A number of years ago, before she was hounded off the Internet, Kathy Sierra wrote a great piece on her blog called Featuritis vs. the Happy User Peak. In it she describes how software goes from not quite there yet, to perfection, and then slides ungracefully down to unusable.

Software has followed this up-down path for decades. The need to push out new features for no real reason and the inability to recognize when a product is actually finished destroys what could be great software or what once was great software.

It’s harder than you might think to leave features out, or to say no when a user is telling you your software would be better with feature X. When your competitors are proudly rolling out new versions chock full of features, all hanging off advanced or indecipherable menus, the temptation to join the race to unusablility is great.

That’s not going to happen with All My Journals. For a certain type of user, we’ve reached that Happy Peak – the emails I get every week are testimony to that. Adding more features would begin the slide back down the mountain, and I’d sooner that not happen.

User forums for software products have two main purposes: support and new feature requests. The owners may have had other things in mind when they set up the forums, but this is invariably where they all end up.

And on those forums new feature requests are usually handled in one of two ways: enthusiastically adopted straight away, regardless of whether the feature would add value for most users, or quietly forgotten with a “We’ll consider it for an upcoming release” type of answer. Rarely do we see a true assessment of the value of the new feature for the product as a whole.

All My Journals does not have a user forum because there are few support issues and we’re not looking for feature requests.

I know that last flies in the face of the whole “listen to your customers” mantra we hear so often, but the truth is, if you want more features in All My Journals, then it’s not the product for you. Its primary appeal is its lack of features, and we’re ok with that.

As for all those support issues: we get an email every couple of weeks, but it’s usually along the lines of “My license key didn’t arrive.“

All My Journals is a finished product. I know this because I use it myself every day, and there isn’t a single extra feature, button, or option that would improve it for me.

“But it does less than the competition”, I hear someone say. It doesn’t have that favorite pet feature that I absolutely must have in order to function. “I can’t embed images or export to HTML and CSS”, one person says. “It would be perfect if I could specify where my Journals were stored”, says another.

Trouble is, users who need that one more golden feature never seem to want the same feature. Pleasing them all would turn All My Journals into a complex, feature laden monstrosity.

Feature after feature, new version after new version, and each release worse than the last because it’s just so complicated.

Complexity and usability do not go together. I have a microwave oven that I struggle to use. I simply can’t work out what all the buttons and options are for, and as a result I hardly ever use it. I have a TV remote that contains buttons I have never clicked. The remote is three times bigger than it needs to be. I hate it, because it makes me frustrated and it makes me feel stupid.

You can’t please everyone, and you shouldn’t even try.

The addition of the spell checker to version 1.42 marks the line in the sand for All My Journals. It was the final feature required to make the software perfect for the majority of users. Old Pete with the goatee may not be happy because of that whole HTML / CSS thing, and the super users are (perpetually) unhappy because they can’t store journals on their X drive, but the 80% of users who don’t want any of these extras are happy – and that’s all that really matters.

Does that mean no new versions?

No, of course not. There will be bug fixes, and there will be minor changes as time passes, and there will be translations into other languages. But this will all happen slowly, one step at a time.

The full version of All My Journals was released three months ago, back in early October. Since then, the response from users has been very positive and the download the sales ratio nothing short of outstanding. Try before you buy software has traditionally had a very low sales conversion rate, but All My Journals does not appear to be abiding by those rules, for which I’m thankful.

The only major new feature added so far has been the Journal Viewer, an oversight in the original release that quickly became apparent once users had written a few weeks of journal entries. I’ve deliberately kept new features to a minimum, as in the early days of new software, it’s easy to make mistakes and add features that would only benefit a small proportion of users.

What makes All My Journals unique is its simplicity – the lack of advanced features that serve only to clutter up a product for the majority of users – and I want to maintain that simplicity going forward.

New features will be added and changes will be made over time, but I expect this to happen very slowly and with great care. In the short to medium term, only one new feature is on the Must Have list, and that’s a bare bones spell checker. This is likely to appear in February and initially will only accommodate the English language.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all AMJ users for their feedback and support over the past few months, and to encourage you to tell your friends about it and spread the word.

Way back when version 1 of All My Journals was released, I mentioned that there were a couple of large features that would need to be added to complete the product, and the new Reader pop up is one of those features.

I’ve tried to make writing your Journal entries as simple and straight forward as possible, and if feedback is anything to go by, appear to have succeeded. Where AMJ was weak was when it came to reading old entries.

