Actual user feedback

Well it’s been almost a month since launching our badge on MarinaraTimer.com, inviting thousands of people to check out our little experiment.

I’m happy to report that there have been several user suggestions! Some of the more interesting ones include:

• Ability to modify intervals
• Ability to re-order intervals
• Ability to delete intervals
• Ability to skip intervals
• Ability to jump to a specific interval
• Removing the word “Scrum” because it sounds gross 🤣
• Embedding into other apps (like Miro)
• Music 🎸

Some – like the interval-related operations – are pretty straightforward, and received the most activity. I inquired on the use case of some for more context but for the most part, I just had to add the UI and timer logic. In some more complex cases, I asked the user who made the suggestion to review the change and see if it met their needs.

Other suggestions (like removing “Scrum”) are somewhat frivolous, but it’s so easy to make the change, I think it’s worth doing simply to engender goodwill among engaged users.

Thinking…

Still other suggestions require more research. Both in terms of how it would be used, and in terms of technology.

For example, when it comes to embedding apps into third-party environments, you’re very much at the mercy of how that environment is set up. In the case of Miro, it appears like we could create a miniature version of the timer UI and embed it in an iFrame, then use Miro Board metadata to synchronize the timer instance between viewers of the same board. Sounds simple, right? </sarcasm>

With music, I have more questions about the use case. Should all users of the same timer hear the same music? Is the music specific to the timer interval? (eg. “Work” music vs “Break” music) What kind of music genres would be appropriate? For longer timer intervals, should the music loop, or play from a playlist? No one has replied to my questions yet, but this would be a really fun feature to work on, so I hope to hear back soon!

These suggestions also raise an interesting question – do they align with the goals of this phase of functional prototyping? On the one hand, I could say that they are more “advanced” features, more appropriate to focus on when the product is more robust. But on the other hand, these features might be critical to how someone uses the app. They might need music in order to focus (or force them to take a break). They might run their meeting agendas inside Miro every day, and juggling multiple links with a large group isn’t feasible.

At the end of the day, I think it’s best to fully understand each use case, and let the weight of user’s votes guide my focus.