jet fool blog

Adding A Trip Sucks

With all the feedback I’ve gathered so far, one thing is very clear. The process to add a trip in Jet Fool just plain sucks. This is one of the things that I made some assumptions about that just don’t work for my users.

The main issue is with adding flights. Adding flights is a tricky thing because a flight could be one way, it could be round trip, it could be multi-legged, it could be multi-legged only on the way back, etc. With so many options, things get confusing fast.

I am now totally changing the process of adding flights to be much more user-friendly and intuitive. I should have these changes implemented very soon.

The Progress Continues

After a very limited release to a few co-workers, I received a lot of good feedback. Upon creating some really huge lists in Google tasks, I’ve spent the past 2 nights destroying my feature/bug list.

The result of this labor, a much nicer workflow and a better user experience. I’ll be sending invites to more people soon to get even more feedback. 

Progressing Nicely

After a very productive weekend, Jet Fool comes ever closer to MVP release. All of its features, the ones that I deemed necessary to make it an MVP, are now working, although, not perfectly.  I really can’t wait to get this in front of some users and receive feedback soon.

I have set a date for that upcoming, very, very limited release. The date is Wednesday the 14^th. Hopefully, the current bugs and issues will be worked out by then and feedback can begin.

Travel Buddies

Development momentum is going strong and I’ve had two frequent flyers take a look at Jet Fool so far. Both people thought the UX was really nice and had some good feedback.

So far, the core features of saving a trip, adding flights, editing trips and flights as well as deleting them is working in rudimentary form. I’m now working on the “social” feature of adding travel buddies. The trick here is you can either add a person who uses Jet Fool, or you can “write in” a new user as a travel buddy.

The reason for adding this “write in” feature is to allow users to add fellow travelers that don’t have an account with Jet Fool. For instance, my two-year-old son won’t exactly be logging in any time soon, but I want to credit him for the trips he’s been on. Then, someday when he gets older, he can create a login and his account will show all the trips he’s taken over the years.

Adding this travel buddy feature is a bit tricky and will require many revisions but, once done, it will be a valuable feature and worth the trouble. More coding tonight and this weekend…

Getting Close To MVP

Jet Fool is a web application that allows frequent fliers to save their trips, tally up miles and share flying experiences with others in a way that’s visually appealing (lot’s of maps and numbers to look at). That’s the gist of it at this point.

Jet Fool has gone from a rough proof of concept to a semi-functional product in a short time. Pretty soon it will reach MVP status and I’ll be working on getting user feedback.

I’m really anxious to get this in front of some people to get impressions and see what needs to be changed/added/removed etc. To get on the beta list, just to got http://jetfool.com