The Evolution of BullieBoard!
I wanted to share with you the notes I was making when I was thinking of BullieBoard! and what it would become. As you will see it started off as a complex idea that got whittled down to a simple listing of events. The main thing to keep in mind here was that I had to find the problem I was trying to solve and once I found it, stay focused on only that.
Here is a listing of data that I figured would occur on two separate pages on the site. I like to list all the information that I can use on a page and narrow down what will actually get used from there. I wasn’t trying to create the next Yahoo so large schemas and IA diagrams were not needed.
- Calendar
- Dress code
- Music
- Cover
- Drink prices
- Bottle prices
- Table reservations
- Address
- Phone number
- Reviews
- URL
- Accepts VIP cards
- Name
- Pictures
- Description
- Music
- Favorites clubs
- Schedule
- VIP
- Name
- Address
- Birthday
- Username
- Picture
Now before I go into these lists, take a quick glance at them and imagine the form that people would have to fill out just to complete these profiles. Seems like a hassle to me and if I don’t want to do it, why should I expect users of the site to want to? The more I looked at the list the more I realized I didn’t care about most of this information. I really just wanted to know what was going on tonight in my area.
Users? It didn’t matter to me who was using the site, just as long as people were using it for the same reason I liked using it. Did I really need to know what their favorite music was? Did I even need them to login for some reason? Nope. Well that took care of user profiles so I didn’t have to worry about that page at all. Not saying logins won’t come into effect at some point in the future, but at this moment I just didn’t see a need for party people to have to login and keep track of another account of their’s on the web.
Moving on to the clubs, I just continued to think about the form. That form just seems like it would be stupid to fill out and considering how different every venue is why not just focus on what they all have in common? Every venue has a name, address and hopefully some type of description. Those are three fields that are definitely needed and just to help users out a bit more I figured a URL and phone number would provide a way to contact the venue. Looking at the Club Profile list we went from 15 lines to 5 and the beauty of the description field is that they can provide the rest of the information in there if they want to or not.
I was starting to feel good about what I was coming up with at this point and presented the idea to two of my friends who use club sites. Their first reactions were similar and they wanted to know where the reviews were at and the pictures. When I told them I wouldn’t have them they kind of just looked at me waiting for the reasoning. I asked them if they needed that kind of stuff to see what was going on tonight. Of course the answer was no. Sure they are cool “features” to have, but not needed, so why add them? Other sites can take care of that stuff.
So what exactly would the site have? I told them already, a listing of what is going on tonight because that is what I want to see. I want to go somewhere that I don’t have to file through tons of garbage just to find out if the club is even open tonight. I want to see my options and go from there. Why can’t a site just do that for me? Well now one can.
Too often we complicate a site by what what we can add to it instead of staying focused to what is needed on the site to make it usable. Believe me, I can come up with at least 20 cool features to add to BullieBoard, but they aren’t necessary and each one would only apply to a subset of users. When I can think of a feature that makes the site better for the majority of users I will add it, till then I focus on what I can take away from the site to keep its core strong.