Fixes & Improvements Before Release
Let’s kick it off with some good ol’ coding and UX insights. After testing the new version, I found the "Last Used" section to be a bit too large. On mobile, it takes up too much of the screen, not very user-friendly if you want to quickly navigate through your spaces and todo's.
So let’s make it use the smaller cards we made earlier for the other search functionality.
I've also moved spaceless up so they get more attention. We want to encourage users to be more organized. Tasks without a space should be moved to a space as soon as possible to encourage organization.
I also realized that the “Last Used” has no use if it is empty. An empty placeholder used to be shown to motivate the user, but in practice it becomes useless space most of the time. So now if you hit the reset button or don't have a “Last Used”, it won't be shown.
You Get a Bug, You Get a Bug!
I spent most of my day troubleshooting an annoying gnat bug. It's the bug I wrote about earlier that I thought I had fixed. Which it pretty much was, but it introduced a new bug. I won't go too deep into it, but after a few hours I finally found the solution. It had to do with the fact that I was locally re-sorting the tasks by index before I sorted them by order. I forgot to add the sorting before the local indexing, so every time I made an update in the sorted order, it was reset shortly thereafter by the unsorted indexing.
Anyway I’m glad that’s out of the way, but I spent way too much time on it for my liking. That’s how it goes sometimes. I had all these plans for my release and marketing today, but this bug sucked it all up. It is what it is.
Business & Marketing Insights
I've been thinking a lot about how to promote my blog and app. Naturally, I asked ChatGPT for some advice. The first site it came up with was IndieHackers.com. Man, what a great resource this is.
There is so much valuable information on there about growing your business as a solopreneur, so I have been reading all kinds of articles. Here are a few I will take to heart and put into action in the coming weeks:
And honestly a lot more. Register and see for yourself, you're in for a treat if you're in the same boat as me.
So I have been doing my best to learn a lot about marketing lately, especially ASO. Something I am going to drastically change in my approach is the following. I talk a lot about myself/the app. Like this is what I do, this is what my app does, these are the features we have, this is how I approach things. I realise this doesn’t naturally appeal to most people. It's something that 90% of people and companies do. Everyone’s screaming hey look at me, look what I built, look what I can do. You just become part of the noise. What I need to do instead is talk about you, my reader, my customer. What value do I bring to you, what problems am I solving for you, and communicate that in an effective way. Talk less about yourself, more about you.
When I realized that, it got me thinking: exactly what problems am I solving again for my target audience with my app. It's four things I've been thinking about a lot, and this morning, while taking a shower (of course), a new tagline came to mind.
Four ADHD Problems, One App
I still need to decide on the final variation. “Four ADHD Problems, One App“, “4 ADHD Problems, 1 App” or “4 ADHD Problems, 1 Solution/App”. Something like that! You get the idea. The reason why I think this will work is because it directly mentions my target group, indicates I’m solving problems they have. I also hope it sparks their curiosity and most importantly it’s ASO friendly. The name and tagline of your app has a direct effect on your searchability. I’ve already changed my name from “Float Note” to “Float Note: ADHD Power Tool” for this same reason. Important keywords included here are “ADHD” and “Tool”. I will change “Power” to something else as well probably in the future. Now the new tagline will have “ADHD” in it as well as the combined “ADHD Problems”, a double trigger for the ASO algorithm. And one last bonus, it’s also a bit of a pun. For ADHD Problems, Four ADHD Problems, 4 ADHD Problems. Get it 😂. Now let me introduce to you the four problems I solve and will be incorperating in every bit of Floatnote.app content from here on.
Problem 1: Too Many Thoughts
Us ADHD people have (too) many thoughts and ideas to keep track off. What if, what if! There was an app that fixed this for you 😉. Inbox popup to the rescue. Everytime you open the app this screen pops up and you can immediately start typing.
Problem 2: Trouble Organizing
Once we're able to capture our many thoughts and ideas, problem 2 arises. How do we organize our list of 10 new tasks and ideas from this morning? For this new side project that popped up into our head while on our way to work. Inbox wizard comes to the rescue! Quickly sort and organize all of your new tasks in your spaces, projects and to-do lists.
Problem 3: Too Overwhelmed To Start
Once we have everything structured and organized, we realize how much work it will take. We become paralyzed. So much to do, so little time. We spend what little time we have doing nothing and geting absorbed in one of our weekly episodes of task paralysis. But no more! Skuddy 2.0 AI planning tool to the rescue.
Problem 4: Staying Focused
And last, but not least. Once we get going, it is hard to stay focused unless we’re able to get ourselved into a state of hyperfocus. Fear no more restless child, Pomodoro timer with productive breaks (Choredoros) to the rescue!
Including background noises, shiny indicators and like I mentioned, my own concept called "Choredoros." Choredoros are small tasks you write down to do during Pomodoro breaks. Perfect for people with ADHD who find any task that does not provide them with dopamine extremely difficult to start. But, when we have a 5 minute deadline, any task becomes a (5 minute) walk in the park.
I think this can work. I need to update my website, my content strategy and a lot more. But it’s all going to be worth it.
My release has just been approved, that means I can start preparing pieces of content with the new features. That will be my main focus for now. I must admit I’ve also already started building the new release. I have everything in place now for me to start my day properly with my app, however I do miss some kind of wizard that helps me populate my daily todo even easier. Like how cool would it be if you could just sit down, tell the app which todo’s you want to work on today and then play some kind of swiping game to select your tasks for today. Tasks that will be presented to you in rank of importance by our scheduling algorithm. After which you can play Priority Poker to determine the order of tasks for that. Wouldn’t that be cool. Wouldn’t that be so fricking cool! 😎
We talk soon, thank you reading. Stay focused 🤙
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PS2: If you’re interested in becoming a tester for my app you can apply here. Both Android and iOS have an open beta where I push updates early and regularely to get your valueable feedback. You can find a changelog, roadmap and give feedback all through the wonderful solution of Featurebase, right here.
👋 About me: I’m an independent app developer with ADHD and the creator of Float Note, an app that tackles four common ADHD challenges: too many thoughts, trouble organizing, feeling overwhelmed, and staying focused.
🎫 It would mean the world to me if you gave it a try and let me know what you think through one of my socials. You can try it for free for 7 days and when the time comes, use code "DEVLIFEOFBRIAN" to get over 70% off your subscription for life.
📲 Download it here or click the link in my bio (Android/iOS/web) ➡️ floatnote.com/download