Photo by @Loh
Les Archives
Mention at Google I/O Keynote!
June 28th, 2012Mention in FastCompany
June 20th, 2012We just got a great mention in Fast Company! They were hashing through all the cool things you can do with Google Drive – and we were the first tool they mentioned.
“Google Docs was turned into a general purpose cloud storage dropbox called Drive back in April. But in classic Google fashion, no one explained what you could do with your free 5GB of space besides upload and download files.
As it turns out, Drive is much more than just a different name for where you used to store documents and spreadsheets. For example, did you know you can fax people documents and PDFs from Drive?”
Yep! You can, with HelloFax! Good times.
Why you should always do usability testing
June 3rd, 2012A few weeks ago, we went out and tested HelloFax with some users. Most of the testing went really well. But, there was one issue that we kept seeing.
When people were adding signers, they’d click on “Signer” and “CC” on the left. They thought they were buttons! Some members of the team kept telling me that they looked like buttons. But, there’s nothing like a confused user clicking on something to make a point.
Plus, people were also confused about where to enter in the signer’s name. We only required the email address, not the signer’s name. It wasn’t just a feature request, but a major point of confusion. They expected it to be there.
Version 1:
Version 2:
Before you fill it in
After you fill it in
You’ll notice that we removed the “signer” / “cc” icons altogether. Turns out they weren’t helpful. We now use the default text fields to describe what they need to do: i.e., “Signer’s Name” and “email@address.com”. That was the easiest major improvement we ever made.
There are some themes here:
- People may expect a features. The absence of the feature can be a usability problem.
- Unnecessary icons often detract from clarity. On a clean page, simple text can be powerful.
- Talk to your users all the time. There’s nothing like a confused user to push product decisions.
New Feature: Assign signer order
June 3rd, 2012When you sign a contract, sometimes there’s a specific order of signers that needs to be observed.
For example:
- You need to sign first
- I need to sign second
We built a tool to accommodate that scenario. Here’s how it goes:
1. On the Request Signature tab, add 2 signers
2. After you add the second signer, “Assign signer order” will appear. Click on it. You’ll notice that numbers will appear next to each signer. You can make that signer first or second by clicking on the arrows.
This is great for sales, where the client has to sign the document first.
Contact us if you have any feature requests. You request it, we build it!
Readability, Your Kindle & Going Paperless
June 3rd, 2012When I’m reading for pleasure, the last thing I want to do is read on my computer. Smartphons have the same backlight, so that doesn’t work either. I could put it on my Kindle, but with the number of steps involved, it’s a hassle. Some people just print out the article (you know how I feel about that!).
I just discovered an amazing combo (thanks Joel):
1. Install Readability into your browser. It’ll place a small book icon on the top left of your browser.
2. Click on the Kindle icon.
3. Follow the instructions to whitelist readability and put in your Kindle email address.
This tool has changed my reading life. Enjoy!
DevOps Borat, consider this a job offer to work at HelloFax
June 1st, 2012Dear DevOps Borat :
We need a DevOps Backend Engineer and we want you. Consider this a job offer to work at HelloFax. Because you have never applied for this position and you live all the way in Kazakhstan and you sometimes like to make sexy time with the memcache server, this may come as a little bit of a surprise. But you have known for awhile that we have been really impressed with your work.
You’re the child of a goat herder and a prostitute, but you’ve already scaled several sites for the Bureau of Intestinal Affairs. You’ve taught yourself to admin systems, and you built an ad hoc server rack from the bladder of a goat. And you have that rare gift of making the red and green lights go blinkety-blink. AND, your prowess on the Twitters that reach lesser known DevOps peeps in the other “Stans” are eloquent and well thought out. It would be an honor to have you join us here at HelloFax.
Here is your job description: You will not fuck up the back end code. You will keep the site running and let our CTO sleep at night (if he chooses to).
If you ever decide you want to go back to working on your own startup, we will most certainly not revoke your work visa and send you back to your country. In fact, we will hold your Passport for “safe-keeping” because America (and SF in particular) can be wild and dangerous for DevOps.
You won’t have to pay a penny when drinking with the rest of the team at Toronado. You will be allowed to wander the streets around our office in the lower Haight breathing in the inspiration. We’ll even give you a computer and internet access. Want an external monitor, keyboard and mouse? We will spare no expense (so long as you don’t use up the remaining $83 on our Staples gift card.)
This offer has no expiration and, regardless of whether you decide to work with us, we hope you will teach us how to make a bolo tie from sheep entrails just like yours.
Oh and bring some of your designer and mobile engineer friends.
Stay Faxy,
The HelloFax Team
Inspired by our friends at 42 Floors.
