25 Apr 2017
Beta Testing Update – April
Beta testing of Smashbomb is well underway and we are already learning a lot about how the website is performing, and how we can improve the interface and user experience. We are keeping busy!
Lessons learned so far:
- the existing user sign-up and onboarding process was confusing
- even in beta, users are happy and willing to follow other users they didn’t know (this is great!)
- there was some confusion as to what to do immediately after creating an account
- some tweaks were needed for the mobile (responsive) version of the website on certain screen sizes
- the user journey needed some optimization
- umpteen user interface tweaks were required
What we have done so far:
- added a new user ‘wizard’ that guides new users towards basic account creation
- added a new user tutorial, guiding users through the navigation and key components of the website
- introduced a new user ‘drip email’ to help guide users
- made it much easier to liaise with followers
- simplified user profiles and the interface around editing profile details and uploading profile images
- enhanced the functionality of administrators to get a ‘birds-eye’ view of user activity
- implemented over 140 user interface improvements based on user behaviour
What’s next?
- improve the design and look/feel of the app, and the login/register page
- new categories: books, music, games, apps, places, products, companies, events, to name a few
- kudos and rewards: introduce our kudos points system and related user rewards
- introduce suggestion engine, and category portals
- improvements to the new user onboarding process (build, experiment, learn!)
- improve the help and support touch points for new and active users
- build the developer API
- improve data and image accreditation for copyright holders (fair use credits)
- warn users of incomplete profiles (complete profiles = more followers!)
- ongoing user interface improvements
I hope this gives some insight as to where we are at this time, and we thank every single last one of you that has helped so far with feedback and by being active on the website.
We still need more testers!