Usage UI is hard to understand
Can someone help me interpret this UI? https://share.cleanshot.com/I1RInq
22 Replies
what do you not understand?
Looks like you're running out of Execution Hours
I read this as saying I have $4.40 left to use before I need to add a payment method. But the red warning banner and the execution hours block make it seem otherwise. So to answer your question, I don't understand any of what this is trying to communicate.
you get 500 execution hours in total
so
The free tier gives you free $5 or 500 hours
500 / services * environments
it's whichever runs out first
Yeah
https://craft.do/s/PxCI0nC2gKBBRT please read this
Thanks, that doc is helpful to understand the usage/pricing structure
UI is still confusing in that it assumes everyone has a thorough grasp on the either/or usage/pricing structure
What could we do to improve it?
Unknown User•2y ago
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I agree
Execution hours isn't measured in dollars though
Like that doesn't make a ton of sense IMO
Yeah makes sense
I think we just need to hide it a bit
e.g, if you're nearing execution hour limits, show the execution hours stuff
And then let people navigate to the credits screen if needed
With a little caveat of "On the free plan, we track execution hours"
tbh the execution hours being red is good i think
like you have two bars
first one to run out blocks you
Maybe adding something like: "Remaining execution hours", idk
doesn't look like it would fit the current layout tho
Unknown User•2y ago
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Before giving some ideas, please know that I'm not looking for more free resources. I will happily add my billing details and pay for a developer plan. And thank you for the free plan to test out your great product.
Problem (from my vantage point)
1. One has to have a deep understanding of the free plan's usage/pricing/limit paradigm in order to understand the UI
2. In my case, because the money credit usage was barely used, while execution hours were almost fully spent I couldn't understand if I needed to actually add payment details, and why, given the disparity. The paradigms visually contradict one another. It made me wonder if there was a usage computation bug or a conditional UI state bug.
Solution Ideas (fully acknowledging I'm flying blind regarding your business specifics)
I think it's challenging because at least in my case, the confusion is not rooted in looking at the isolated usage summary UI blocks (money vs hours), but rather viewing them all at the same time. Mentally juggling between two different usage models based on which is closer to its limit seems like unnecessary cognitive load from a product offering/clarity standpoint. I have two ideas, one that tries to treat the symptom and another that considers a deeper change.
Symptomatic UI Refinement
- Add a sentence above the breakdown clearly communicating that each month you start with $5 or 500 execution hours of free usage, whichever runs out first
- Make the usage breakdown a tabbed summary of each usage paradigm (money vs hours) with the active tab's data table usage breakdown underneath. The current table breakdown seemingly being for credits and a new one for the execution hours based on projects/environments/services/deployments etc.
- Auto select the tab that is projected to run out first
Deeper Change Idea
- Kill money credits paradigm on the free plan and go all in on execution hours.
- Do what's best for railway as a business. Even though some users will be negatively effected by your choice, there is a huge communication win for those of us who want to pay for great products and would do so if the usage screen was clearer and simpler to get our head around. In other words, my guess is the epicenter of your business is in getting us who try your product for free to convert into paying customers. So that screen is critical. Sadly that screen is not as delightful as the rest of your product.
- If railway feels bad about certain devs' projects not being able to run freely on the free plan anymore because of solely choosing execution hours, perhaps railway sponsors X number of projects/mo that fall outside of the free plan. There could even be some kind of submission form with project details that would be a reasonable hurdle in asking for ongoing free platform usage. This would likely weed out the complainers from those who are truly trying to build something and get hosting sponsorship. I'm only going down this train of thought because I assume if the free tier paradigm changes there will always be edge cases and complaints.
I think this is absolutely the move here
This is a beautiful writeup that I want to read more thoroughly after my upcoming meeting in 2 minutes.
Will relay it to the designer and hopefully we can make this a lot more clear quickly!
👍
I think that since there actuallu isn't that much data, having it all in one page, with hours on the left, and credits on the right would work better
Hours on left bc it seems that's what's more likely to be used up, from the support requests
I think the credits idea was originally added as a way to limit the resources that the user can use up
But a way this could be done is by decreasing free plan available resources, so the max use wouldn't be too much
It's also possible that just outright removing it could work, as most people don't seem to spend a lot of credits anyway