I would favor rolling out features as you can. Having worked in software, you never get all the bugs out. People here are pretty understanding and excited about the new features. Thanks for running a great site!
Jay
Jay
I agree with Jay. Rolling out each enhancement as it is available is the best. Each roll out can then be twiked .
Whichever way you feel is best. You are doing the work and know exactly how much is involved, so do what you think is best..
I work in what's referred to as Change and Release Management (yea, another IT Geek!). Based on both personal and professional experience, you never want to do a slow and soft launch of bits and pieces. As you mention, there will be bugs seen along the way and by releasing small parts, you are more likely to miss some dependencies on other parts of the code or modules. The same holds true whether you do a full hard launch or slow and gradual one. All (and I do mean all) successful professional organizations will run the software release in a test environment (or beta in this case) for several weeks first. During the beta phase, you essentially turn it on and allow production use. You can then get a good idea how everything is running. You should turn on added systems and software monitoring at that time so you can track nearly any error seen. Of course the absolute best monitoring you can get you already have, your thousands of members. Once you let everyone know that the beta site is ready, they will hit it (and hit it hard in this type of setting). This is the kind of acceptance testing you want to have. It will give you a good load test to make sure code doesn't blow up and makes sure your servers can handle the extra load combined with the extra code.
I know it's a LONG explination but I've seen this type of activity before on other organizations internal and external sites and the only successful launches include a beta phase. In the end though, it's your decision as you own the site but don't lose sight of the what the customer experience would be by doing both types of launches.
I know it's a LONG explination but I've seen this type of activity before on other organizations internal and external sites and the only successful launches include a beta phase. In the end though, it's your decision as you own the site but don't lose sight of the what the customer experience would be by doing both types of launches.
I would have to agree with Alicia. I have beta tested a few different programs in the past and have been witness to a few new web site rollouts.
One big problem with rolling out parts and pieces of a new design is that you sometimes run into issues where an update to one page of a site causes other pages to not load completely if at all.
One big problem with rolling out parts and pieces of a new design is that you sometimes run into issues where an update to one page of a site causes other pages to not load completely if at all.
I agree. Adding features as they're ready allows users to familiarize themselves with each one as it's released, rather than suddenly faced with an entirely unfamiliar format that they have to "relearn" how to navigate through. I've really enjoyed Swingular since I joined and am anxious to see the changes and how they will make my experiences here even more enjoyable. keep up the good work.
We think you should release each new feature on it;s own. If you release alot of new featuresa you may well end up having to deal with a multitude of glitches from each new feature instead of being able to concentrate on one problem at a time.