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Site Admin Joined: 29 Sep 2000 Posts: 389 Location: USA

I've finally heard back from one of the not-mudders I invited to beta test the site. I'm posting her comments here for discussion.

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any reason why the friend's name and email fields are so small, given there's more room on the page

predefined category, death
offers fields for description, and # of hours to delay, but they appear to be disabled (bit confusing)
(yes I know it says it's a default category and can't be changed but that doesn't seem like it would prevent a description/notification time)

Email category: death > OK this confused me. I thought at first (intuitively) this is where I entered whatever message I wanted for friends with that category on. But now I realize (after finishing the message), that I think it's saying, it's (a) a one-time thing and (b) that it's just going to immediately email my friends telling them I've died, like right now, and that is definitely not what I had in mind.

Now... I am wandering... I clicked on all the links... I am not finding what I feel like I ought to be finding.

I feel like, given what I think-I-know-from-so-far, I should be able to see a link or button that lets me create/edit a message (not a "send email immediately" but a "future message for the system to send should that time arrive" in some fashion) for (a) a given category as a 'default', or at least (b) a given person+category as a specific.

I got the idea from the site that for example, you know my impression of what to expect from reading what it is, that I enter my best buddies Joe & Scooter in Virginia (a couple), and then I can set it up so if I die (or whatever), they get an email (if my 'trusted advisor' comes in after my death and says so, anyway). I guess if I uncheck all but death then they don't get an email for anything else.

I think in my head it seems like you'd have a person, and you click on the person, and then for each major category (death/accident/absence/disaster) you could basically have three choices for them: (a) use the 'default' for that category that you have set up [maybe it should automatically have boilerplate text you edit so checking for its existence is less a pain]; (b) do not send them anything for this category; or (c) enter my custom message to this person for this category. By default everybody would come with the 'default' checked.

Which means that also as a main option you'd have a category like death, and you click on it, and you can customize the default message. Which brings me back to the 'email category: death' which makes me think it's going to send an email to my friend 'immediately' it says with my message.

There is an email link that lists emails sent. This definitely makes it sound like an outbox, like I'm sending emails right now. It does not make it sound like any kind of "custom messages" that are merely prepared for future email, so if that's what it really is, I think maybe the terminology might be reconsidered.

"predefined category" implies to me that I must be able to create custom (NOT pre-defined) categories (or it's just a 'category', if that's all that's available). Like, one where the 'description' and 'hours to notification' fields worked, for example. But I can't find any link like 'my categories'.

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 873 Location: USA

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 4:59 pm

I'll actually change the Death category so that you can't even click on it. Since it's Predefined and cannot be edited, and it doesn't make sense for you to send your own immediate message for the Death category, I think it's just best to remove the hyperlink for it.

I think the site actually works the way she wants: click on a Friend's name in your list to edit their custom messages. The problem is that the custom messages are at the bottom of the Friend page and unless you notice the scrollbar on your browser, it's easy to miss them. I'll add some sort of tab or header to the Edit Friend page to make it more obvious where the custom messages are.

As far as a default message for a category, I'm currently against that idea. Your poor friend is already getting an impersonal message sent by your Trusted Contact. The last thing they need is a default message from you too. I think you should either customize the message for your specific Friend, or not have any custom message at all.

(turns out she was only using the Full account and not the Premium account, so that's why she didn't see the custom messages option)

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 873 Location: USA

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 6:27 pm

OK, I can understand that. I could add a link for Custom Messages, but then you'd still need to select which friend you want to store the messages for. So then it would just be another list of friends and would still be a 2-step process (click a friend, then modify the messages).

I have added some text to the top of the Friends list that tells you to click a friend's name to add a custom message (if you have a premium account). When you click on a Friend's name now, it will also give a link at the top to let you jump down to edit custom messages. If you don't have a premium account, it will tell you in the Edit Friend page that custom messages are available for Premium accounts and has an Upgrade link.

I have also modified the Edit Category page. First, the Death category is no longer a link that can be clicked on. And for Predefined Categories, you only see the Description and not the "Delay" field (since it's always zero for other predefined categories). If you don't have a Premium account, it tells you that Premium accounts can add custom categories and gives an Upgrade link.

Down in the section for sending an email to the category, if you don't have a Premium account, it tells you that Premium accounts can store custom messages for each category and gives and Upgrade link. If you *do* have a Premium account, it gives you the link back to your Friends page with instructions for adding a custom message to your friends.

Hopefully some of this extra description will help. If you have an idea on how the custom messages might be handled better, let me know. But part of the original problem was that the poster didn't realize they needed a Premium account for this feature, so adding these messages should help inform people about this and also encourage upgrades.

Note that if your account is still in Trial mode, the Upgrade page lets you change your account type at-will immediately.