Although for the first few years of its life adderuppa was only ever used in our offices, we knew that at some point we would make it available as a service, and so, when we first designed the page layouts, 4 years ago, we built to the 800×600 default, simply because that’s what we always did (and normally still do) when designing a website.

Designing with an 800×600 screen in mind meant that we had to decide not to display the Client Name on the Project List page, because of space limitations, and that a number of pages looked a little cramped.

Since we have been thinking more seriously about marketing, we have been giving more thought to who will actually use the service. Because our background is in freelancing, and we built it for ourselves, the product has naturally grown into something that principally suits freelancers and small businesses, people involved in the design and developer communities.

Studying our web stats, we noticed that not even 2% of visitors have an 800×600 screen resolution. This fits with the fact that no-one we know in the sector that will be most interested in the service has a screen resolution of less than 1600×1200.

With this in mind, we decided to redesign the layouts using 1024×768 as the default screen resolution. This is still smaller than the average user’s setup, but does give us a few more valuable pixels to play with, allowing us to add a couple more columns here and there, and to adjust the spacing so that the layouts are more pleasing to the eye.

Marketing an application that you have used every day for a long period of time throws up some interesting issues. The most prominent issue that we have come across so far is that features we considered obvious turn out not to be when viewed with fresh eyes.

The heart of adderuppa, its main sweetspot for us, is its simple Start / Stop button that eliminates the need to maintain timesheets. You hit the button, get on with what you’re doing, hit it again when you’re done, and hey presto, times and expected income are automatically updated.

Because we have been using it constantly, and knew this was the main feature, we knew where to find it. The layout of the Task List and the Project Edit pages are very straightforward, and so it seemed fair to expect that anyone trying the program for the first time would use it straight off.

But no. People that we spoke to who had tried it had not experienced being able to hit a Start / Stop button before, and so weren’t looking out for it. They had no trouble setting up projects and then assigning tasks, but couldn’t see where to enter their time sheets ! They had missed the Big Point.

This was not their fault, it was ours. We had assumed that people would all be looking out for an automated timer, and so would spot it when it was laid in front of them. We had assumed that people had the time to read all the blurb about what makes the application special.

We had forgotten that that’s exactly what we don’t normally do. If we see something that looks interesting, we just dive in and try it, then maybe look at the Help section if we get stuck. Normally we can’t be bothered, because we suffer with the same time constraints as everyone else. Meaning that we leave and don’t come back.

And so we decided to point out the not-so-obvious. Laying a yellow background behind the Start / Stop button immediately pulls the focus to that column. The user thinks ‘Mmm, what’s that ?’, clicks it, and a neat animated timer giff loads. Bing, the connection is made, and a life free of bits of paper and scribbled notes about time spent here and there begins to form.

‘This is what I’ve been looking for …’

Too often, when selling a product, developers fail to consider that the eye plays a large part in making the decision about whether to buy something. We certainly made this mistake when putting up the first incarnation of this website.

In our excitement about finally making the product available for public consumption, we just threw something together that displayed the information, thinking that people would be so wowed by the concept that they wouldn’t mind the fact that the page design was poor. We got back on with our day jobs and thought not a lot more of it.

Over the next few months we had a steady stream of people looking over the site. A number of them registered, and yes, we rejoiced every time that magical confirmation email arrived, but we were surprised that we weren’t picking up as many subscribers as we thought we should.

Then, last week, in a spare moment between jobs, we looked again at the image we were projecting. And it was poor. Dull. Too claustrophobic. Our message wasn’t getting across. Sure, we knew we had a great product, but it was being sold from a stuffy shop. Most people coming to that shop, therefore, would have made up their mind about buying even if they did come in and have a nose around.

Time for a spruce up then. Clean down the shelves, let some light in, and pull on a clean set of clothes.

If something looks like it’s worth buying, then you’re half way to the sale.