A large chunk of our business comes from our events and we felt it was time to invest in the backend that runs the sites and bookings for Future of Web Apps, Fuel, Future of Web Design, Future of Mobile and Carson Workshops.
We currently have this barely-functional thing we call the ‘CMS’ which was built in a hurry and is basically a pain in the ass. Its worked pretty well up until now but we’re noticing that bugs are starting to appear and it lacks a ton of the functionality that we need.
The first step
The first thing we did was sit down and decide what we loved and hated about the current system. We had to be careful here because it would’ve been easy to get carried away with adding superfluous functionality (’It be great if it did ….’).
We basically came up with a very rough list of things the system should be able to do. Once we all agreed, Adam constructed a flow diagram of the booking process.
Our main goal was to make life easier for everyone when they’re booking tickets to our events. Therefore we started with the Booking Page. Adam did a very rough layout for this (we didn’t even bother to wireframe it).
The first obvious step was to break the booking process down into steps. Previously it was just one huge, long page and it was very unwieldy. By showing the person booking the seat that there were four basic steps to complete, it would give them an idea of where they were in the process and that it did indeed have an end :)
By the way, you may be wondering why Adam is working on the events backend when we hired him to work on DropSend. Well, the truth is that after he joined us, he realized that he left the company he started a little too soon, without giving it a chance to really take off. It was nothing to do with us, he just realized he should’ve given his own company more of a chance before leaving it. Of course we were surprised but he’s super talented so we decided to keep working with him. This was the perfect project to team up on. Anyway, back to the story …
The power of Rails
I’m an ex-PHP developer with a Computer Science degree, so I’ve never touched Ruby or Rails. Of course I’ve heard about how you can build apps much faster in Rails, but we’ve never actually used it at Carsonified.
Holy crap, I’m a believer.
We went from a visual of the booking page to a roughly functioning app in two days. TWO DAYS. Here are a few screencasts of the system in action.
Event Stream - Part I from Carsonified on Vimeo.
Wireframe to working app in seven calendar days
Just three days later, we had added the design skinning to the process and it was looking really great. We still have quite a few copy and design tweaks, but it’s basically there. Seven days - unbelievable. And keep in mind that’s calendar days not week days.
Carsonified’s new web app - Event Stream from Carsonified on Vimeo.
What’s its name?
We’ve decided to call this system ‘Event Stream’ and we’ve done a temporary logo for it.
Once we have more time, we’ll probably redo this logo, but for now, it’s great to have another Carsonified Web App.
Well, I’ve got a ton more to share with you about the system. We’re so excited about it!
Stephen Bazemore
March 26th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
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Looking good my friends. Can’t wait to use to book the next event I attend!
Ryan
March 26th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
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@Stephen - Thanks! We’re super excited about it.
Dan Griffey
March 26th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
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Ryan.
This looks great, and really emphasises the power of a good developer and Rails.
We have moved to rails for our own backend (in YoDiv.com) and from my point of view the business benefits are really huge. A great, agile, quick development process.
Look forward to seeing the next installment, and with regards the logo, it’s a great first kick.
Dan
Sam Brown
March 26th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
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Event Stream looks great Ryan and will definitely looks to be beneficial for you! Is this an internal web app only or do you plan on releasing it for others to use?
Vladimir
March 26th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
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Congrats!
Looks fantastic. How many of you guys worked to developed it?
Adam
March 26th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
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@Vladimir - just me, so far ;)
stewart townsend
March 26th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
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Looking good, Ryan, hope its Rails on Sun :-)
Dave Bowker
March 26th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
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Just watched the vid. Looks like a nice little booking system. :)
Dennis Howlett
March 26th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
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Having an application that makes the booking process a pleasure and not a pain should mean lower abandon rates. That’s just for starters. Rails goodness - oh yes - I’m constantly amazed at how fast stuff can be done. And I’m not a geek!!
Ryan
March 26th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
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@Sam - Right now it’s only an internal app for our own use. However, we’ll hopefully release it to the public some day.
@Vladimir @Dan @Stewart @Dave - Thanks for the kind words!
Andrew Yates
March 26th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
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I am definately going to check out Rails now. Keep up the great work guys. I am hoping to get on one of your workshops this year. Just waiting for the right one. Now to introduce myself to Rails.
Adam
March 26th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
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In the next few days I’m going to try and post something about the technicalities behind the application. At this precise moment, I’ve just finished the integration with Secure Trading’s XPAY client so the system can actually take payments and issue refunds with a single click.
Matt
March 26th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
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Looks great - as someone who has helped run a few events I have always found the booking forms to be a complete pain in the rear! so anything that improves that experience is likely to find a market if you do release it into the wild..
JMWhittaker
March 26th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
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Nice to see you using Rails, you can definitely build quick apps it’s just the deployment and hosting that can be tricky!
Adam, would be useful to include some details on how you integrated a payment system into the app. That is something that I have not had the courage to tackle and it is the area that usually gets left out of the books and tutorials but is vital to any web app.
Ryan good luck with the TV stuff.
Thanks James.
Tom
March 26th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
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Hi Ryan,
Nice new app! It would be great to see a full size version of the flowchart - I’m actually studying them for my degree at the moment!
