beyond the whiteboard

We just rolled out a big update for the admin section. We plan to roll out incremental updates for this section over the next two weeks, but are really excited to get the ball rolling. Our goal was to show relevant data about your gym without overloading you with information, and we think we accomplished this task.

Month View

A gym admin now sees a high-level view of their gym. By default we show a month view which contains the number of new members, workout posts, goals, meals, weigh ins, and journal entries for each day. The admin can see more detail by clicking on any of these categories.

Filters

The detail view for any category has the following filters to help find data quickly.
1. Start and End Date
2. Last Name (Letter)
3. Member Name (List)
4. Member Attributes (Sex, Age Range)

Member Administration

We also made member administration better. It’s even simpler to create, suspend, remove, and invite members to your gym. It’s simple and straightforward.

Sync Data

We’re really excited about this feature, and plan to do upgrade this a lot over the next few weeks. You can now view the workout posts your users push to their facebook (twitter soon) profiles. Take part in facebook conversations started in your gym, with, hopefully, future clients.

Thanks again for all the feedback guys. We appreciate it.

Say Hi To Me On Facebook

Since Corey and I became friends we enjoyed solving problems, and saw the web as the greatest medium to do so. The problem was we worked full time and didn’t get to tackle a lot of the solutions that we talked about. A few years ago we decided to start our own development company. We had one simple rule, only work on projects we believe in. This is a lot easier said then done. We had to turn down offer after offer, because we weren’t passionate about them. However, we were fortunate enough to work on some really cool projects, and get the company going. One day we started working on beyond the whiteboard, because we got insanely passionate about Crossfit. I’m not going to go into the story of how beyond the whiteboard got started, but if you would like to read about it check out the about us page from beyondthewhiteboard.com.

Over the years we have noticed how Crossfit started to effect our work style. The more we Crossfit, the better code we write. Weird huh? Well, a lot has to with us being passionate about our project. I spend most of my day either working on the site or discussing/arguing about features with the rest of our team. However, something else thas happened; Crossfit changed our mentality.

1. We take it a day(WOD) at a time. We don’t think too much into the future or worry about the past. We get together and try to do as much as we can that day. Our WOD programming is “Update the user profile for time”.

2. We measure our performance, and make the results open to the rest of the team. From to-do list to milestone completions. We don’t micro manage each other. Everyone knows what to do and they get it done.

3. We are comfortable with being uncomfortable(I think this is a paraphrase of something Speil said). When we run into bugs in our code we don’t go crazy and just give up. We take a small breather, and get back at it.

4. We perfect our form. Yes, form. There are good programming practices, but to us it’s “form”. When one of us writes sloppy code they are called out for it. The idea is to create features in the shortest amount of time, but not sacrifice form. Why? In Crossfit bad form on a lift well eventually catch up with you when the load/weight is heavy enough. In programming, bad form will eventually catch up with you when you have to update some of your code. In both cases, as the “load” gets heavier bad form shows, and hurts you, more.

5. We never settle for good enough. Like Crossfit, our work is a lifestyle choice. Our intention isn’t to build a site and let it sit there. We actively try to make it better day by day. Just as you don’t see yourself giving up Crossfit, we can’t see ourselves giving up working on the site. It’s something we love doing, something that makes our life better.

6. It’s okay to throw up sometimes. Somedays you are going to suck. I mean suck. You will sandbag a workout and be mad at yourself. What do you do? Brush it off and make it up tomorrow.

Personally, I think the Crossfit mentality should be used in different aspects of your life, from fitness to programming(code). The question is, do you go into work and tell yourself you are going to set a PR that day? If you don’t, it may be time to question why.

Say Hi To Corey On Facbeook

Say Hi To Me(Moe) On Facbeook

This week we want to to a big upgrade to the administration section of beyond the whiteboard. Each gym generates data everyday and we want to build an easy to use interface to interact with the data. The difficulty lies in information overload. I hate interfaces that throw a bunch of information out on the screen and leave it up to the user to figure things out. These are some ideas we are working with.

Curb Information Overload

1. Use the month view to show user activity in a gym. Number of workouts posted, weigh ins, goals, etc. This way an admin can view what is happening at their gym without having to think too much.
2. Each item is clickable and will drill down to a detail view.

Filters

1. On the detail view the admin should be able to filter by various attributes. Name(Letter), Name(autocomplete), Gender, Age, New Member, Active Member, Non-Active.
2. In some cases extra filters will need to be used. For example, goals will need “achieved”, “active”, “expired/failed”.

Feedback

We don’t want to give away too much in this blog because we really want to hear back from you guys first. Here is a quick screenshot of what we have going. Disclaimer, lots will change by the end of the week.

First, we want to thank everyone for the great feedback we got last week for the goals feature. After reading all the comments and emails we made some key decisions.

