Hmm. The problem we have (and presumably one Notion has, as well) is to somehow show off all our widgets, without it being overwhelming. We previously had them hidden in a submenu under "add widget", but we found that the few people we tried it on were confused and weren't sure what widgets were available.
I remember when I first saw Notion: it was beautiful! And the widget picker was exactly what we needed -- it acts as an index for all the widgets, with a short description for each. So I decided to steal the idea. None of the code here was copied (or even referenced). I think that when there are good design patterns (e.g. tabs), stealing an idea is okay.
In this case, I think that I might've been a bit too lazy, as you noted. I think we should've thought a bit more about the design. Thanks for the feedback! We'll get it changed in our next version. (My excuse is that we only switched to this widget picker overnight, and really really wanted to do a show hn today)
Demonstrating full functionality within an app is a lost art. Go take a look at MS Office that was out around with Windows 3.1. Microsoft Access, for example, had a tutorial included that walked you through everything - from setting up your initial tables all the way to raw queries, aggregate reports and the like. Lotus Improv 2.0 even had a "buddy" (sort of like the much maligned "Clippy" for Office 97) named John or something which would walk you through their software, demonstrating the structure and functionality of it over say VisiCal, Excel, or its own product 1-2-3.[0]
Specifically for your product, you might want to change a few things.
* 1: It's fairly busy when I click the demo. I'm overwhelmed by your "do you need help" real-time chat widget, which overlays your sidebar blocking out some functionality, and container3[2] which has 3 options.
* 2: I shouldn't even be seeing "container 3", as an end-user, or any integer primary keys.
* 3: I'm presuming "container3" is what your users want to interface with first. In which one do "I" pick? The second box of the two is particularly out of place, as the end-user hasn't had time to explore your app, so how could they even have questions or comments?
* 4: The side-bar gets overlapped by your interactive pop-up for help on my laptop for that chat feature, making a busy layout even more busy. Again, I haven't had time to explore your app, so how could I have questions? Do some mouse-movement analysis or something, and use that to determine if they're exploring the app productively or blindly clicking around in confusion. If the latter, then perhaps pop up the chat modal.
* 5: The column names aren't "humanized". 'first_name', 'last_name'. Even worse, "store_id" is a numerical value, rather than the actual store name.
* 6: On the initial load, there is no customer pre-populated. So not only does it have no content in those containers, but there are some display components which are clearly not supposed to be there[1]. (The more conventional way would be to have a details modal pop-up when you do select a user.)
* 7: Overall, the interface is unconventional and awkward for a standard user coming from any 'data-driven' app they'd use at their day job. I.e., you have both an overview table and then a details table below, which drills-down into two different detail levels (an overview of the customer, then their specific rental details). As a store manager, I probably want to see either the customers summary information (net revenue per month) or a list of specific titles they rented. Not both at the same time. As it stands you have 3 different levels of data being presented at once.
* Edit: Speak of the devil. I've never used Notion before, but I signed up for it and it has a "Clippy" right there. I guess they probably grew up with the same software I did haha. Their product isn't particularly powerful or groundbreaking (compared to say, what Asana was at the time) but I'm guessing that I'm not their target audience (seems like "yet-another-Trello/Evernote hybrid-with-an-Electron-app").
I'm guessing their target demographic is "John working sales at Dunder-Mufflin paper" who needs a central repository of his customers and purchasing habits ('Sally's Flowers is about to run out of stock', I should give her a call). Or John's manager, Tina, who wants to see aggregate statistics on how her team is doing with that new re-targeting email campaign software, she used 20% of her budget on. Are her 6 sales guys producing enough of a sales increase that the monthly fees are generating sufficient ROI?
I probably wouldn't pay for their software, but again I'm an emacs power user who's written thousands of lines of elisp on top of org-mode to centralize all of my information/aggregate analysis. Regardless, their interfacing tutorial animated helper is a prime case study of 'how to introduce someone to your product' without overwhelming them. But if they're your direct market competitor, it'd be quite questionable to "borrow" that flow. You're on tenuous ground as it is with your layout + widgets.
I don't use web apps out of principle if I can't at least pay to purchase a license to host it locally (Atlassian style), as I've been burned by tons of acquire-hire-kills. As such, I'm not sure what the ecosystem is like and if "Ivan" type animated helpers are commonplace. If they aren't, HN users take note -- this is a prime example of how to introduce your new users to your software.
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[0] Both are pretty much 'abandonware' at this point, so I have no problem telling you to go pirate it.
