Ever wondered what someone thinks of your plugin the first time they try it? The four of us at Wysija sure do.
Our users give us positive feedback on how “easy it is“. The adoption rate of our plugin tells a similar tale.
Over half of Wysija’s 175 000 downloads use the latest versions. This is the story told in this piechart on our page on the WordPress plugins’ repository:
But what about the unhappy people who dropped Wysija after 5 minutes? We’ll never hear from them. A tree fell in the forest, and we weren’t there to hear it.
The happy users themselves will forgive you for the small confusing details or non critical bugs. They’ll never mention them to you. You simply won’t know.
Don’t ask questions, let them do it
The idea to create user tests was largely inspired by the group working on WordPress’ user interface. The videos helped them make smart improvements.
We ran 5 user tests of our own recently with the help of Siobhan*, an independent consultant. It’s ridiculously easy to set up thanks to UserTesting. It has its limits, but it is fast and cheap.
2 things we need to know:
- how do users pick a plugin on the WordPress repository?
- what do users think in the first 5 minutes of using Wysija?
Take a look at one example:
The good, the bad, and the UI
The results reassured us, but we discovered a few surprising elements nevertheless.
What we observed as “bad”:
- There’s no single obvious call to action on the first page they see, the newsletters list. They’re not sure what to do.
- Nobody reads the guide in our default newsletter. Too long.
- The plugin’s messages in beige at the top of pages are ignored. Totally.
- The default newsletter’s browser version is blank. A new bug!
- 2 users didn’t realize they could click on the newsletter to edit it.
- Our name, Wysija. You can’t pronounce it. You can’t remember it. “If it sounds complicated, it’s probably complicated“, – Myself, Kim.
The positive points:
- the visual editor is appreciated by users of all ability.
- the widget is easy to configure.
- the settings aren’t as intimidating as we thought.
- these users are actually looking for a newsletter plugin for their own site.
- star rating is critical because it’s the only element of differentiation when searching for plugins on the repository.
Next steps
We’re hungry for different information now. For example, we can’t answer these simple questions:
- on average, how many lists do our users have?
- on average, how many subscribers do our users have?
- how many newsletters a month do they send?
Our users will soon be able to share anonymous data with us, if they want. More data equals better plugin. Right?
* Siobhan is pronounced "Shé-von". That's more complicated than "Wysija".
As far as I can tell, this plugin is a life saver. The SMTP feature is great for people who are on a budget and does not want to pay for expensive autoresponder service. Would future versions have an popup feature so that we can get more sign ups? Would certainly love to see that coming! Thanks for the awesome work on wysija!
Kent, thx for the comment.
If you need a subscription form with a popup, you can purchase Magic Action Box, which supports Wysija:
http://www.magicactionbox.com/
Alternatively, you can find the HTML, php and iframe version of the forms in your Wysija widget, in the Appearance menu. Use those with your favorite popup (lightbox) plugin.
Can i use this Festive – NewsLetter Template in your plugin & if so how,maybe the reason they leave so early is they are complete newbies to all this like me & downloaded a template first presuming you would be able to easily upload it,i know you have your own themes but you should be able to upload external themes with the click of a button because when i have to start messing with style sheets manually thats were i start looking for other options & wordpress is full of newbies like me with limited knowledge.
Rich, each company has his own email template. None of them are universal.
In fact, if you compare our templating system to other systems out there, we’re far easier because we only rely on a style sheet. There’s no HTML.
It’s practical if the user knows Photoshop, although this is not required.
Great. Simply great. We have 2 newsletters, one morning and one afternoon edition. Two editions being sent to 1500+ subscribers every day. No bug, no headache. Wysija does a tremendous job. Thx!
Thanks! Good to hear happy users.
I’m a tinker-er and thus embraced the utility of Wysija- my first 15 minutes of the plugin lead to my love of it.. But I will say the name was an inhibitor. If i was just a bit less wiling to “kick the tires” and take a new plugin for a test drive I might have missed all Wysija has to offer.
Now sold on it- I kinda like the name. But as a biz owner I realize the importance of a name and couldn’t argue against renaming Wysija. I’m sure there’s plenty of would-be users to be attracted by a name that sells itself.
Thanks for the feedback. We more than agree!
I haven’t got a chance to try V – Si – Jah (did I say it right?), but I think you have shared some excellent points on how users find a plugin useful or otherwise. We were planning to release a plugin & we will surely take your findings into consideration & will make necessary changes to help the user focus even more, than what we initially thought of.
Thanks once again for the wonderful share.
I am building my first website. I have been maintaining one for a few months that was built in WP. Wysija has a great result, but how do I get the names into my system to send them. What capture widget do you recommend?
Wysija has a widget that can capture first and last name inputs.
Go in Wysija’s Settings > Subscription Forms.
As a new user I found it very easy to use.
Having recently gone through ‘re-branding’ for our music on (from ‘roca’ to http://www.CampbellAndGreen.ca) I understand the angst over name.
We took the re-branding question to our fans & friends and asked them to choose a name from our list or suggest one of their own.
It was our first newsletter with the basic Wysija plugin. Simple, asked for their help and gave them the opportunity to be engaged.
I had a lot of dead email in my imported list though so I certainly will look at premium for the ‘auto-remove’ function….
keep up the quality… You have a winner.
Robert! Be careful with sending to an old list. You might get labeled as a spammer even before you get to clean your list.
Generally speaking, we don’t up sell our automated bounce handler as a good way to clean an old list.
Rather, it’s a good way to keep a current list fresh.
wow, your plug-in has been really easy even for a low-technical person like me. With almost everything wysiwyg and good usability. The free version has everything I need right now, being used from a small site. I do have two wishes – maybe you added them to the pay-version (in that case I will ask of them no more ;)
I like the feature where you can send a test mail to an email to see what it looks like in the so called “step 2/edit view”, but I miss a preview function like the one you can access from the first view? (I dunno what terms exactly is use in the English version since I use another language, the first view being maybe “all newletters” -mousehoovering a newletter and click “preview” ?)
Another concern right now is that it is still bit to easy to erase/delete a newsletter. I worked with your default theme and created an new newsletter with my own colors, pictures, font and so on – just the way I wanted it to be, and sent it. Then I wanted to reuse it for the next sendout but other people also with full access to the site had deleted it- since it has been sent. I wish there was a way to save it in the “second step” maybe be able to make it a “theme” so I wont have to redo it if it happens again. I’ve found I can create my own themes and upload them. I might have to do that for now to prevent people even more low-thecnical than me to delete the newsletter next time.
Still you’ve created one of the best and easiest plug-ins out there! Just so you know ;)