Julian Schrader
March 26th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
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Exciting! I love Rails for the possibility to develop new ideas so quickly. Great choice, it’s a very nice framework!
Kyle
March 26th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
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You may want to consider killing that promo code step if you’re going to release this to the public. Most of us don’t actually read what on the page and having to click a text link instead of the huge button is surely going to be a sticking point.
Throw it into the first step, one extra field isn’t going to make things “unwieldily.”
Adam
March 26th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
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@Kyle - you can easily skip the step either by pressing the link or submitting a blank form - so it’s pretty intuitive
Events 2.Oh god not another 2.0! « backpass.org
March 26th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
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[…] Anyway in keeping with my event theme earlier today Ryan Carson tweeted about a new blog post over at Carsonified about their new internal app Event Stream - (see I told you my domain name would come up again!). As they run more and more conferences (including the new one to their portfolio Fuel - which sounds right up my street! ) Carsonified decided to build an event management system (EMS?) to simplify the booking process and back end processes. This might sound simple but believe me event booking forms are the devils work and few if any are much use and they all seem to ignore the strides in user experience taken everywhere else on the web! I think this could be a real winner and hope they make it a public app some time in the future especially if a) they added a way of managing parallel sessions at an event and b)it allowed custom CSS and domain mapping (for a price of course!) I can think of a number of people who would be interested off the top of my head. […]
Paul Lomax
March 27th, 2008 at 9:18 am
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Cool :-)
As a ex-PHPer and a new Rails fan, you should check out the Symfony framework (www.symfony-project.com)…
I know you said you’re still working on the copy (obviously), but just in case you don’t spot it, you have “your done” instead of “you’re done” in the last step box… (I’m a pedant!)
Adam
March 27th, 2008 at 9:44 am
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@Paul - thanks for spotting that - I’ll get it onto my todo list straight away just in case that copy doesn’t get changed :)
Alex
March 27th, 2008 at 9:54 am
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@Paul Lomax - You beat me to it!
I really like that you Carsonified peeps are happy to expose your design process - between your words and the thoughtful suggestions in comments it’s good stuff.
Too few companies understand that knowledge increases in value when you share it.
John Topley
March 27th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
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Hey Ryan,
Glad you’ve checked out Rails. I told you it was great! :-) That’s a sweet looking app.
Martin
March 27th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
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Nice looking app.
If you like a framework MCV and active records but didn’t want to skip away from PHP there is always CakePHP.
Stef Lewandowski
March 28th, 2008 at 9:18 am
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Hi Ryan. Thanks so much for sharing.
I’m currently trying to work out the best framework for me to adopt for a lovely new project I’m getting off the ground.
I’ve had false starts with Rails, then back to my own CMS, then onto another one, and now I’m currently considering CakePHP / CodeIgniter / Rails as my platform.
Interesting to see that you made such progress in so short a timescale with so clear a vision of what you wanted to achieve. As someone commented above, the building part is easy - it’s the ‘deployment’ parts that seem to cause us headaches.
Stef
Jason Kitcat
March 29th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
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Hi Stef and Ryan and co…
I tried CakePHP and found it to be a bit of mess and depressingly undocumented. I’ve stuck with my own framework for now but the Rails siren keeps calling!
All the best,
Jason
rama
April 5th, 2008 at 8:49 am
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hey, i got a good logo for you.. shall i send it via email in 2 days or so. I dont need any credits or money though coz im a big fan of carsonified and i love 2.0 design for web apps.just asking though…
Andrew Yates
April 7th, 2008 at 9:24 am
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As an update to my last comment on this post, I am now currently reading a book to learn the basics of Ruby on Rails. I have to thank Carsonified for motivating me to start learning Rails.
I am hoping that you maybe sometime in the future do a workshop or two that focuses on Rails. As soon as you announce it, i’ll be getting my seat.
Cheers again.
Andy
jason
April 8th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
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Looks nice and easy to use. :)
Wondering if you are going to build API and allow other apps (i.e. CRM Softwares) linked with yours?
Stef
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
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Hi Ryan,
I just thought I’d pop back here and say a big “thank you”.
Your post here really influenced my platform decision in the end and I went for Rails for my new website that I’m building.
@Jason Kitkat - we must stop meeting like this!
I am now sitting here with a fully deployed, live and working site in about three weeks from scratch that does so much more than I would have been able to achieve through other means.
It’s not perfect yet, and the Rails learning curve took a while to work through - lots of ‘false summits’ along the way.
Thanks again for sharing and @Jason Kitkat - we should catch up soon because we’re bound to be working on exactly the idea without knowing it I am sure…
Stef
jbendotnet
April 24th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
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Hi Ryan,
Looking really good.
On the subject of MVC frameworks, I would definitely take a look at Cakephp (v1.2, very stable even though it’s beta) if you’re a php’r and enjoy the speed etc that Rails affords. Although the docs have been lacking in places, with efforts like the CakePHP Cookbook things are definitely moving in the right direction.
I’ve used it almost exclusively for my php work over the last 2 years and have found it a real asset.
Cheers,
Jon