Show HN: Pie, a simple text based to-do list (web)app

by hernansartorio • 12 years ago

6 6 12 years ago

This UX is pretty abysmal.

The text is difficult to read (which seems important to a text-based todo list).

Marking a todo as done is a two-motion action: hover over the todo, then click the checkmark (assuming you see the checkmark). The transition to the done section could be smoother as well. I didn't actually notice what I'd clicked for a moment - took a bit of analysis to figure out that I had marked one as complete.

I should be able to move a todo by dragging any part of it - not just the obscure drag handle represented by the menu icon off to the side. Note: I personally am aware that this is also the drag handle icon, but I know plenty of people that aren't.

I can make blank todos. Maybe someone, somewhere, would like to make blank todos - for the other 99.99% of your users, this is a bug.

The keyboard controls are unintuitive. Pressing the left arrow at the beginning of a todo takes me to the previous todo (bug?). Why would I want to indent a todo? "Make a subtask" sounds reasonable, but "indent a to-do" sounds like a useless thing to be able to do. Also, I can't move between the done and not done sections with the arrow keys.

I kinda expected (hoped?) that I could use Vim keybindings to get around. Nope. Not a huge deal, but you might want to look into that (or maybe offer different keyboard shortcut modes - Vim, Emacs, or Pie).

"Sign up to save your lists" sounds like something I'd want to do; however, when I click on it, I go to some other (nearly invisible) screen asking for an email and password. I had a nagging fear that my lists might not have been saved. It looked like the only way to leave the signup page was to click on the Home link, which took me back to the beginning. Then, my first though was "Shit, are my lists gone?". They weren't, to be fair, but that sort of panic-inducing moment is unacceptable.

The entire interface is almost invisible.

Overall, I applaud the effort behind trying to make todo lists simpler, and as much like keeping text files as possible (but with the convenience of being on the web!). I feel like the execution just really fell short.

hernansartorio3• 12 years ago

Thanks for your comment.

First note that as stated in the About page, this was a personal project. As such I designed it the way I thought was best for my own use, having a free take on what my ideal UX (including shortcuts) and styling would be.

Marking a todo as done is a two-motion action: hover over the todo, then click the checkmark (assuming you see the checkmark).

Unless you can move your cursor telepathically I think hovering is a part of the clicking motion. The mark will appear if you hover it from the left, no need to hover the text. Besides all of those actions can and are mostly done with the keyboard.

The transition to the done section could be smoother as well. I didn't actually notice what I'd clicked for a moment - took a bit of analysis to figure out that I had marked one as complete.

I do agree that the done transition could be improved.

I can make blank todos. Maybe someone, somewhere, would like to make blank todos - for the other 99.99% of your users, this is a bug. ... Pressing the left arrow at the beginning of a todo takes me to the previous todo (bug?).

That's intentional. One of my guiding principles when making it was that it should work just as it were a plain text file.

Also, I can't move between the done and not done sections with the arrow keys.

That one would be a bug indeed.

The text is difficult to read (which seems important to a text-based todo list).

On the machines I use it the text is readable and looks better that way, but I agree that the light weight could not be the best for all setups.

The entire interface is almost invisible.

Apart from the previous point, another guiding principle was that the main focus of the app is the content –the to-dos–. That's why the UI is lighter, and most of it disappears when you don't need it, to let you focus on the content.

richardbrevig2• 12 years ago

This is really great. Just last week I started looking for a todo/task manager. Life has suddenly become complex and all those text files I keep in various folders are an annoyance to keep up. Amazingly I haven't taken the time to actually choose a to-do list app. So I've got a couple sitting in my tabs waiting for me to get to it. For the sake of disclosure, they are wunderlist.com and todoist.com I wanted something simple that would work on both desktop and mobile. Simple regarding the user interface. I also was considering them on the basis of price. For a large company like the two I mentioned, I'd want to pay monthly so I know they're making money and will remain around so I can continue to use their product. I feel this could be about $5/mo (or 3-5), with an absolute maximum of $10/mo. I don't remember what those two services charge.