This hadn’t yet become a problem, as the software is only 6 weeks old and most users do not have that many entries, but over time it would have become a thorny issue, which is why it has now been addressed with the new Reader.

The Reader is a simple dialog that allows you to read old entries on a month by month basis. It contains simple backwards and forwards links to allow you to browse the months and years, and it’s read only – no editing, no changing things, and no deleting embarrassing posts.

All My Journals is the perfect software for keeping track of and monitoring the progress of your exercise and fitness program. All you need to do is create a new Journal called ‘Exercise Diary’, ‘My Fitness Journal’, or something similar. Then, each day, you make an entry detailing what you did that day.

Did you run the 5 kilometers you were supposed to, do all those sit ups and flexes, lift the weights you planned to? By writing all of this down in a dedicated Journal, you make it harder to lie to yourself about your true progress, and you can easily refer back to previous weeks and months to get an accurate portrayal of what you really did.

It would be great of we could all rely on our memories, but memory is notoriously unreliable when it comes to things like this, as we often assume we did more than we actually did.

So, if you want to keep an accurate exercise and fitness diary, download the latest version of All My Journals, and get started.

http://www.allmyjournals.com/download.html

The trial version runs for 45 days, so you have all that time to decide if it’s the right software for you.

I never intended All My Journals to be used for planning the week or month ahead, but lately I find that that is one of the uses I put it to. I have a journal called ‘Daily Scratchpad’ that I use to leave notes for myself tomorrow or next week.

It may be something simple like a one line entry under next Tuesday saying: “Call the gardener to come around and cut the grass”, or it could be an entry for Monday, typed out before I stopped work on Friday, outlining what needs to be done first thing Monday morning.

And when Monday or Tuesday roll around, and All My Journals opens on the current day, I’m faced with these messages I left myself days, weeks, or even months ago.

So in theory, I should never forget a birthday again!

And the best part is, because I have many different Journals in All My Journals, all  of these week ahead entries are kept completely separate from my other Journals.

The user interface of All My Journals is not a standard software interface. It contains a lot of links and very few buttons, and it doesn’t contain a traditional toolbar at the top of the software at all.

Why is this?

Most computer users these days are more familiar using websites and web services than they are using desktop software. And web interfaces are all about links. People know exactly what to do when they see a blue link, whereas not everyone is that familiar with the menu/button approach that has dominated desktop software for the past 20 years.

Why no toolbar at the top of the software?

Because nowadays most computers run with widescreen monitors. And widescreen monitors tend to have a shortage of vertical space and an abundance of horizontal space. This is why the only toolbar in All My Journals is on the left, running top to bottom, and not at the top, taking up all the valuable screen real estate.

The first licensed version of All My Journals was released back on the 3rd of October. Twenty days later, how is it looking?

Sales have been strong so far – especially to existing users of PageFour – and downloads are steady. Negative feedback has been surprisingly light – I was expecting a lot of comments along the lines of “But it doesn’t do…” or “My other Journal software is bigger…“, but apart from a couple of feature lovers, this hasn’t really materialized, which is good news for the feature-lite design.

In terms of bugs, a number of minor releases have been rolled out fixing bugs as they popped up, but nothing substantial has been found so far by users. The largest problem area that needed fixing was some display issues when running All My Journals under Windows 7 where the PC was set to Large Fonts. Apart from this, all bugs have been minor.

In terms of additional features, the only change/new feature has been the new drop down menu listing the days in the month. Its absence in the first release was down to my own over familiarity with shortcut keys when navigating backwards and forwards.

The price reduction (30% off) runs until the end of the month, so I expect there’ll be a sales spike as that nears, and the trial version runs for 45 days, so it’s a good three weeks away from early users needing to make the buy or not buy decision.

So all in all, the first 20 days have been promising, with acceptable sales figures and a good ratio of sales to downloads. I’d like to see more downloads, but that’s a traffic / marketing issue, not a product or design issue. Overall, sales and feedback support the product.

I’ve tried to make All My Journals as easy to use as possible, and if the number of confusing support emails is anything to go by, it looks like I’ve been largely successful. Not completely of course, as there is always room for improvement.

A recent change to the user interface of the licensed version includes a second drop down menu next to what used to be the “Change Month” link. This has been changed to “Month – Day” where the Day link now opens a drop down listing the days of the month.

My initial design presupposed that users would discover the Page Up / Page Down shortcuts and would use them to navigate through the days of the month, but despite dropping a big shortcut button on the sidebar, this hasn’t happened. Hence the new drop down.

