ChartBlocks is an online chart builder that lets you create and share charts in minutes.
Target Audience: B2B communications, financial reporting, data vizualizers
Website URL: https://app.chartblocks.com
No. of Feedback Providers Requested: 5
Feedback sought:
Note to Feedback Providers:
Please note that startups are looking for in-depth feedback that gives them thorough, insightful and actionable input. A ‘superficial’ submission that does not add value, is not thorough (i.e. written in a hurry, with poor grammar, punctuation etc.) and does not offer any constructive feedback is not particularly helpful and will therefore be rejected.
Note: We are not currently looking for feedback on our website (we know it’s not great) but on the actual web app itself.
1) Sign up for an account and make yourself a basic chart. Was the process simple enough? Did you get stuck at any point?
2) Once your chart is built you will enter the more advanced chart editor. Try changing the design a little. Did you find the tools you wanted? Were they easy to use?
3) Try sharing your chart. Did you find the sharing tools? Did they allow you to share your chart in the way that you would want to?
4) If you regularly use charts what other features would you like to see in a product like ChartBlocks?
5) Would ChartBlocks be useful on a mobile device or is it the kind of thing that you would only use your desktop computer to do?
1) Sign up for an account and make yourself a basic chart. Was the process simple enough? Did you get stuck at any point?
The sign up process was extremely simple and so was the process of making the basic chart. But what I did not like about the app is that it is too slow. It lags at each step and that is frustrating. I tried different presentation styles and faced the same problem. Sometimes, the template did not load too but then after a while, it did. I loved the process, it was very simple to understand and I love the layout of the app. It looks amazing. It has a very professional and modern look.
2) Once your chart is built you will enter the more advanced chart editor. Try changing the design a little. Did you find the tools you wanted? Were they easy to use?
Yes, definitely! I would like to find out more options to see how I can make it better. The templates provided are nice but a little customisation can make a lot of difference, so, I would enter the more advanced chart editor. I found a lot of options to change my chart. There are options to change the chart style i.e. bar, pie chart, line and scatter. There are options to change the font, size, shape and color of the chart and I really liked that. The chart has a very high quality look to it and the colors are very bright and refreshing. I loved how the menu works i.e. it is a collapsable menu and appears on the left when we click on it. And when we are making any changes, we can see how it will look on the chart. I love that so many options are available.
3) Try sharing your chart. Did you find the sharing tools? Did they allow you to share your chart in the way that you would want to?
I found the sharing tools and there were a lot more options than I expected. There was the link sharing option which I expected. And also an option to share the file via social networking websites. I think that is great because social networking websites are a huge part of the business today and makes it a lot easier to share files. There is also this embed option to present the chart on a website. So, my answer is yes, they allowed me to share the file the way I wanted.
4) If you regularly use charts what other features would you like to see in a product like ChartBlocks?
I think it is perfect as it is. The only part that needs work is the lagging part. I think you should fix that. And one more thing which can be added to ChartBlocks is an option to edit a particular part of the chart by just clicking on it. It will make ChartBlocks very user-friendly and easy to use. It would be better than finding the option for the area we want to edit as we won’t have to look for it and it would be available to us with only a click on the desired area.
5) Would ChartBlocks be useful on a mobile device or is it the kind of thing that you would only use your desktop computer to do?
I think it would be very useful on a mobile device too. The layout is perfect for mobile and nowadays the mobiles have huge screens and I think that would make using this app very easy. ChartBlocks takes only a few seconds to create a chart, so with a mobile app, it can be used from anywhere. It can also be used when the basic chart has been created and all we want to do is edit and customise it or maybe just share it. So, I think a ChartBlocks mobile app would be great! I just love the app! It is so easy to use!
I’d like to thank you for providing me this opportunity to help you. Good luck with the website! Thanks.
Easy sign-up which led me straight to the work space. The top heading options, especially on the first page ( “type…” of chart) should be in bolder, larger print to readily distinguish from the rest of the bright white and blue tones on the page. It seemed that my eyes had to labor for a minute to identify the determining factors. The pictures were unmistakably the most capturing object rather than the title. However, the titles on the pages following were a little more distinct so as to be the first thing read before making the choices.
