Author: Gregor Dorfbauer

Trello Integration: improve Trello cards with user feedback

Trello is a fast, easy way to organize anything, from your day-to-day work, to a favorite side project. Because of Trello integrations, it’s everywhere – on Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows 8 Tablet, and your web browser, making collaboration easier.

Usersnap integrates well with Trello, assisting you in collecting and discussing feedback between developers, customers and quality assurance engineers. Let’s see how.

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How to integrate Usersnap in your development workflow

Usersnap can be integrated easily to any type of web page. The Usersnap help page offers an overview of how to integrate Usersnap in your site using a simple JavaScript snippet. We offer various CMS plugins for WordPress, Drupal or Joomla – but it doesn’t end there!

If you want to customize your Usersnap integration – for example: show it only to logged-in users, or add additional backend information to the report – you need to include Usersnap manually in your template. Are you a PHP, Python or RoR dev? Then you’re in luck, as we describe how to integrate Usersnap using those languages in this post! Speed up your development workflow!

Include Usersnap with PHP

Save your Usersnap snippet in a file called usersnap.inc.php which includes your API-Key. You can even fetch this API key from a config file or environment variable.

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Using Typo3? Add the Bug Tracker Usersnap to your CMS!

TYPO3 is an enterprise-class, open source content management system, used to build and manage websites of all types. One of the great things about TYPO3 is that one can add new types of content elements fairly easily. Say, for instance, a feedback button for your visitors and customers. We are working on a plugin, but in the meantime, here are the needed steps to include Usersnap – the visual bug tracker for web development – into your Typo3 site.

  1. Log into your backend
  2. Left Menu: Click on “Template”
  3. Select your start page (earth icon)
  4. Select “Info/Modify” in the Dropdown menu of the template
  5. Click on the edit button next to setup (pencil icon) – it’s the last entry in the table
  6. A editor opens, insert this code (with your Usersnap snippet) at the end:

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6 bad habits in web development

At Usersnap, we have over 20 (summed up) years of experience in well organized web development. We figured that track record allows us to call out the good, bad and the ugly in the industry. Now, we don’t like to focus on the negative, but just this once we’ll sum up the bad, as the logical follow-up on our post on best practices in web development.

1. Mails with 20 bullet points

Mails with 20 bullet points, listing bugs, feature request and what not, are as much a commodity as a problem. Often they lead to accusations and “why didn’t you fix $XY, as I pointed out five weeks ago?”-s. In case your head of development is not able to drill these monologues down to workable tickets, chances are you forget things. Instead of muttering all kinds of things your mother didn’t teach you, try and educate your clients or managers how to use a bug tracker or project management tool.* That way you both save time sending countless lengthy emails, and they’ll have a better view of what you’re currently working on.

2. CC’ing the whole team

CC’ing all means: you have no idea who can solve this task. Which is bad in itself. If you start doing this, potentially no one will answer or feel responsible. Plus: reading all those mails will kill a lot of precious time for those who are not into it. Find out who is responsible and address that person only. Continue Reading “6 bad habits in web development” →

8 good habits in web development

At Usersnap, we have over 20 (summed up) years of experience in well organized web development. We figured that track record allows us to call out the good, the bad and the ugly in the industry. Let’s start with the positive stuff.

1. Use a bug tracker

The inbox of a Head of Development tends to fill up over the day with feature requests, bug reports and snippets of user feedback. Sometimes you’ll even receive emails with a whole bullet point list (if you’re lucky) of requirements, pain points and random ideas. While it’s great that people take the time to give – at times very extended – feedback, it’s not really useful as is.

Using a bug tracker / project management solution like Basecamp or Trac you can reorder tickets and nothing gets lost, as tasks are only closed when they are done. Set a milestone, add keywords (so your co-workers can find your ticket easily), add a priority level and make sure to cc the person in charge of ‘fixing it’. Even if that’s yours truly. In the description, try to provide a user story. And make sure your summary is descriptive, you can use humor for your commit messages if you really have to (i.e.: when it’s done), but you’ll want your ticket to be clear.

2. Take responsibility

Be precise and targeted. You should know who can do what and who is available for an additional task. When in real doubt about who’s responsible, you can do a CC. But make sure to remove all others from the CC, as soon as you found the right person to assign the ticket to. Continue Reading “8 good habits in web development” →