Joshua Porter

We coded up a very basic one in HTML for ours. (I don't know of any template services.)

The core thing you need is an email signup list. We used Campaign Monitor (http://campaignmonitor.com/), but I've also heard good things about MailChimp (http://www.mailchimp.com/). They'll give you the code for a form. It's really simple, and it outputs to a page of your choice. We had ours output to /thanks.html, and on that page, we had an iframe with a survey from Wufoo (http://wufoo.com). You can see ours in place at https://monotask.com.

So what happens is that the user comes to the page, maybe signs up for a beta account, and then is taken to a survey, where you can gather info about them.

Joshua Porter actually wrote up our approach, here: http://bokardo.com/archives/using-your-sign-up-form-as-a-qualifier/. I don't think I'd seen anyone talk about tacking a survey on after signup before we did it, but it makes sense, right? Interested people sign up. If they've exhibited at least some modicum of interest in your service, get info on how to tailor it to their needs.

Note, on our survey, there's an "ideal pricing" section. If you're planning to charge, you should have this section. It helps your users know that the service won't be free, and it also helps you evaluate their input, so you can see if your pricing model is wildly off from their expectations.

One thing I wish we'd done differently with our survey is to include the user's e-mail address on the survey itself. I know…

There are lots of resources available, but I think following a design process might really help you most at this point.[1] You're going to need to conform the the style and practices of of the larger piece to which your part will fit in. Good design has to be consistent so that the user can have a continuous understanding. From this perspective, might it be possible to generate "working art" and approach the final visual treatment later? Also, for "beautiful" design to shine, usually this involves the removal of all extraneous elements, since good design is really about distillation.

Rough Design Process [2]

1. Discover

- Have you identified your users and the need that you are hoping to solve with this "part/feature"?

- Usually users are broken into different segments, a persona is just like a rough representative sample of the different segments.

- It sounds like you work for a for-profit organization, therefore you must also understand who your stake holders are and what they think the business needs are (they can be wrong and you might have to help correct this).

- Are there already people doing something like what you're trying to do? Not only should you benchmark competitors, you can look for analogous situations in totally different domains and still use this to help inform you.

- Redefine the problem your own way.

- review research claims, scientific literature, external info

2. Ideate
- explore insights

- design objectives

- develop user POV and need…

>You may recall that Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft received the same subpoena but did not fight the Feds in court; they instead quietly complied.

Correction: Microsoft did not turn over the requested information.

http://bokardo.com/archives/microsoft-didnt-give-user-data-to-doj-in-privacy-case-podcast/

“Today, Mehdi added some detail concerning what actually happened when the request from the Government was made. First, the Government had asked for information that could identify people on an individual basis (most likely, an IP address). Microsoft declined this request, and instead handed the Government a watered down version of data, which Mehdi made clear did not include personal information. The information provided by Microsoft, Mehdi said, consisted only of a sample of search terms and their frequency, as well as a random sample of pages in the MSN Search Index.”

Just a minute of research would have led you to this, but of course, that would run counter to your pro-Google bias.

I don't follow any blogs like TechCruch, but here are my favorites (mostly UI, Web, and Python related):

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/al3x

http://www.azarask.in/blog/feed/

http://bokardo.com/feed/atom/

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/chrismahon

http://diveintomark.org/feed/

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/garrettdimoncom

http://jacobian.org/feed/

http://www.holovaty.com/rss/

http://feeds.feedburner.com/JohnResig

http://minima.soup.io/rss

http://joegrossberg.com/paulgraham.rss

http://www.randsinrepose.com/index.xml

http://feeds.simonwillison.net/swn-everything

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/atom.xml

http://feeds.feedburner.com/b-list-entries

http://python-history.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

http://zedshaw.com/feed.xml

Was it just me or did anyone else think of "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell? The author of this article implicitly assumes that all the participants of the game come from similar cultural backgrounds.

Read: http://bokardo.com/archives/what-malcolm-gladwells-book-outliers-can-teach-us-about-interface-design/

Some cultures, e.g. Colombian or South Korean, are more geared towards respecting authority than other cultures, e.g. New Yorkers. A collision of two such disparate cultures can result in disasters such as Flight 052:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Avianca_Flight_52

More details about the Power Distance Index (PDI): http://www.maximizingutility.com/2009/06/culture-clash-power-distance-index.html

How to Write Great Microcopy - http://huffduffer.com/thinkvitamin/22025

Basecamp landing page breakdown - http://www.unmatchedstyle.com/gallery/basecamphqcom.php

Using your Sign-Up Form as your Qualifier - http://bokardo.com/archives/using-your-sign-up-form-as-a-qualifier/

Mike McDermott talks Web App Marketing Metrics - http://carsonified.com/blog/business/mike-mcderment-of-freshbooks-on-web-app-marketing-metrics/

Seven Steps to Remarkable Customer Service - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html

Obviously there are alot more but these are the ones I've saved in Evernote to go back to.