Your ideas
Posted January 11, 2006 by jb under under Uncategorized
I’ve got a ton of new users (thanks Lifehacker. So there’s never been a better time to ask – how can I make this site better? What features/functions/services should it provide?
I know that registering is a pain, but I am wary of comment spam (I get a ton of it on Indefinite Articles).
Main Site
January 11th, 2006 at 6:26 pm
test comment 1.
January 11th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
test comment 2
January 11th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Good idea. I’m thinking of publishing a graph (assuming that’s OK) on my weblog to track progress in my diet – you know, under the thinking that people who publicly commit to their goals are more likely to reach them.
Some suggestions:
Allow users to define the spacing of the gridlines. For example, my first data point was 254.5, and the second 201. From these data points the graph chose to put gridlines at 252, 189, 126, 63, and zero. I’d really rather see even multiples of 50: 250, 200, etc.
Allow users to choose a bias level. My target weight is 205, so all my data points are going to occur between 255 and 205 (unless I completely cave in and begin gaining weight beyond my starting weight). So I’d like to be able to have the graph start at 200 and run up through 255 or so, with gridlines at 250, 240, 230, etc.
I’ve written plotting code myself, so I know these can be tricky points if you have to choose reasonable valus automatically. However, you could always make them user-entered preferences. Rails should make that easy.
Thanks for a nice site.
–Jim
January 12th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Right. Registering is a pain. How about making the service available for non-registered users, but they don’t get a permanent website, only the graph image? Then you throw the graph away, no problem, no spam.
January 12th, 2006 at 11:14 am
Jim – you’re welcome to put the graph on your site. THat’s the idae.
dlg – that’s an interesting point. I’ll have to think on it more.
John
January 12th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
Remote updating…
XML-RPC, or some sort of simple HTTP GET update service, that would allow people to update their Bellygraph graphs from within their web scripts or whatever in an automated fashion.
Obviously the risk is in making is possible for other people to update your graph maliciously. This might be avoided with a manually configured codeword system. To enable remote access you submit a secondary password and get a MD5 sum back which you include as an auth key in your HTTP/XMLRPC request.
Also, Multiple data entry – when setting up an initial graph for example, you might want to add many data values in one go.
And, finally, configurable Horizontal axis, so that it’s not necessarily days – it could be other time scales, or an arbitary number sequence.
January 14th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
[...] A kind stranger volunteered to produce a new design template for the site, that should come up next week. I’ve gotten some great ideas on how to improve the service, as well as a couple of snarky comments. But all in all, this has been about as good of a week as I could have hoped for. [...]
January 23rd, 2006 at 9:02 pm
How about sending me an email each day which I reply to with the value for my graph?
From:bellygraph@bellygraph.com
Subject: How much do you weigh today?
Obviously not as cool as an automated XML-RPC, or some sort of simple HTTP GET update service, but for the non-techies, it might be a way to keep the graphs current.
January 25th, 2006 at 1:20 am
Hey! I got an idea after my daily visit to your site. I saw one of the public graphs and saw one guy/gal losing weight after about 5 months. I wanted to say: “Way to go! Keep at it!” I know this is not an essential feature but seems like a good idea. 43things.com uses it with “cheers”, but of course, they dont have graphs! Would be cool to have a community type experience here at Bellygraph. Anyway, your site is saving my life. Thanks!
January 27th, 2006 at 5:11 am
Don’t know if anyone has already suggested this. But, it would be nice to set a Goal Date for accomplishing the Goal. I didn’t see it when I just set up a goal.
Thanks,
Pete Gordon
February 12th, 2006 at 3:01 am
This one’s pretty obvious if you’ve been using the site since its inception — a key next feature is the ability to “zoom” graphs in and out by date.
There are a bunch of ways to do this. I think I’d like to see a rolling 30 day graph, plus the ability to choose any month. Of course, entry of a date range for graphing would be cool too.
-rick
March 16th, 2006 at 7:21 am
Mother Superior: “Sister Maria, if you were walking through town at night, and were accosted by a man with bad intentions, what would you do?”
“I would lift my habit, Mother Superior.”
Mother Superior (shocked): “And what would you do next?”
Sister Maria: “I would tell him to drop his trousers.”
Mother Superior (even more shocked): “And what then?”
Sister Maria: “I would run away. I can run much faster with my habit up than he can with his trousers down.”
June 20th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
A thought… When adding and the list of data comes up, it’d be nice to have it sorted in *reverse* order. That way the most recent entries – the ones that you’ve most recently added or edited – would come up first. It makes more sence to show most recently used entries first so you don’t need to scroll down to find them when the list is long.
And while I’m at it, I’d like to have two graphs superimposed. For instance, I use bar graphs to track my hours each week and it’s be great to have a week-total graph behind the days (different scales, the second graphs totals off to the right).
June 20th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Those are both great ideas. I’m starting to work on the multi-graph capability shortly. The sorting is a minor change.
Thanks!
July 14th, 2006 at 2:12 am
I notice that “custom dates?” only appears when you edit the graph details – not when you first set up the graph
Was going to point out on a forum I use the various options – but telling them they have to go back and edit after creating a graph is a bit awkward.
thanks
July 14th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Stephen,
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll see what I can do to add custom dates to the initial graph creation.
jb
July 17th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
How about allowing multiple metrics on the same graph? That way you can track multiple actuals against the same baseline (and possibly multiple baselines). For instance, if you and your buddy were going to compare progress to see who reaches their goal first to win a bet. Or if you just want to track different ‘types’ of the same metric, like batting average during day games and batting average during night games.
July 17th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Yeah, I definitely have some ideas on how to do multiple metrics, but it’s going to take a little while to update the code.
September 13th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
+2 to multiple metrics ( the +2 includes a friend, see below).
+1 email me the graph periodically.
+1 method to send data programatically (email, sms, api, etc.)
A buddy and I are trying to help each other by turning the learning of a new habit into a competition. It would be great for us to be able to enter our individual data on the graph to compare. This doesn’t necessarily force you to handle multiple users per graph. This could easily be accomplished with the multiple metrics (one of us would be responsible for updating the graph).
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I’d love an iGoogle widget for belly graphs. I’m not a web developer so I don’t know what’s involved in that. But I have a couple other tools from Lifehacker on my google page and it’s nice to see all that data together.
Thanks for the great tool by the way! keep going and you may get bought for billions