Blog

Successful Web 2.0 Applications : Harvest App

August 18th, 2010

Application Development, Usability, Web Development

I’d like to share a Web based timekeeping tool that I think is quite well done, called Harvest App, and some reasons why this (and other Web 2.0 Apps) can be successful by following a few simple guidelines.

Quite simply it is an online timekeeping tool and more.  At times I use it to keep track of my hours throughout the day when working on multiple things.  We have a time card system at NavArts, but it is not as lightweight, quick, and easy to use for through-the-day logging of time.  There is a lesson to be learned here: our timekeeping tool and Harvest set out to accomplish the same goals, solve the same problems, but one is quick, easy to use and “light” — and not surprisingly, I use that one.

I like Harvest not just because it is a good timekeeping tool (btw it has a full range of features like invoicing that I don’t need to use), but because it represents for me what is successful about the current generation of web 2.0-ish useful applications:

• Do one thing, do it well
• Be quick and easy to register for.  Let me register with my email address and favorite password, no new username to remember
• Give me a custom domain like dmead.harvestapp.com
• Be very AJAX’d
• Give me a free version to use without limits and a paid version to test drive for free for a time.  When my test drive expires, revert me to the free version
• Have an API (Application Programing Interface)

I don’t use the API for Harvest yet but I like the fact that it has one.  It is something that I look for in a Web 2.0 tool for our clients and myself – something to allow that app’s information to be re-presented in different ways such as integrating with a Web site, mobile, content management system, etc.