Yummelier

Although I had a version of the backend API done a couple of years ago (!), it was a rookie version. I had very little experience with Laravel at the time, so make plenty of mistakes and the result was a patchwork of copy and paste solutions that I didn’t really understand. 🤦‍♂️

After a good code scan and enough frustration after trying to update all dependencies to current versions, I gave up. It was easier to start from a fresh copy of Laravel and build only the minimal feature set that the app requires.

And so I did. It took me six long nights to get here 💪, but I got it working in a simple codebase that I understand and feel comfortable with.

There’s surely more to be added on the backend once I start building the frontend. I still need to build the admin panel. I’m good friends with Terminal.app but I prefer a more visual and user-friendlier tool. I’m going to use Laravel Nova for that. Used it before on a much more complex project and loved the simplicity of it.

For now, this will do as a backend. Next stop is UI redesign or, probably, UI realign is more fitting 🧐. The work done many moons ago is still valid from a UX perspective, but needs tweaks to align with current market needs and expectations. So, next stop is UI stuff 🦄.

See you next week.

It’s the middle of February, so it should still be ok to start a New Year goal. Right? 😬

I’ve been wanting to launch this project for years but haven’t taken the commitment seriously enough to make it a priority.

So this is the year. I’m going to follow my own advice and launch Yummelier. I’ll also be applying my MVP in one month method to create something small and useful with a time constraint (yeah, shameless plug 🔌). Which means by the start of March a new product will be online.

My usual problem has been not setting time aside to work on this regularly. Fortunately, I have clients that pay me for work on office hours, so this is a side project done late at night, as I find time around my 👶kid with a Southern European schedule (ie, rarely in bed before 10pm). Not making excuses, just being real with expectations.

It’s only been four years since I started working on this side project. 😅 The last time I posted here was just a year after that… Yep, I can hear 💩"Shame! Shame! Shame!" in the background.

In essence, this means a lot of the work done, is now ancient and broken.

The UX still feels solid but the UI needs a little work. The backend is small and still works but will benefit from a good refresh to keep security and privacy in check. Anything Javascript from 3 weeks ago is already outdated. So the React frontend from 3 years ago? Well… it’s not even worth looking into. I’ll start that from scratch.

So the plan is to work, work, work and update you on progress, every week. You can follow progress on the website, on Twitter and here on IndieHackers.

See you soon.

Summer! Won’t last much longer. Yet it’s time for another long-due update.

Already 6 months went by and I didn’t write any journal updates. I’ve been working on a client project which consumed much of my daily dose of available focus and yes, I’ve been a little lazy.

In a more positive light, I’ve started building a prototype. Yey!

Started with the backend API. Since I’m more comfortable with PHP and Laravel, decided to go it for this product. It’s a stable framework with well-written documentation and a large community to support. Yes, it’s PHP yadda yadda yadda, but I’m sure no alternative is perfect.

On the frontend, decided this was a great project to do a full dive in React. I’ve done some little “apps” here and there, but nothing serious to go into production. So this is it. Also, this sounds like a reason as good as any to try React Native, if I end up releasing this as a native app for Android and iOS.

Detour: in the past 4 months I also built an Angular 2 web app hooked to a Laravel API and enjoyed it, especially coming from an AngularJS background, but I need to test the waters and see what else is out there. Being a freelance developer also means I have to remain relevant to the market needs if I want to keep doing this independently.

So there you have it, a “quick” update on the current state.

If you want early access to this app, just request an invite on the website.

Back to work!

Hello 2017!

It’s been 6 months since I started putting the first UX ideas on paper and considering the product viability. Between work, travel and Christmas got this delayed a lot. (Laaaaazy!)

Anyway…!

Today started designing the interface with a mobile-first responsive approach. Following the assumption that this product will be used primarily on mobile phones either on the street looking for places to eat, or already looking at the food menu.

And no, this does not mean mobile-first, desktop-worst. I’m aware of too many web apps that look great on mobile but then just carry over the design solutions and stretch them horizontally to fill a larger screen (eg: hamburger menu).

In matters of tools, for UI design I’m using Sketch (Obviously! I never used Photoshop for UI work. Went directly from Fireworks to Sketch. Anyone else?). And for prototyping, I’m using InVision* with the Craft plugin for Sketch. It makes user testing and iterating design so much easier.

Again, I’m feeling rusty on my design chops and keep learning loads with the whole process of creating this digital product for my new business. And as with any new business, it’s an experiment that can go both ways on the scale of success.

Now, back to work!

Now that I got the brand basics right-ish, it’s time to focus on the app itself.

Maybe because I prefer the Android side, I’m also leaning towards a more material design approach to the app interface.

