this blog post, are fessing up to all our blunders. We'll do better next time, and are working on a way to email all our users.
What's Next?
We have over 3000 paying customers, and it's essential to us that we make the best product possible.
In the next release cycle, we have some lovely new features, free for existing subscribers.
1: Animated Tooltips: A dozen animations right out of the box, triggered on rollover or click.
2: Animated Buttons: 15 styles that morph and move on contact.
3: Titlers: Using the latest Javascipt libraries, we're bringing six styles you can customise. These titlers move with your mouse or finger, to create sweet 3D effects.
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