Yesterday we posted about how we prompt for an upgrade when someone hits the 5 page limit on their free Backpack account.
Old vs. New
The old version of Backpack always had the upgrade notice. We felt that was a little too in your face. The new version of Backpack only prompted when you hit the page limit. We felt that was more polite.
New too abrupt?
However, some of the feedback suggested that only prompting when someone hits the page limit was a bit startling and abrupt. There’s no warning, it just hits ya. No more pages for you!
New new
We agree that the abruptness can be a little harsh. But we also don’t like the way we used to do it where the upgrade notice was there all the time. So what we’ve done is implement a “you’re close” notice.
This shows up once you’ve created your third page. “You’re close” lets you know a limit is near, but you’re not there yet.
Funny story… When I asked the guys if they could hook this up we realized that we already had it hooked up but we never turned it on! So we tweaked the language a bit and flipped the switch. And now we’re live.
Joshua Kaufman
on 08 Aug 07Much improved. Thanks for listening, Jason.
Luis
on 08 Aug 07Goes to show the you can always improve on improvement.
Kyle Pike
on 08 Aug 07Deja vu.
karl
on 08 Aug 07Did you already write tomorrow’s post about how you added a calculation which tells people HOW CLOSE to their five page limit they are?
Paul
on 08 Aug 07Nice tip in for mentioning the calendar feature, too.
Ken Walker
on 08 Aug 07Awesome, guys. Much cleaner layout.
Sooooo…think you’ll be adding OpenID to Campfire any time soon? Just asking. :)
Henrik Lied
on 08 Aug 07Hm, I just created my first page, but the “You’re on the free plan and close to your 5 page limit”-box is still there. Why?
Pat Maddox
on 08 Aug 07Have you thought about something like, “2 pages remaining” like gmail does with their invites?
Ebstar
on 08 Aug 07Sounds a bit like the ‘Last 5 Rizzla’ slip you get in a pack of rolling papers – such a good idea all the brands of rolling paper do it now.
JF
on 08 Aug 07Have you thought about something like, “2 pages remaining” like gmail does with their invites?
Yup, we may do that, but this was the quickest win so we launched as is.
Kim Siever
on 08 Aug 07Certainly better. As I mentioned in the previous post’s comments, I agree with Pat’s suggestion.
MarkB
on 08 Aug 07Hey, nice to see you took my advice. I take payment for my consultancy by cheque, money order… ;)
Seriously, I like this much better. Great work fellas.
Fabio Papa
on 08 Aug 07Hi guys,
A small suggestion: when all five pages have been used up, how about placing the yellow sticky in a way that it overlaps the “make a new page” button. Some users might just look for the button and get frustrated when they don’t find it. Partially covering the button with the note would instantly tell the user that things are different this time, but it would still give the user the familiarity of seeing the button in the same place they’ve always looked for it.
Nicolás Sanguinetti
on 09 Aug 07Hmmm, heh, I might be the ugly duckling, but it has become much more violent this way for me :-/
See, I’m only using 3 pages (one for stuff at work, one to handle my D&D house rules, and other for the current campaign I’m running), and I don’t plan on adding new pages soon. I might do so in a couple weeks, but not yet, so I have to see the banner all the time I’m using my backpack.
It would only take a “hide me”, like the welcome tab, and you could re show it every time I add a page, so I can know for sure how it goes?
Just a suggestion. Other than that the new backpack has been great :)
Tomasz Gorski
on 09 Aug 07Brilliant idea Nicolas. Thanks for very interesting article. btw. I really enjoyed reading all of your articles. It’s interesting to read ideas, and observations from someone else’s point of view… makes you think more. Keep up the good work. Greetings
paul
on 09 Aug 07kind of seems like common sense, no? I guess it can be hard to see that sort of thing sometime though.
Michael
on 09 Aug 07Broken link to yesterday’s post…
Andkjaer
on 09 Aug 07I like the new friendly well timed tone ;O). But I wonder a bit. In all this talk about friendly design, I wonder why we have to scroll back to the beginning of an article to give a comment?
Wouldn’t it be easier and more user friendly with a “Post a comment” button at the top and bottom of the article?
Maybe OnClick it should Show/Hide the comment form?
NB: I love your work… :O)
Karim
on 09 Aug 07I’m on the paid plan and reached my limit and the message says “The free plan only includes 5 pages…”
Seth
on 10 Aug 07Great strategy. In fact, I like it so much that I’ve been doing it from day one on Cashboard :)
It’s stuff like this that really impresses your customers.
Alex
on 10 Aug 07I’ve been using backpack for several years now (for some of that time I had a payed account) but currently I have a free account because five pages is all I need. I find it pretty irritating that the page limit warning never goes away—I know I’m at my limit and I could get more, but I don’t need more right now.
Maybe you could have the warning disappear after a few days/logins of being at the page limit? Or at least have a smaller less in-your-face warning (Simply “Upgrade for more pages” instead of the old button, rather than a giant yellow square every time I log in?).
Mimo
on 11 Aug 07I use stylish to let it dissappear :-)
Dustin
on 11 Aug 07@Mimo: Ditto.
Dugu
on 11 Aug 07Awesome guys. Really love the calendar feature.
javima
on 12 Aug 07Is my web in spain, news in the word ,in spanish, and meteorological weather in europe, for you only :-)
David Chartier
on 13 Aug 07Great compromise. I love it, and I love the fact that you actually take the time to consider these issues (at least publicly) and put real thought into how to address them.
mauricio giraldo
on 14 Aug 07do you guys use photoshop/fireworks/whatever when working on your designs or do you go vi/notepad/whatever straight ahead? do those tools apply for these small changes?
This discussion is closed.