I like most of the UX solutions provided and believe it’s a solid working foundation. So yes, I’m using some of the material design ideas but want to avoid just copying over from Google.

Picked up the notebook where I scribbled and sketched some initial layout ideas back in July. Revised the ideas, kept the ones that still align with the vision and scrapped everything else. Then I sketched it all again in a much cleaner and real version of what the app needs to be.

I’m glad I never went through the old days of UX documentation and skipped ahead to the startup world and lean UX, where everything is in constant flux and never set in stone.

It’s not always easy, but it keeps me (agile) on my toes. It also forces me to be more acceptant of change and even being OK with scrapping days-worth of work. Something I would (really) not be happy about some years back.

I’ll keep sketching away.

Lately, I’ve been getting more interested in traditional methods of design. Using again just my hands, paper and pencil. And eraser. A lot of erasing. But it’s been fun, above all.

Nice hand lettering and calligraphy is something I’ve lost throughout my digital years. So I’ve been learning and practising enough of lettering that I even started felling muscle pains on my writing hand. The digital world has been rotting me. Anyway…! I digress.

All this to say that I’m following a more natural/organic lettering for the brand logo but the brand colours are less natural and more exciting.

I’m biased, but it’s looking good. At least I’m getting (mostly) positive feedback from a crop of the logo posted on my Instagram and Dribbble accounts. I know, I know, confirmation bias and all, but should be on the right path.

Famous last words? Let’s hope not.

Started reviewing ideas yesterday, but only today started working on the brand.

First things first: decide the name.
Ran a selection of names through friends and family to avoid only English-natives. Got VERY different opinions on the same names and confirmed that early feedback on work in progress is a good thing. Helps filter out the wheat from the chaff and it all boiled down to a couple of options.

And the winner is Yummelier! Yup.
Resulting from Yum + Sommelier, as in someone (or something) you would ask for advice on great food/taste pairings.

Luckily, the name is unique enough (for better or worst) that I managed to grab the .com domain plus the matching real estate on major social networks. Woohoo!

Now on to building the visual brand.

I have to say that I’ve been reading what seems like a good book on the topic called Build a brand in 30 days. With this book (so far) I’ve learned that deciding the name was definitely not the first thing to do. There’s plenty more thinking and exercises to do when creating a brand. Now I might have to fudge it a little bit.

The project’s Trello board keeps growing.

In the last couple of days, I added acceptance criteria to all the user stories, making them easier to understand and test the requirements later. The acceptance criteria are just a short to-do list with all the things that need to happen to enable the user story.

Next was grouping the user stories into user journeys.
By creating sequences of user stories we can see the shortest path required to complete a task as a single user journey. A nice tool to help prioritise what should I act on first.

I think I’ve done enough planning for now.

To learn more about user journeys, I suggest reading the book Lean UX.

Crap. It’s been a while. Between family visiting and joyful weekends, ended up getting sidetracked for a couple of weeks.

But today was a productive day. Back to work on lean planning. Mainly writing epics and breaking them down into user stories.

This is usually the product owner's role, so I’m wearing that hat today. To keep things clear and easy, using my go-to hammer for organising lists: Trello.

As I mentioned in the last post, there are four personas defined at this stage of the product: Sarah (the foodie), Luigi (the chef), Jeff (the young dad) and the Owner / Admin / Support (me!).

Sarah is so far the most demanding persona. Alone she owns 47% of the user stories I wrote. I think she’ll keep me busy for the upcoming months.

To learn more about UX personas, I suggest reading the book Lean UX.

Aaah, planning! Do you know that saying "rather spend most of the time defining the problem and only a tiny fraction solving it"? The one usually attributed to Einstein (even though there’s no evidence he actually said it)?

As much as I like that idea, I usually have to force myself to think and plan a solution instead of just doing it. This helps set constraints and objectives that, in the end, also help to avoid procrastination (as much as possible, anyway).

Because I believe this project can be turned into a profitable business, I’m going to invest some time in proper product development with a lean approach.

Earlier this year, when I started to put together the ideas for this app, I also created a lean canvas (sort of a visual business plan) and "run the numbers" on a fancy spreadsheet. This gave me a clear roadmap (albeit with a lot of assumptions) that helped me decide to explore this idea further.

So today I defined a few UX personas. This will help me create more empathy with the possible users and better understand the needs that will have to be addressed in the product.

After a few good hours, ended up with 4 personas: Luigi (the chef), Sarah (the foodie), Jeff (the young dad) and the internal admins.

Next stop: epics and user stories.

If you want to learn more about the topics mentioned, I suggest you read these books: The Lean Startup and Lean UX. Optionally, to better understand the Lean Canvas, I suggest reading Business Model Generation.