User Feedback and Testing

Crashz in the Launch Phase

Now that the coding & update phases are done and dusted, lets collect some statistics on our app’s economy and outreach.

This part was the trickiest, coz, people keep adding outlooks, until they fine-tune it on a physical balance with Google apps :) Users look forward to so many things when it comes to a mobile app.

There you go, my app’s icon

I share here a feedback summary of how guys reacted to my app.

First-hand Feedback

Let me pin some quick reactions I had in receipt in Social Media, here.

Welcome my first user!

Ray is a typical Ethical hacker, who works freelance. He’s got game design and animation for added skills. He’s an easy-come-easy-go type, who takes life plain and sweet for everybody around him ( I’m amazed with his work environment — Never complains). Nevertheless, he’s fascinated with web-design sometimes :)

My friend Ray was the very first person to try out my app.

Hi my best friend!

Gowtham always had impulses for an amazing programmer. With pointer logic and problem solving skills, hes’s been unparallel in my school days. Currently studying at SRM, he’s turning the tables on the NextGen Automobile Technology with hybrid F1 cars. Though a hard-coder in his best of skills, he’s mastering the swag on Cars, his childhood passion.

Gowtham stepped in late, but was an awesome user. His user perspective was a class in itself.

Thanks a lot sir

Prof. Jayaram is the best of easy-go faculties I’ve ever had in my life. His concepts and calm analyzing skills are a treasure for us to cherish. He looks at the better ways of doing the same thing and is always the first person to pat your back when you achieve something great.

If you ask me where was the testing, this is what I could tell you. My professor came up with questions and was intuitive with his feedback. He helped me find user-bugs and refine my approach skills.

The fix was a simple formValid() check on the user input. When I process the link I get, I cut down the last 5 characters and add an extension that could play the media raw, the mp3 link is only browser compatible.

It was in the eleventh hour that I happened to find this. The Java regex match malfunctioned.

I had a Java regex match to tell me if “.mp3” was a part of the string. If not, don’t insert it into the DB, coz, every .mp3 link from Dropbox comes with the extension. I’d to tune that segment of the code. Simple, though.

Hi there my well-wisher!

Never to forget the time when I’d no response whatsoever, for my app from my recipients, even Slack(maybe, people at Slack didn’t have the Slack app installed to click on links). I’d to dig at everybody to spare atleast a couple of minutes to look into my app. And, this guy did it without compulsion.

When I signaled distress calls for sometime with no users turning up, it was Prithvi who consoled me.

The Current Scene

I’ve about a 20 people active on Crashz and some 12 regulars. I’m indebted to fb for making this reach a larger community, though not installed, many were still pinging me about what the app was about. That was a success fraction I’d envisioned for myself.

Statistics in the Play

Without collecting official feedback, its impossible to make any hooked conclusions on its success. I circulated a Google Form that hosted some cogent questions on my app’s features in some variety. Below is the response summary computed from about 16 people.

I wholeheartedly thank my friends and well-wishers for all the help & support I earned. I appraise their time & effort in walking through my app and lending me priceless feedback.

Here’s the next piece of scroll in the drop-down list.

I stand in a place where I’ve got to thank everybody who’ve lent me your ideas VERBALLY. Of course, I meet up with a lot of people, promoting my app :) I should mention a few names here.

Ganapathy Subramaniam, Supervisor@Ford India called on me amidst his crammed timeline to offer new ideas and opportunities in regard to Android App Dev. He takes it from a common man perspective to suggest some imperative features.

Rohith, Revanth, Sandeep, Akhil & Gautam were a few more who regarded my work, with their time. They were among the very few who heard out my demo in-person and were expressive in all ways possible.

Let’s now take a look at the statistics we’ve got.

The console should’ve been effortless. Please go easy on me, if it didn’t.

How easy was the console to understand and work upon?

There were a lot who frightened me into believing that my idea was no different from Saavan or Gaana. But upon close look, I revealed its uniqueness. Of course, with Saavan, you can connect with friends and share songs, but where is your voice over a song? I mean, can you comment on a song in Saavan? Even with Gaana, its ultimately down to the songs they offer. What if I like a Classic song that is missed out? This way, I assure the singularness of my idea.

Was the app idea new?

The most compelling feature was a Dropbox account.

There were very few who took it to the roads, when it came to adding media files via Dropbox.

Jayaram sir was the pioneer and kept asking me questions that modeled my app’s course in the last few days.

What the Dropbox a tough job?

The app flow was meant to be frictionless. I checked on that with utmost care, though as time passed, my updates didn’t reach a lot of people. They should be fine with the latest version of Crashz.

Did it run fluid?

Some wanted a song delete, others wanted a song edit to be a part of essentials. As said from an earlier blog, this is one and only me building the app. An one-man army can’t manage everything. I needs hands. But, I’ll do my level-best to bring this out in sometime.

Did you like all the features?

This is a tricky question. The Social Platform is the king-maker and the king, Song-Tabs is equally robust. So, no wonder they have no edge over the other.

Which feature you like the best?

I expected a lot more answers on this question, but fortunately, it was an hand-full.

What new features you would like?

1. The first wants me to bank on a new partner. Probably after reading my Climax blog, it should’ve made some sense, as to why I prefer Dropbox over other Cloud Storage Providers.
2. The equaliser is a cool way of configuring song frequencies as you like. Maybe, I should give it a second thought.
3. An audio converter is crucial, because people don’t have .mp3 always. I promote creativity and new ideas via my app. They could be potential singers and bands who may want to share their concert. The recordings typically come in .wav formats. I should be able to play a variety in music formats. I’ll take this up.
4. Deploying on PlayStore was the very last thing I planned to do. When the internship ends and my app’s back-end is recycled at Hasura, then there’s no point in pushing boundaries for all that effort it takes to deploy.
5. Syncing with fb and getting friend’s into my app is a great way of socializing. But, am I ready for handling that huge a data( Guys even have 1000 friends) and managing people with and without Crashz accounts? Google or fb OAuth Logins can be useful in tracking sessions, but integration of that scale is something I’m yet to be ready for.
6. Its an easy process to download the song and save it in your local dir. Its something that people not on an all-time internet would want. I’ll look into this in the coming days.

For all who felt it worth recommending, I’m indebted to you forever.

This question is for you. I provide no inference out of these results.

The End

From this blog, I review each of my app’s feature to some detail, highlighting scope for augmentation wherever possible. I do plan to add some of these in the near future.

But, I’m in the middle of lessons at my college, now that its August. I’ve projects for some big-head courses(Data structures & Algorithms) :) I’ll be refining my action strategy in the coming days, with how I approach projects. Where should I start? Obviously not the design, but the tooling. Then, take one step at a time.

This internship has been a learning outcome unrivaled with anything I’ve ever taken up in my life so far. It taught me, things more than just coding. The essence of a developer, the persistence to never give up, distill your skills, and look for help — from a larger community — until you find your way out.

I promise users with updates worthy of the app’s concept, which they adore, in the imminent days. Though it may fall out of the internship’s scope, I’ve got virtues that seek for a better ‘developer’ in me. I’ll strive to live to that :)

Please find my updated, bug-free, fixed up and all-boarded brand new app here and my source code on github.

Note: If Hasura are ready to sponsor my app for some-more time, I’ll be obliged.

Well then, since I’m into my semester days, I can’t go on writing anymore blog stories. But, this new experience of writing blogs has instilled a new feeling of an author in me. I should groom these skills as well. Bye then. Lets meet up on another different series :)

This app is dedicated to you if you’ve stayed with Crashz till the end :)