The first version to include all of the tweaks that we have been making to COMARKER tm is up on our test server.  More importantly though, COMARKER 1.0 includes a payment module through paypal. The whole package looks pretty rad! That may be because I am so used to seeing the beta, while talking about all the features of the new version, so our users can be the judge. I’ll be making new screen-capture videos over the next few days using Camtasia, so expect to see those in a couple of weeks.  Now back to trying to break it.

The COMARKER™ team is checking things off to do lists at a furious pace.  The sales site promised so many moons ago is finished and so are the first drafts of the screencapture videos that will inhabit that site.  I have uploaded the videos to YouTube and here they are:

A demo of the student account

A demo of the marker account

A demo of the administrator account

The voice you hear is my own. I think that the vidoes are still a little coarse, but they are done. And we are adding new functions so quickly that I’ll have to make new ones by the time we launch anyways. Speaking of product launch dates, stay tuned!

The last post seems downright naive in light of the massive technical hiccups we have experienced since trying to upgrade our document converter. Tatiana, Owen, and myself were up working so late that we couldn’t see straight, trying in vain to upgrade our document converter’s library. It seems that the version of Linux that our server runs is incompatible with our new document converter software. This wouldn’t have been such a problem if we had been able to get the old version restarted again. Major oops! Now I have students complaining, and sending me their documents attached to email instead of using the cut and paste route that we created for just such a contingency. To recover from this, we are going straight to the source, and have hired one of the pros that created document converter. Sean Greenhow…welcome aboard, and godspeed.

Exciting news on the COMARKER tech front! After months of only partial satisfaction with our document converter, we have decided to upgrade to one that can handle the format (the old one can’t handle .docx files, or many of the standard formatting styles that MS Word can produce). The whole thing should be ready to roll out by next week. No longer will students have to remember to save their documents as Word ‘97 to ‘03 files. I know they will be happy about that.

We have arrived at a state of list equilibrium.  A few months ago, we made a list of benchmarks that our program had to pass before we sent invites to our beta testers.  Well, we reached the end of our list last week, and I am not the only one on our small team to remark that it felt strange. The feeling is akin to that cliche, where the novelist tries to resist the inevitability of submitting a completed manuscript to her editor, so it gathers dust in a box on the corner of the writing desk.  The awkwardness is further magnified by our need to explain the workings of the program to our testers.  Novelists have it easy, they can’t explain the inner workings of their art, or they risk looking like pompous jerks.  However, if we fail to adequately instruct our users on the various functions of COMARKER, then they may never use it.  We discussed the beta release in several meetings, but no one ever put up their hand to ask how we will tell our beta testers what to do.

In the interim, we are going to preload all of the beta accounts with test documents that explain COMARKER’s functions.  Beyond that, we will be using a slick piece of video editing software called Camtasia that will give us the power to make screen capture videos and lay down instructional voice-over tracks. These videos will be inserted into the program, for first time users to watch as they explore each of COMARKER’s functions. The crew at 37signals, once again, provides a convincing model; the first time a user signs in to their Basecamp account, they have the option to view instructional videos for the application’s many functions. When I first signed up for Basecamp, it was actually the videos that sold me on putting it to work for our company.
We have worked hard to make the COMARKER web-app easy to use, but first impressions last a long time, and hopefully our approach to online help for first time users will make for a great impression that sticks.

So without further ado, here is the wonderful work that Albert Lan has done for us.  The design reflects the program; it reflects our ideas; it does everything we need it to, while looking clean and beautiful.

Ah... a breath of fresh air!

A Silver Lining

 And now, the waiting game!

In developing the design of our application, we looked closely at other education sites, but more eagerly at successful RIAs like YOUTUBE and FACEBOOK. We felt that COMARKER’s generic appeal would work best if it broke away from currently available education sites and focused more in the zone of SOCIAL NETWORKING.

To capture our design perspective you need to take a look at our application, on which we have spent two years already. Your treatment of the commercial pages should prepare users to encounter the COMARKER application; thus certain design elements should be similar, if not exactly the same. In particular, color-palate choices should harmonize with our core metaphor.

When we describe the application as stripped down, we mean that we have avoided textures and stuck to basic tones. Most of our design critiques of the application resulted in REMOVING elements that were not ‘necessary’ and simplifying processes to make actual work smoother and easier. We aimed for the site to be visually attractive but simple, which of course is the most difficult of all tasks. Your approach to the commercial pages should be similarly ‘practical’ and minimal, and at the same time harmonious with the application.

COMARKER appeals to teachers. Now, I suspect that when most people think of teachers they think of aging (failed) intellectuals upholding dusty traditions, forcing children through dry textbooks toward state-imposed examinations. But COMARKER appeals to teachers, and teachers don’t see themselves as others see them. Instead, try to think of teachers the way they think of themselves.

Continue reading…

Last week our designer, Albert Lan, previewed the designs he was working on for us, and as you will see they were exellent (they are both below).  However both Tom and I felt that they didn’t integrate the core philosphies that have driven the development of our software.

Not Quite There

Not Quite There V.2

So we sent him back to the drawing board, and have just recieved a response that is very nearly a perfect fit.

We have now seen some of the great home-page screenshots that Albert Lan, our designer, has created for us.  They are beautiful, calm and collected, but warm, and with a great sense of proportion.  I am really looking forward to seeing the flash integrations, and then launching. His portfolio is amazing, and we feel very lucky that he has had time and energy to commit to our project.
In other news, our lead programmer, Tatiana Malysheva, has been working on giving the users of our program the option of exporting their documents to PDF once they are finished marking them, or having them marked in COMARKER. This will be a pretty big milestone for us, we have been planning to add this function for some time now, but other issues had always popped up in front of it. You can expect a couple of corks popping when Tom lands after his trip to the Orient.