Incredible detail options for creating except for the limited font list. While the font choices seem only a minor aspect, it IS noteworthy that more choices would coincide with other artistic abilities already available. To make changes in the chart seemed in every way very accessible, but I was not able to understand how to get the design from the items I clicked to appear on the main view. An option of side-by-side views of before and after would be helpful for comparison. It would also be a useful option to be able to alter the design directly on the chart along with all the click options found in the pop-outs. If these options already exist, then I simply was not able to locate them.
Perhaps in time, the chart types and datasets too will include more variety.
The sharing tool was surprisingly quick and easily located at the top corner. It would be useful, especially if made shareable in e-mail or to any website type without the use of Gyazo. With chart-making to this degree being such an intricate task, I would likely only operate on a laptop or desktop computer. Very impressive beginning to a wonderful tool. I will definitely save to my favorites and review again in the future.
1) Sign up for an account and make yourself a basic chart. Was the process simple enough? Did you get stuck at any point?
The process is simple and straightforward. It was really easy to follow the steps in building a chart. I managed to create a chart in just a few minutes which is pretty great.
In the Dataset Step, “Import data” does not work. Nothing happens when I click on it.
This is just a minor issue I found: On the Dataset Step, when I choose “An existing dataset” and then decide to hit the Previous button, I get taken back to the First Step when I was expecting to be taken to the Dataset Step.
2) Once your chart is built you will enter the more advanced chart editor. Try changing the design a little. Did you find the tools you wanted? Were they easy to use?
In changing the design, I first thought of re-positioning the legend and chart.
First thing I did was I hovered my mouse around the canvas and I could see that I could drag the legend around. The Title can also be dragged around but I could not figure how to change it. Double clicking it does not work. I wish the chart itself could be dragged around as well.
But once I saw the options at the left, the tools were pretty easy to find although I still could not find the option to change the chart’s position on the canvas.
I found myself confused at some point because the process of editing is not consistent. The Options for the Legend automatically pops open when I click on it on the canvas. But for the title and chart itself, I need to look for its options on the left bar manually.
One difficulty I had when editing was that when the Options is open at the left side, the canvas gets partially covered so that I have to keep reopening and closing the Options menu to see the changes on the canvas.
It’s great that I can still edit the data and chart type even at this step.
Overall, changing the design is easy and simple but I find some options missing like the ability to change the chart’s position in the canvas. Also, it would be nice if I can break the legend into two lines or columns if it’s too long. The chart I made had a long list of legends and it just got cut off the canvas.
3) Try sharing your chart. Did you find the sharing tools? Did they allow you to share your chart in the way that you would want to?
Sharing was quick and easy.
The preview was different from the actual chart though. In the link I shared, the chart was centered and the legend overlapped it but in the preview, the chart was off center and the legend wasn’t overlapping it.
4) If you regularly use charts what other features would you like to see in a product like ChartBlocks?
So far, I’m fine with the current features of ChartBlocks but it would be nice to have a Histogram included.
5) Would ChartBlocks be useful on a mobile device or is it the kind of thing that you would only use your desktop computer to do?
I think ChartBlocks would be useful on a mobile device if the chart to make is simple. But if the chart will have tons of data in it, I would rather use a desktop computer. I feel like editing the chart in a mobile device is cumbersome.
1) Sign up for an account and make yourself a basic chart. Was the process simple enough? Did you get stuck at any point?
Signing-up for an account was very simple, easy and straight forward. Registering in 3 steps didn’t take much of my time. Verifying of my email is a very great step for added security and authentication.
Creating a basic chart wasn’t hard either, it already gives us the option to create a chart. Putting the “+” symbol also helps by giving us another option to create a chart. Providing illustrations for the type of chart helps a lot for newbie chart users. Giving us sample datasets helps us a lot since it gives us a complete data of what we need to provide which saves us a lot of time to figure-out what to input. For first time users, since there was an “X-axis”, we were pretty much expecting that the next option is “Y-axis” so we had to think a little while. For the checkbox for “First row as headings”, it should have been only shown on the”X-axis” step and not on the next step anymore which makes a us a little confused if will apply on the “series” step. Choosing the template gives us some kind of rewarding relief that we made a pretty good chart since all templates looks clear and professional and gives us more flexibility to choose pre-designed charts.
