Hello Beeminder,
My goal for the proposed redesign is to help people who are new to the concept of self quantification and commitment tracking.
This proposal is only meant to be a starting point. I do not know what your goals and problem cases are. The idea is to build a brief for the project based on your reactions to this presentation.
The problem case driving this proposal is that I cannot share Beeminder with my friends. They either do not understand what it does or they are too intimidated to use it.
My point of view is biased. To make a stronger case I ran three twenty-minute usability tests to set a baseline for the project. I used TryMyUI.com for as unbiased an opinion as possible, given the time frame.
Each participant had three tasks:
- Task 1: Sign up and commit to clearing out your Gmail inbox at least 4 days a week.
- Task 2: Sign up and commit to walking 10,000 steps at least 5 days a week.
- Task 3: Change your inbox commitment to 5 days a week.
None of the participants were able to complete all three tasks in 20 minutes.
Instead of just failing to accomplish the tasks, one participant silently failed. She believed she connected her Gmail account when she had not.
Screen recordings of all three testing sessions are available here. I have also included tester profiles and an executive summary.
I have focused on a single user journey in this proposal: Being able to sign up and commit money to a goal.