Your plans to develop and offer a product for keeping people motivated
is of great interest to me, as I have been trying to ghetto my own
ways to use the tools and resources at hand to provide an ongoing
motivational tool for myself over the past few months. A product with
the same quality as in your main product would be just wonderful.
(I'm motivated just thinking about it.) With that in mind, here are
my random suggestions for you to consider in continuing this effort:
1. The main problem I find with the motivational stuff now out there
is that they take a rather generic approach to motivation, which is
inconsistent with the audience, who frequently have specific
motivational needs. (i.e.; telling someone not to give up because
"they're fighting the good fight and everyone will see it soon." can
work for someone who's frustrated with negative results and is close
to giving up. But, for the person who has lost confidence as to
whether they've assessed the situation correctly after all; that type
of motivation creates confusion and increases anxiety rather than
resolution. True, generic creates larger initial sales, but including
flexibility in the content and/or mechanics will ensure better word-of-
mouth, repeat sales, and of course, higher rates of motivation (which
is what we're doing here, right?)
2. Remember, receiving motivation is not the real issue with most
people...it's receiving the right kind of motivation, at the right
time, and continuing until the person can self-motivate later. Allow
the user to customize things like:
(a) the "strength" of the motivation (deep or breezy);
(b) the aggressiveness of the motivation (constant or nudging);
(c) which motivational action is used at different times or in
different situations.
(d) what kinds of feedback metrics are meaningful for their
personality and how the programs nudges the user on them;
3. Like it or not; some of the users looking for "motivation", really
are just looking for additional ways to continue avoiding competent
counseling. Keep that in mind when deciding how much effort goes into
this. There are plenty of "let's all gather 'round the campfire and
sing 'Cum-ba-ya" products out there already and this is a sincere and
serious need. Make sure your product comes across as worth the user's
emotional investment, not just their financial one.
4. Make it visually-friendly (!!!). I love the MLO product and will
convert to the paid version any day now, but it is definitely
intimidating to the casual Joe and Jane off of the street, and not
very intuitive. No big deal with that product, but it could spell
death for a product being sold to people who are already intimidated
by life in some way or another. (Why in the hell, would someone pay
for MORE headaches?) I strongly suggest getting additional input when
designing the GUI for this. As an example of what I'm talking about,
compare your product to Llamagraphic's "Life Balance" product (which
is what I'll be switching from). Your product is clearly more
flexible, functional, and adaptable than Life Balance, but the GUI on
Life Balance is far and away more friendly than that used in yours.
I realize these comments are more "deep" than you might have been
looking for, but like I said, this topic is near-and-dear to my
heart. Hope this helps...
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