As a first time user, following the steps was not really a breeze since I was already on the notion of already using my first chart as my production chart already but on the”X-axis” and “Series” steps, I didn’t get stuck, instead I gave it more time understand it. However, if my first chart was just for testing only, it’s very easy and not put not too much effort on it because on the second pass of making a chart, it’s be a breeze.
2) Once your chart is built you will enter the more advanced chart editor. Try changing the design a little. Did you find the tools you wanted? Were they easy to use?
Testing some advanced chart editor and browsing all the commands, the terms were not technical which is a good thing. Making changes were instantly done without prerequisites. Also having a drag option makes editing a whole lot easier. Downloading the chart is great since it gives us different kinds of format to choose from. Overall, the advanced chart editor covers most usual advanced editors.
3) Try sharing your chart. Did you find the sharing tools? Did they allow you to share your chart in the way that you would want to?
The option was fairly easy to find since it’s on the top menu. In my opinion, the ON/OFF button for sharing is a little redundant since the reason why we clicked on sharing is we wanted it to share unless the switch is for an AUTO-share which I think is not. Showing a thumbnail of my chart was basically what I expected and since the chart have clear lines and fonts it was very clear and clean. Adding LinkedIn as a part of the choices to choose from will be better since it’s a professional social networking site.
4) If you regularly use charts what other features would you like to see in a product like ChartBlocks?
If I will regularly use charts, giving more description for the “import data” function will be better. For experienced MS excel users, adding the usual key shortcut commands like undo, cut and paste will be better. Also 3D chart options will make the app more enticing to use.
5) Would ChartBlocks be useful on a mobile device or is it the kind of thing that you would only use your desktop computer to do?
Since dragging of objects is such a very convenient option to most users, I don’t think mobile devices can’t offer that function so I think only desktop computer can maximize all of it’s functions. However, since some mobile devices don’t have MS excel for chart making, ChartBlocks is a great app for basic and some advanced options for mobile device users.
1) Sign up for an account and make yourself a basic chart. Was the process simple enough? Did you get stuck at any point? I signed up as justcaree. After I did a little browsing. I did my first chart. The process was easy enough. At first I had to think about what information to put where but I figured it out because it works just like excel.
2) Once your chart is built you will enter the more advanced chart editor. Try changing the design a little. Did you find the tools you wanted? Were they easy to use? The tools were simple enough. Once I saved the chart and then went back to edit it is where i started to get confused. It took a little bit of clicking around to get what I wanted to get.
3) Try sharing your chart. Did you find the sharing tools? Did they allow you to share your chart in the way that you would want to?
I found the sharing tools easy. They shared correctly.
4) If you regularly use charts what other features would you like to see in a product like ChartBlocks? The ability to add more information to the chart would be helpful. I’d like to be able to have multiple factors in a chart.
5) Would ChartBlocks be useful on a mobile device or is it the kind of thing that you would only use your desktop computer to do? For me it would be PC only. The mobile would not be visibly easy on the eyes.
1. I decided to create a pie chart. My initial thoughts were how intuitive and stylish the user interface is. I liked how it guided me through the chart creation process; it was really easy to follow. One thing I could not get to work was the ability it import a data set. I clicked on the button several times but nothing happened. Also, the amount of templates available was great. I liked having the different options to see how my data was going to be presented.
2. The advanced chart editing tools on the left nav bar were useful. All the basic tools I would expect to see were present. You also had a few items that I didn’t expect, such as the Meta tab. The ability to enter meta data is a great addition to the chart. However, I had problems with the data set tab. As I modified and highlighted the data set my chart began to change in funny was. The data was not being associated properly with the correct values. The chart legend was no longer corresponding with the correct values.
3. The sharing options are fine. I liked the public and private links for the chart as well as the code for embedding the chart into something else. The social sharing options I expected to see, Twitter, FB, and Pinterest were all present.
4. I have to be honest, I don’t make a lot of charts. But one thing I couldn’t find was an option to put a border on my chart. I think adding some more decorative options would be a good addition.
5. For the most part, I would only use a tool like ChartBlocks on my computer. I would only use a mobile version if I could import a .csv from Dropbox, Google Drive, and/or Box. From there, the mobile interface would need to guide me through the creation process seamlessly. I’m not sure I would need all the advanced options in a mobile version.