launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Jonathan Lange <jml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Martin Pool <mbp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> rememberthemilk.com (a todo list web app) did something nice today to
> announce some new features (see attached): a dismissable dialog on the
> home page with a link to it.  It would be neat if Launchpad did this,
> tastefully, when important changes happen.  Because Launchpad is a
> much larger app, it might have to do something only visible to users
> viewing the relevant app.  This connects a bit to the 'site-wide
> notifications' idea, which is meant to handle 'Launchpad will be
> readonly in 20 minutes for an upgrade'.
>
> More generally I like the way they do this compared to the way
> Launchpad announces releases:
>
>  * giving it a name that summarizes the main feature (maybe we should
> do this for bazaar too)
>  * emphasizing "new features are available" over "2.3 is released",
> and summarizing them in one sentence
>  * telling people about it within the website, rather than through a
> separate list or blog


Yeah, I like this. I think the pop-up approach fits particularly well
with RTM's normal usecases. When you go to the site, you always go to
_your_ home page, much like Facebook.

The underlying principle here is orienting the communication around
what actually helps the user (the features), rather than some internal
implementation detail (the releases).

jml