Cheat sheets



    In this post I will talk about the past, present and future of the project that I am engaged in. In particular, I’ll tell you about my mistakes when starting a project.

    My previous record caused some resonance, so this project may seem interesting to someone.

    The purpose of this post is not so much to attract users as to get feedback - criticism and advice.


    Background to the project - a series of errors


    The last six months I have been doing one project, in September I tried to launch the VKontakte application - “Schedule”. Even PR already.
    But the project did not start, and I learned from a series of lessons:
    • Social network users are not at all interested in useful applications. Those. units try to gain from VKontakte. Tone was right , foreshadowing trouble . On facebook, by the way, the same situation.
    • You can’t release buggy versions - first you need to check everything and be sure that what is running is not buggy. The “version 1 sucks, but ship it anyway” approach should be applied wisely.
    • The second drawback of the “version 1 sucks, but ship it anyway” approach is competition. Ideas steal, and immediately. After starting within a month, two applications with the same essence appeared.
    • Fast and cheap promotion in a social network is far from always possible and you need to play with it carefully. In particular, an attempt to spin up to the approval of the application led to the emergence of competitors, and I wasted a lot of effort. (VKontakte applications must undergo moderation in order to gain access to tasty social features that help to get started. So, until this happy moment, I shouldn’t have announced my project anywhere.) And in my case, moderation on VKontakte took a whole month, in this a plan cannot be relied upon.
    • You should not solve problems until they appear. In particular, I was counting on a high server load and before launch I killed a lot of time for creating buggy data packing methods. I lost a lot of time, but there were still no high loads.
    However, surprisingly, the project continued to develop.

    What kind of service is provided now.


    In November, I thought that the online schedule in itself solves imaginary problems and nobody really needs it, but the interaction within the group is still often solved in clumsy ways.

    Therefore, I took up a tool that will help solve the problems that arise in preparing for exams. I was guided by that scheme which was practiced with us near the end of training.

    The result is the following:
    1. There is a central database of educational institutions, the user selects his academic group at the first entrance, he can also choose one of his friends to join his group
    2. Each group has its own exam schedule. At the same time, several groups from the course can be subscribed to the same subject, so the discussion will be conducted by everyone who passes the subject.
    3. On the subject page are available - discussion, file sharing, ticket list and preparation of cheat sheets
    When developing functions, I tried to observe two rules:
    1. Each tool should solve its problem better than the ones that are used by students now.
    2. Each block of functions needs to be simplified as much as possible for perception, but not to the detriment of functionality
    What benefits did you manage to realize as a result:
    • Discussion. The most convenient tool for exam discussions at this time is the forums. But they usually have two drawbacks: they are visually overloaded, useful messages are difficult to separate from the flame.
      As a result, I removed all the tools for formatting and arranging emoticons, and instead made 4 types of messages: just a message, note, important information, task. Notifications to subscribers only come when important messages or notes are received, in addition, visually in the message stream it is easy to search for what you need.

    • File Sharing Public file sharing services are commonly used. Their disadvantages: it is not always clear by the file name that you are going to download, ads, waiting before downloading (sometimes), captcha. Instead of all this, a structured file storage with a link to the subject is offered - on this page all the files that need to be downloaded are collected, the files contain a description. A link to the files can also be thrown by those who are not on VKontakte.
    • Ticket List The best googlodoks are suitable for a collective search for answers. What do I oppose them? Answers are stored in a certain structure and are tied to tickets, this gives ample opportunities for the preparation of cheat sheets, which googlodoks can not yet provide
    • Cheat sheets Here begins the most delicious and unique that is in the project!
      • Printing What is opposed to text editors?
        • Several cheat sheets with marking for cutting with scissors are displayed on one sheet
        • The font size can be adapted for your vision - all fonts are tested and accompanied by tips (for example, the 3rd font is barely readable, the 4th - only for good vision, the 5th - optimally, the 12th - for subway)
        • You can choose different sizes of cheat sheets
        • Fields inside cheat sheets can be specified manually - depending on the curvature of the hands - the text will not suffer when slicing
        • Each ticket starts with a new cheat sheet, each sheet contains footers with numbering - to search for the necessary spurs - no need to look at the text - just find the numbers you need
      • Mobile access Now, alternative solutions are to manually create web pages, or download material directly to phones. This is not very convenient and every time you have to adapt everything to a small screen. What is offered by the application:
        • Naturally, no extra layout - the traffic is optimized, the font size is left to the browser
        • There is a reference navigation on the list of questions
        • Implemented a search using the numeric keypad, which can be used blindly. Lack of phones - inconvenient keyboard - turned into an advantage

    Future plans


    Launching on VKontakte has not yet paid off - it is very difficult to turn on the brain of users when they are on this social network. Not all of course, but more.

    The application will move to its own domain, access via OpenID will be implemented.

    Printing cheat sheets will become a completely secondary function - the emphasis will be on the interaction of students, on the organization of the educational process in the semester.

    I have already spent six months on this, so stopping and leaving everything would be a shame for me - I'm stubborn - first I will finish the job, and then we'll see what happens.

    Now I am looking for students who will be interested in participating in the project.
    How to participate? Basically, I don’t have enough quality feedback from students - what I like, what not, what functions are needed, which is incomprehensible in the interface. Any other help is also appreciated.

    What can I offer in return?
    Until the project is monetized - the opportunity to get the implementation of their own ideas in the framework of this project - if the ideas are good.

    I will also consider any proposals from all people or organizations who are somehow interested in the project. Well, everyone who wants to read the continuation of this story after a while, if this does not contradict their moral principles, can support the project by adding an application (if you do not need it, you can hold it for a couple of days, then delete it).

    Well, a couple of questions for readers:
    1. What is bad in the project, what can be improved?
    2. What needs to be done so that you personally start using it (or start as students)?

    The project is here

    UPD: On the advice of KF_NEXUS - the background in the application can now be turned off, the settings are saved

    Also popular now: