Early stage companies are constantly evolving their product to fit the market they operate in. They reach customers to keep them engaged using a high magnitude vector that contributes to their success. Architecting the communications strategy for your product thus becomes an important problem to tackle, which in turn can cause second-order effects like having to trade off the speed of product development iterations.
Making sure your software and its documentation is accessible is not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do—and it’s actually not that difficult. An accessible product is as usable as possible for everyone, regardless of their physical and cognitive abilities. For example, blind people should be able access your documentation with a screen reader, and neurologically atypical people shouldn’t be distracted by flashing screens, pop-ups, or carousels.
Notifications are good for user experience. There, I said it. The word “notification” might conjure images of annoying interruptions for your users, but it should also remind them of moments where they were quietly guided to a more desirable experience. Notifications can guide users through key setup steps in onboarding, reward a positive interaction, and encourage exploration.
Getting noticed on Product Hunt is a start-up founder's dream, but it’s not an easy task. There’s only one chance at listing a specific domain, so it can’t be a short sighted attempt. The internet is a web of communication, and depending on how it is used, teams can effectively notify their communities about their Product Hunt launch.
When I Googled “what is GraphQL” to learn more about the network protocols, all I saw was a comparison between REST and GraphQL. Most of the conclusions said, “use GraphQL.” It felt very binary (and trendy, for that matter), which is a problem because each product and use-case is unique. The fact is, whatever is newest and shiniest gets recommended more loudly. But you have to weigh the trade-offs and come up with a solution that is best for your situation.
As a product engineer, you likely understand the value of incorporating notifications functionality into your Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Here's what you can accomplish by building notifications: Drive engagement. Notifications inform customers that there’s something going on in your application that’s worthy of their attention. Timely notifying your audience about valuable content or interactions with other users is great for building trust and engagement.
Did you know that email subjects, by default, only support 127 characters?! I didn’t, and I ran into a “fun” puzzle of a problem earlier this year when a client of ours noticed a problem with Courier-built emails in Microsoft Outlook. Small rendering issues and bugs like this can give the wrong impression to a recipient of an email. It can make the end user feel the product they are using is poorly planned or not tested.
Having been at startups my entire career, I’ve encountered the dichotomy between speed and scale when building software products.The usual attitude entrepreneurs take when building the first iterations of their products is “...we aren’t anywhere close to facing problems of scale, so let’s worry about that when we get there.” This first version of the software is built and shipped fast, and it’s only a matter of time before engineers realize that they simply don’
Every month, Developer Advocate Aydrian Howard brings together a team of Courier engineers on Courier Live to discuss which updates recently made it into production, what is happening with the features in beta, and what to expect from the product and team in the near future.
Back in early 2018, I embarked on a side gig with a few partners - the idea was to make ridesharing socially engaging and fun. We made a ton of mistakes and never really got the product off the launchpad, however in retrospect, the biggest mistakes we made were wasting precious time in writing code for authentication and authorization as well as user notifications. We learned to focus on customer value the hard way.