I believe one of my hesitations has also been trying to figure out if I want the program to allow me to update the task and show progress bars. But ultimately I keep concluding that such a feature would just complicate what I was trying to do. Really just need to have an easily accessible location for the things I need to get done, sorted by topics I set up. Your application does that.

I really liked your program because it was straightforward and easy to use. Control-Enter to move a list to accomplished was nice. I also like the ability to move them up and down with the keyboard, though a chrome extension I have running has taken over the control-down-arrow. I did also notice the ability to create empty lines. At first, somewhat embarrassingly now, I wasn't sure if each time I pressed enter made a new task entry or if it was a line in another task. After a few seconds I figured it out, though. Just tested it out on my iphone and worked great. For desktop, I was a little bit annoyed as well that I had to drag from the icon, but that wouldn't be a consideration truly if my control-down-arrow wasn't already hijacked. On my phone, the arranging them was easy.

Personally, I could read everything well on my screen. But I could see how this might be a problem for many others and the ability to change the colors/sizes might be a great feature. Honestly, though, I don't know if I would change those settings, myself. I'd probably just stay with what the default was set to (but I usually go with default settings on almost everything).

I didn't go to sign up so I can't speak about that experience. Why am I hesitant to not just throw away the two commercial options and go with yours for free? It being free may be one of the reasons. I'm not sure. I feel like my list is very personal and I want to know that it is secure. Your product honestly showed me everything I kind of would have wanted from the program I was looking for. I liked the about page with the story of your developing it. And honestly I don't know where you plan to go with this, which might be where my hesitation resides. I don't know if you're wanting to gain users or not. Is this something you might take down in a few months? Something addressing those concerns, and maybe "social proof" showing me that others are using it and it's going to stay around would probably have secured your product as my choice.

Don't know where you want to go with your product, so I hope my ramblings have helped. Feel free to ask any questions.

hernansartorio3• 12 years ago

Hi Richard, thank you for your comment! It's very welcomed.

Honestly, I made it for myself initially, I'm the only active user right now (so there goes the social proof), but for that reason alone I don't plan to take it down any time soon.

Still from the very start I've always played with the idea to charge for it (maybe something like $2/mo at least), and that's the reason I recently polished it and released it. I didn't want to bother integrating a payment system and have no one use it, so that's why it's free now, just testing to see if there is any interest (thanks for yours!).

So from what you say I'll ask you, would you pay $2/mo (or even 1) to use this? Do you think there could be a potential market for it?

P.S. Pro tip: You can import your text lists by pasting the text on a new list. Not fully developed yet though, only works when pasting at the end of a list.

richardbrevig2• 12 years ago

Sorry for the delay. Been trying to meet a deadline. I went back and looked at the two companies I mentioned earlier for pricing. With those in mind, I'd suggest you charge $2-3 / mo. However, I also see that both of those sites are on a freemium model. So, there's a little more to think about. Would you charge for all levels of access, etc?

Before I discuss how I feel about price, I want to say that there is a market for it. People want to manage their to-do lists and tasks. "to do list" is searched for about 90k times a month on Google, and so is "task manager." Also, I've taken a little time to look at some of the competitors and here's what I've found: http://rivalseek.com/trends/index.php?market=4 Not sure what happened in June 2013 but the overall 3-year trend seem to be a 25% growth. And the chart doesn't really show this, but that's a lot of traffic. Todoist.com alone receives an estimated 12.3 million visits a month. From looking at different companies I also really liked taasky.com because they appealed to the fact that I wanted the system to be simple. But, still, I would not use them because I want a system that works on both my phone and my pc.

Personally, I'm still on the fence about which one I would choose. It's between yours and wunderlist. I like the simplicity of yours and the fact that I see it works wonderfully on both my pc and phone. My concerns right now are: a) will I need the additional features of wunderlist, b) am I going to pay for something I could get for free, c) am I going to be the only person paying for it? I'm saying these things not to discourage you, but to try to provide feedback and help you with sales process/objections.

Show HN: Pie, a simple text based to-do list (web)app

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