I signed up as a user because I think it is important to use what you build. Immediately, I found a few issues or things I would prefer to see. That is the power of being a customer to your product.
Three stood out:
- Genre pages showed me shows I had already rated. I clicked Crime and there was Sons of Anarchy, a show I’ve already rated. Now a genre page hides what you’ve seen, with a link to show it again with your own rating.
- Search was too literal. I looked for The Baby-Sitters Club and got nothing. The show wasn’t in the catalog, and even once it was, “baby sitters” didn’t match “Baby-Sitters.” Now search ignores spaces and hyphens.
- There was no way to signal to the app that a show needs to be added to the library. When a search turns up shows that are on TMDb but not in TVLens, each one now has a “Request it” button. Requested shows are added overnight.
I learned the same lesson on Day 20, “Use It First.” Using it found the problems that building it never did.