So It's the new year, and I wanted to post an update about what's happening over at calcylator.com. I guess it's been nearly a month since there has been any visible activity, and I'd like to explain the reasons why.
The site was launched in November, and at the time I thought it'd be ready for use by x-mas ebay sellers; after a couple of weeks hammering by my faithful testers I soon found the finish line was further away then I thought :( The application has 2 major hurdles to overcome:
- Streamlining the user experience
- Small target audience (related to fees)
Calcylator started like most applications, to solve a problem for one person, I then wanted to share it with the world. Where as the application fitted this one person, other people found they were working too hard - the same goes for the fees issue - the database fees don't allow for foreign currency or power-sellers (since I'm neither).
Moving Forward
The project todo list stands, and is very important to me (as it contains user feedback), but now I have priorities.
- Quicker User Interface:
Technically there's nothing wrong with the speed, but people feel they are typing too much. To solve this we're going to aim for full ebay integration... the less you have to type the better ! - Flexibility:
I'm going to add fees flexibility for non ".co.uk" and "power sellers" users can select their fee scheme. This flexibility is going to extend to the user interface - I'm going to jump on the ajax bandwagon - This part of development may be a little slow, but should be very exciting for my faithful users.
As always suggestions and feedback are welcome, and fingers crossed I'll be ready for next x-mas ;)