1. No limit on Goals for now. We’ll see how things go for a while. All goals will have an expiration date, for now. However, you can set this date to 1 year from now if you like to set long term goals.
2. A user should be able to go to one place and add multiple goals.
3. Admins should be able to add goals for their gym members.
4. Failed goals, for now, are only visible to the user and their gym admin.
5. The user interface has to be simple and not overwhelming. A user should be able to view their goals in separate section as well on their profile. After you accomplish a goal it will stay on your calendar, but will be crossed out. Also, when you hover over a goal on the calendar you can see quick details.

Hope everyone enjoys the feature.

We recently noticed that users are setting goals exponentially better then there current result. For example, a person with a 12 minute Fran is setting a goal for a sub 3 minute Fran. Is that a goal or a dream? We think realistic goals are ones that you can achieve within a month or two. Although we like our goals feature we realize something has to be done. Below are some thoughts we are using to redesign and restructure the goals feature.

Time Based

Decide when you are going to achieve your goal. We think this will help set more realistic goals. You have to get to point “B” before you go from point “A” to point “C”. When you set a goal you should keep that in mind. There has to be a point where you either achieved or failed your goal.

Simple Design, But Constant Reminder

-Show goals on user’s calendar
-Coach/Trainer can see and set goals
-There should be one place where a user can view and set goals.

Goals Limit (Need Input From You Guys)

We have been discussing this and going back and forth. We feel that it’s counter productive to set too many goals. The idea is to set goals, achieve them and then set more. We are leaning towards 5 goals (not including days worked out per week and weight/lean mass). This way, depending on your privacy, your trainer and other members can see what you are concentrating on and encourage you. We would love to hear your thoughts on this.

We update the site once a week and will roll this feature out either this friday night or next friday night. Why? Well, according to our stats, you probably don’t work out on friday night.

Development Screen Shots (Final product will be different)

As many of you have noticed we launched our new support system over the weekend, and have already gotten great feedback. Being on the beyond the whiteboard team means you respond to support. We don’t see it as a task that one person should do. We can’t expect our team members to know what beyond the whiteboard users are thinking if they don’t interact with them.

We read and discuss all feedback you guys send, and truly appreciate it. I recently started a conversation about a design approach we recently implemented. We now display a smiley when members beat their previous result and a frown when they don’t. By no means are we trying to interpret a result. The icon is a design approach that we feel helps a user visually distinguish PRs from Non PRs. In fact, we have privacy controls, at both the user and gym level, for all posts(meals, weigh ins, workout results, etc).

After some thought I realized our design approach had a lot to do with our view of how a community is organized at a box. We see a Crossfit Box as a community of people who understand that you have to acknowledge a weakness before you can overcome it. We feel being more open with a weakness, among other gym members, is a good approach. Members feel more comfortable working out next to someone they know they can’t catch, because everyone already knows and is comfortable with each other’s fitness level. In fact, the open approach is rooted from writing everyone’s result on the whiteboard. Globo gym’s have the exact opposite effect. Many of my Globo Gym friends have told me, “I’m not in good enough shape to go to the gym.” There will be times when you are injured, sick or lazy, and you should add such items to the notes field when posting a new result. In general, you shouldn’t feel discouraged. You are Crossfitting, which means you are light years ahead of most people.

Crossfit Kinnick takes the open community approach. Jon Kinnick, Jeremy Kinnick and Jake Mannion have built an environment where everyone is comfortable and honest with their current fitness level. We talk about it openly and encourage each other to improve. For example, I used to suck at ring dips. I started doing some extra dips before workouts and now can bust out 12 strict pretty easily. It’s not where I want to be but it’s better then where I was at. When I first started doing more dips, I didn’t worry about only doing 5 and someone noticing. Everyone already knew I sucked at dips and encouraged me do keep putting in work.

So we personally feel the smile or frown is a motivator. It says “hey keep up the good work” or “better luck next time”. It gives your community a chance to encourage you and keep you on the path to achieve your goals. If everyone hates the smiley/frown face feature then we’ll take it down. We’re not prideful, and want to build what the community wants.

Again, we love the feedback guys.

We are happy to introduce our new support system. We take our feedback and support very seriously, and look forward to discussing different aspects of the site with you our members.

Knowledge Base

The knowledge base will consist of articles, written by us, which will answer questions routinely asked. All the articles will be searchable.

Discussions

Start discussions about features you would like to see, report bugs, or rant about what you hate about the site. You can make the discussion public, so any beyond the whiteboard can throw in their two cents, or private between you and the beyond the whiteboard team. We want to have an open dialogue with you guys about any aspect of the site, our company or LOST.

Check it Out

http://support.beyondthewhiteboard.com