The online ramblings of Dylan Bland

I love web apps. I love having access to the same data at home and at the office. I love being able to collaborate with members of the team who work remotely.

At Zillion we already use Google Docs and Basecamp and last month to prove I’m not a total hater we added Xero to the mix.

Xero doesn’t disappoint. It works as well as it looks. I’m yet to be convinced the numbers stack up on the business side but they’ve built a truly world-class product that should benefit hugely from word-of-mouth. My new accountant works for a firm and while she’d heard of Xero she’d never used it. Thanks to the intuitive interface (that recently picked up an award from one of my usability hero’s Jakob Nielsen) she was up and running in no time and has already signed up to one of their Auckland-based advanced training sessions. Another convert that will no doubt tell her friends.

So thanks to Xero when my accountant enters and reconciles transactions I can see the results in real time. It’s a great feeling and I recommend Xero to any web savvy business owner. Aside from the price and the possiblity of it being increased once you’re “locked in” I don’t see any reason for small business owners to stick to MYOB.

Good work Xero and best of luck getting those subscription numbers up.

PS: if anyone from Xero is reading this. We loved Xero so much we did the unthinkable and re entered three years of historical data into Xero. Because BNZ Internet banking doesn’t let you export data further back than 6 months we did a lot of manual entering. While I appreciate entering transactions manually one at a time isn’t your core business the interface for this could be improved hugely if you let people enter more than one transaction per page. Web apps will never be as fast as local apps and waiting for pages to load is a pain, especially if you’re reloading once every 20 seconds or so.

Since making the switch to Basecamp I think my productivity has about doubled.

On a daily basis I’m amazed at how easy it is to switch between projects and tasks then quickly get up to speed with what still needs doing.

For the first time in my life, I almost feel organised. I have more projects on the go than ever before, but life has a sense of calm and order.

Thanks to Basecamp, I think the old myth that men cant do more than two things at once is finally over.

The best $24/month I’ve ever spent.

Nearly three years since Shane first created an account, I’m really starting to get into Basecamp. Work gets done. Progress gets made. It’s like magic.

Here’s what I love so far:

• You can divide stuff into projects (e.g. Zillion, happysheep, nzflatmates)
• To-Do lists (e.g. stuff we need for the newsletter, bugs to fix, pages to design for a new feature)
• Writeboards (e.g. write newsletters, help docs, important emails collaboratively with team members)

It’s also possible to create milestones, but I haven’t explored that properly and I tend to adopt a “it’s done when it’s done” approach to our projects anyway.

The To-Do list feature is easily the most useful. On paper it seems too simple to be effective, but here it from me: it works.

When you create a To-Do list item you can assign it to a particular person (with an optional email alert) and when it’s been completed they just check the “completed” box and it gets struck off the list. There’s something deeply satisfying about ticking stuff off…”done”, “done” and “done”. It’s awesome.

Needless to say, like all good apps these days Basecamp is web-based so everyone’s viewing the same stuff regardless of where they’re working from. Brilliant.

But the single greatest thing about Basecamp is how it lets you leave people alone. In my own time I can create lists and write down ideas without disturbing other people. When they’re ready, they can just sign in and find a list to start working on. People write stuff for me to do too – it’s great and so much more convenient than email. Fewer interruptions, fewer meetings and fewer emails means more time “in the zone” and working. It’s great.

If you’re working in a team I totally recommend you give Basecamp a try.

I read on the nzherald web site tonight that the iPhone will officially be released in New Zealand, seeming to give weight to the rumours that Apple have been secretly trialling the new 3G version in New Zealand for the past couple of months.

I have to say that I’m both happy and sad about this announcement. On the downside I’m a little annoyed that I probably paid too much for my imported phone just to have it a few months early. On the upside I guess it’s now only a matter of time before my SMS conversations become private again, with hopefully fewer and fewer people grabbing my phone just to see how it works!

I do hope that the new 3G version has better reception in New Zealand, as my iPhone kinda sucks in that regard compared to my old Nokia.

This announcement also makes the idea of creating an iPhone app for the New Zealand market more viable. I predict that we’ll see a lot of cool apps made for the iPhone, but before today it just didn’t seem worthwhile creating anything exclusively for New Zealand since the market would be so small. If the uptake of the iPhone in New Zealand is anything like the iPod, I guess we’re set to see that change.

Earlier this year Trade Me did an overhaul of Travelbug to incorporate a new “last minute deals” feature, and at the same time fixed some small usability glitches that appeared in version 1.0.

I’d really like to see Travelbug succeed, as chances are I will someday use the site to research and book a holiday, so in this review I’ll offer up my thoughts on how I think things could be made even better.

First up I’d like to see a better use of the reviews. To me, this is what will encourage me to choose Travelbug over competitors such as wotif.com and ratestogo.com both of which have a good range of discounted New Zealand accommodation despite being based offshore. Easy ways to elevate the status of the reviews would be to include “sort by most reviewed” and “sort by highest rated” in the sort drop downs. Currently the site only offers “sort by highest price” “sort by lowest price” “sort by name” and “sort by Bugrank” (appears to be a mystery value and not related to reviews).

