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November 8, 2021

#106 - Where's your FAQ?

Why we don't have an FAQ, a snazzy new landing page, what we're working on next week, and a call for more volunteers!

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#106 | 8 November 2021

Where's your FAQ?


Now and again we'll receive a question from a customer prefaced with: "I tried to find an FAQ or Help section before asking, but I couldn't find one. Don't you have one?"

We don't have one! And we have no intention of having one for a while.

Why is that?
Screenshot of a book page on The StoryGraph's desktop app. On the right, is a large white cover, with a black image of a face. Across the top the words "Bad Love" are written. To the right, there's a book pane with all of the book information. Underneath that is a second pane, with text telling the user they've read the book once in 2021. There's also a series of three dropdowns filled out with "6", "November" and "2021", indicating the date the user finished reading the book.
Sometimes we're asked how to set the date you finished reading a book. We want to make it so that nobody has to ask that question.

As a new company, it's vital that our product is incredibly intuitive. There should be minimal cases of people struggling to find or do something.

When there's a problem, we need to hear about it and fix it. The more we hear about a particular pain point, the higher up the priority list it goes.

Given the product is constantly changing, time is better spent chipping away at the repeated problems than keeping a Help section up to date.

This isn't to say that we won't eventually have a handful of fun, onboarding tooltips around the app, but any more documentation than that and the product just isn't good enough in my book!
 

Since last time...
 

This time last week, if you visited thestorygraph.com you'd have been greeted with a page that looked like this:
 
Hero image from the old StoryGraph landing page. There is a dark blue background. On the left, in white text reads the strapline and a description of what StoryGraph does. On the right is a full-screen screenshot of an old version of StoryGraph's hoempage.

Now you'll see something that looks like this:
 
Screenshot of hero section on new StoryGraph landing site. Against a deep cyan background, on the left-hand-side of the image, are the words "StoryGraph" and the strapline "Because life's too short for a book you're not in the mood for." Underneath that is a black button with white text inviting the user to "Sign up". Alongside is a small "Sign in" link. To the right-hand side of the image is a collage of book covers. Underneath the hero section, in the middle of a white background is a short sentence explaining what StoryGraph does.
Two rows of an image against explanatory text. The to top row features ext explaining the stats portion of the product, with a collage of different StoryGraph charts to the right. The bottom row has an image of the recommendations page on StoryGraph, with a text description to the right.

We've also got a snazzy new team page! 😍

On the Community side of things, we've added in something to make the app-wide News Feed more valuable:
 
Screenshot of StoryGraph's Community-wide news feed. Underneath a search bar, there is a toggle labelled: "Only show users similar to you". The toggle is switched to the 'on' position. Underneath the toggle there are a few updates from what people in the community similar to me are reading.
Filter down to similar users only to increase the chances you discover new books you'll love from the StoryGraph community!
 

Next two weeks


Okay, now the focus is Friends! Wish us luck! 🤞🏾

We're also on the lookout for more volunteers to help improve the book data in the app. We'd love to get to 1000 by the end of year and currently only have 470...  👀

If you'd like to find out more, drop us a message at support@thestorygraph.com. 🙏🏾

(We're not accepting reapplications yet!)
 

What I'm reading right now


I'm racing through the remaining #TwentyIn2020 Jacaranda books for my reading challenge with Abbie. Abidemi Sanusi's Looking for Bono is really fun so far!
StoryGraph book pane for Abidemi Sanusi's Looking for Bono. To the left is the book cover. To the right, is the book pane, detailing the title and author. There are cyan and red tags, reading: "fiction" ,"literary", "funny", "mysterious", and "medium-paced". The book has 338 pages and was first published in 2020. I've marked the book as 'currently reading'.

Have a great week,

Nadia

P.S. Know somebody who's an avid reader or would enjoy following along with this journey? Please do forward this email to them! Thank you. :-)
 
Haven't tried The StoryGraph yet? Check it out today!
Love the app? Consider upgrading to our Plus plan!

Want to volunteer? Apply to be a Librarian!
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