As we ramp up the number of invitations, we’re getting more and more feedback from customers.  I’ve been very happy with it!

 

Bug reports

As you expect with an Alpha release, a lot of it is “This piece isn’t working quite right in this case”.  My Alpha users have been fantastic about the level of detail they put into their bug reports.  Most of the time I can immediately write up a ticket, assign it, and let them know we’re on it.  It’s great!  I really lucked out.  But really, in the Alpha phase, I’d settle for any quality of bug reports.  And even if we already have the bug filed, it helps me adjust the relative priority levels to suit the customers’ needs.

 

Questions

The questions are usually “How do I….?” or “What is this piece for?”  I do love those!  I know users usually feel a bit sheepish when they ask these questions, but they are invaluable for designing a user experience that works for a wide variety of customers.  We’ve made some well-informed guesses about what our users will want to do with the service, but we can’t predict every desired workflow.  If the user can’t immediately see how to accomplish a task, we need to change something.  If they don’t understand why some piece exists, we need to change something.  In terms of long-term usability and growth, these are the most important feedback we can get!

 

Positive comments

I didn’t expect to receive positive comments so early.  We’re only in Alpha!  And I have sooooo many tickets in the system right now.  But it’s really nice to hear that people find it reasonably intuitive, or that a feature they didn’t understand at first is really cool and useful, or they are pumped about some other aspect.  It’s particularly nice for me because my entire job is focused on “What’s not working?  What’s missing?  How can we make this better?”  It’s nice to step back and see that we’ve done something other people can appreciate already, even if it’s not completely ready for prime time yet!

 

I am so grateful for my Alpha users right now!

 

Oh I suppose this is the part where I’m supposed to promote my service.  I’m still not used to that!

If you or someone you know might be interested in a service to automate time tracking and invoicing, please check out AdaptRM.  If it looks interesting, you can request an invite!  Beta will be coming out in early October, and we’ll be opening the floodgates to a lot more users at that time.