I’m not entirely satisfied with it, and will probably change it over the coming weeks, but it does make navigating without using shortcuts just that little bit easier.

And on the subject of shortcuts, for the keyboard warriors out there three new shortcuts have been added to open up the Day, Month and Year drop downs:

• Ctrl + D for the day drop down
• Ctrl + M for the month drop down
• Ctrl + G for the Year drop down (Y is already taken by the Redo command in the editor – can’t go messing about with established and recognized shortcuts)

Automatic backups of your Journals are only made in four situations:

1. When you change or set a password
2. When you upgrade to a newer version of All My Journals
3. When you delete a Journal that has content
4. When you change the Journal location to or from My Documents

The software does not run an automated backup at any other time. All of these backups are stored in the All My Journals/Backup folder, either in your My Documents folder, or in your installation folder – depending on which option you set on the Preferences dialog.

What about taking backups at other times?

You should get into the habit of taking regular backups. All that is involved in taking  a backup is clicking the backup button on the left toolbar. Backups made in this way will always be stored in the same location, and contain all that is necessary to roll back to a previous version of your Journals.

Remember: backups are your responsibility.

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been releasing a new version of All My Journals every few days. For the most part, these new releases contain only minor changes and bug fixes, and for most users, they are inconsequential.

Every time you come to this website via the software (the help button, or one of the other links), your version number is checked against the current version available for download. If a newer version exists, you will be directed to the download page.

Do you need to keep upgrading to the newest version?

Not necessarily. You should first look at the Latest News page and see what, if any, changes or additions have been made. If there is no mention of the newest version on the News page, you can assume that whatever has changed is not that important. It may be little more than a bug fix for Brazilian users, or a cosmetic change to fonts or menus.

If new features have been added or important bugs have been fixed, it will be mentioned on the News page, and you can decide if you want to download and install the latest version. For users running the licensed version, all minor upgrades are free, and can be installed on top of the existing version.

It’s likely that all upgrades in 2011 and 2012 will be minor upgrades. A major upgrade would only occur when a large change has been made to the software – possibly in response to a new version of Windows that required major work or rewriting.

Most non-technical users of software do not use shortcuts, just like they do not use  the right-click menu. They see the mouse and their face lights up. Which is a shame, because familiarity with some basic shortcut keys can make so much software easier to use.

All My Journals works great without knowing the four shortcuts that make it work even greater. The backwards and forwards buttons at the top of the window look just enough like a web browser that even my ageing father could figure them out. But navigating is infinitely easier if you learn about the Page Up and Page Down keys, which do the same thing as the backwards and forwards buttons.

In an effort to educate shortcut shy users, I’ve placed a large Shortcuts button (one of only five buttons) on the left toolbar. Clicking the button opens a pop up that explains the most important shortcut keys, from navigation to basic text formatting.

I’m optimistic, but the mouse and those shiny navigation buttons are a tough nut to crack. I’m hoping that the scarcity of toolbar buttons in All My Journals will make people click each one just to see what happens. Only time will tell if this actually works.

All My Journals was designed for people who want to keep a journal or diary – but not for all of them. It was created with a certain user in mind: a diary writer who just wants to write.

Do you use emoticons when you write? Do you copy and paste pictures you found on the Internet into your journal? Do you spend time adjusting fonts and getting the paragraph settings just right on each page?

If this sounds familiar, then All My Journals is not the software for you. I make no apologies for this. Software that tries to please all people ends up pleasing no one.

The premise behind All My Journals is that the whole point of keeping a journal is that you’re keeping a journal, not playing around with software. The software should disappear into the background and let you get on with putting your thoughts or words down.

If you have to stop and think about the software, if you have to scratch your head and ask yourself: “Now, how do I do this?“, then the software is failing.

All My Journals is as simple and as intuitive as I could make it. There are few decisions to be made by users, and even fewer options to choose from. Many common options that appear on the Preferences dialogs of other software are not present in All My Journals. I’ve already made those decisions so you don’t have to. If you really, really want to make those decisions yourself, well… I can think of two Journaling products off the top of my head that have them all, and then some, so you might want to take a look at those.

The most difficult part of designing this product was taking features out, not putting them in. Will I be adding more features later? Yes, but very few. There are only two features on the All My Journals to do list at this moment.

All My Journals was designed to be the perfect journaling software for one type of user. I hope that’s you.