I’d also like to see stronger invitations for casual browsers of the site to place reviews. Unfortunately I’ve not yet booked through the site, so I’m not sure if Travelbug emails to invite you to add a review once your stay is over. I hope it does. But they could still actively promote placing reviews, and even provide incentives for good quality write ups. This will add up over time to make the site a whole lot more useful as a research tool.

Now I’ll move onto the more intense and geeky part of this review and offer up an alternative to the current layout that should offer significant usability benefits.

When I go to the Internet to book accommodation, there are three key pieces of information that I need to tell the site so that it can offer up the right places for me to stay. When, where and how much? For example, April 3 – April 7, Wellington and $150-$200 per night. Providing this information should allow the site to generate a list of accommodation options, from which I should be able to sort the list by things such as “most reviewed” “highest price” etc as described above.

I believe the current design is confusing in the way that it goes about getting this information. If you look at the screenshot you’ll notice that the date selector and the region selector are both way off to the left, thus appearing to have no influence over the list of results. The fancy price selector is where it should be, in the middle of the page, along with some less-than-useful filters such as “hotels” “motels” “serviced apartments” etc.

Trade Me’s current design

Shane and I spent a bit of time at work today reorganising the page to try and fix some of the problems I’ve pointed out in this review. This is a quick hack and certainly no work of art, but I think that the changes are effective. First up, the filters (when, where and how much) are grouped together directly above the results. This makes it easier for the user to understand what they’re looking at, while at the same time making it easier to apply new filters. We’ve also added in “most reviewed” to the sort drop down so it’s nice and easy to find places with lots of reviews (handy if you have no idea where to stay). We’ve also included a “star rating” and a “review count” in a small font beside the listing title to highlight the listings with reviews.

Our redesign

Finally, we added counts to the “Last minute deals” tab above the filter box. On Travelbug, “Last minute deals” offers discounts on accommodation if you book a stay within the next 28 days. Without the counts, it becomes misleading if you’re searching for dates way into the future, as it’s impossible for there to be any last minute deals on dates further than 28 days away. Adding a count, even if it just sits at zero, sets the right expectation for the user and doesn’t provoke a click that’s just going to take them to an empty page.

As I said before, the purpose of this review was not to criticize Trade Me’s efforts, rather it was to offer up some possible alternatives they may not have considered. But hey, this is just one person’s opinion and Trade Me may well disagree with me!

If you’re in the difficult business of web design and laying out pages, I hope that some of the issues I’ve discussed prove useful to you. We’ve learned a lot about this stuff the hard way, and hopefully some day soon we’ll have the time to fix some of the glaring usability problems in our own sites!

Recent news that Domino’s has introduced online ordering will no doubt be of interest to geeks up and down the country.

Peter Jones, Domino’s New Zealand General Manager, calls the new site “state-of-the-art” but I’m not so sure.

For starters, the site requires that you enter your name, phone number and street address before you can check out their pizzas. Talk about burying your best content. Amazon.com doesn’t ask for your address before you browse books. What’s the difference?

Peter goes on to say “It’s a unique system because the customer can see in real time what stage of the process their order is at, such as making, cooking and leaving the store with the driver.”

Erm, guys, this information just isn’t useful. Tracking a courier parcel across town I understand, but do we need to know exactly when a pizza has progressed from “making” to “cooking”? Trust me, with YouTube, Facebook etc people who use the Internet just aren’t that bored.

Hell on the other hand does it all right. They answer the question that’s on your mind when you order: I’m hungry, how long until I can fill my belly? On Hell they give you estimated delivery times right bang in the middle of the home page, where it should be. You can browse pizzas on offer without signing up, and the site isn’t dominated with company info and franchising opportunities. It’s even fun to use, an important ingredient if you want people to recommend you to their friends.

I believe that good web design is all about putting yourself in the shoes of your customer/user/reader and making it super-easy for them to achieve the primary goals. That means letting me browse delicious Pizza, not employment and franchising opportunities.

Sorry Domino’s, you fail. I think I’ll stick to Hell.

Being the geek that I am I couldn’t help but treat myself to an iPhone for my birthday in December. Three months on the novelty is starting to wear off and I’m finally able to offer an objective rundown on the pros and cons.

Pros

• The super-sexy styling never gets old
• Threaded SMS conversations rock
• Email on-the-go frees you from needing to “get back to the office”
• Surfing the web while you’re waiting for your coffee is awesome
• Unlocked correctly, it works perfectly on the Vodafone network

Cons

• It freezes and crashes all the time
• The reception is terrible
• It hurts to hold it up to your ear for more than 5 minutes
• The virtual keyboard is extremely difficult to use if you’re in a hurry
• Doesn’t support PXT
• It attracts too much attention. Your SMS conversations and photos are fair game.

Do I regret buying one? Hell no. Want one? Place a free listing on happysheep and you could have one on us!