For a while now, most UX designers (and marketers in general) were focused on personas and the idea that by understanding people’s tendencies, you can design better products for them.
These days however, most companies have come to the realization that great products actually match with problems, not people. And the simpler the solution to their problem is, the more people like it.
What's in here?
Everything you need to know about our new timeline roadmap maker tool Goosly; including what you can do with it, why we built it, and how we've managed to make it free! 🤩
Simple tool to build timeline roadmaps on-the-go
If you love simple apps that do one thing really well, then you’re going to love Goosly; it’s a ridiculously simple roadmap tool (and the only one) that you can use for free to build timeline roadmaps on-the-go, then share and embed them just like this! 👇
We created Goosly as an everyday roadmap planner that anyone can use to plan just about anything.
Simplest way to sketch a plan
This happens to most of us; we find ourselves wanting to sketch a plan - not just for work, but for anything - like planning a holiday in Mexico or your best friend’s bachelorette, keeping track of Formula 1 schedules, or setting up a detox schedule.
And the thing with us humans is that - if the process of getting our pen and paper, using the whiteboard, or drawing a roadmap timeline in Jira or another tool is perceived as too much of a hassle - then we won’t do it!
What we want most of the time, is a low-effort way to put together a plan; and that is speaking for everyone.
Goosly is a solution to everyone’s planning problem
The whole experience was designed with one goal in mind: replace the pen-to-paper planning with a more digitally-savvy, fun approach to timeline roadmaps.
With Goosly, you can customize and share with just about anyone; so, whether you’re an agency communicating with customers, a backpacker tracking your trip, or even an event organizer looking to share updates with stakeholders, Goosly is the app for you.
What can Goosly do exactly?
Goosly makes thinking, planning and sharing super easy, but what does that imply?
1. Unlimited number of pages and endless possibilities
Create as many roadmaps as you want for free; no one’s asking. 😇
Also, there are so many possibilities for creating a timeline roadmap with Goosly:
- Choose from a set of Goosly templates
- Choose from public roadmaps shared by others
- Customize your roadmap with groups and colors
2. Two main sections: ‘timeline activities’ and ‘written content’
While drawing your plan, you can offer more context to those you share your timeline with, by adding a descriptive text on the side.
3. Timeline section is straightforward
We built Goosly in a way that feels organic:
- To add a new activity, you simply double-click on the date or use the ‘Create’ feature to add new info.
- All activity expands to reveal important data like date, description and color.
- When rescheduling, you can move or resize with absolute ease.
4. Create items based on how you want to plan
You can choose to zoom out for monthly or quarterly planning, or zoom in for daily/weekly activities; and every new activity is then set up automatically at that zoom level.
Also, you can make use of groups and colors to convey additional information.
5. There’s more to the timeline section
Goosly allows you to create additional context in the ‘Content creator’ section, for every roadmap you build. We added this section so you can explain yourself by writing notes (rich text) or adding resources (links, embed images and tables).
6. Customize your page and make it stand out
We’re big on individual experiences, so we made sure to add fun features so you can customize your every page and make it stand out. Aside from embedded images and title color, you can control the style of your page through background colors, gradients, and Unsplash photos.
7. Share your work in many ways
Once you’re done creating your roadmap timeline, you can:
- Publish your roadmap
- Share it with your team by email
- Share a link to your timeline with a customer
- Embed it onto your website
- Make it go viral by making it public
Once your timeline roadmap goes public, everyone (including you) will be able to access it and copy it as a template. Timeline templates are exactly what you’ll find in the ‘Discover roadmaps’ section: a set of useful roadmap templates made public by users like you, alongside a bunch of awesome templates the Jexo team put together.
8. Plan your work for free
Goosly is 100% free. Now, you may ask why we’d build such an awesome product yet give it away for free, and I’ll answer you.
Jexo is an Atlassian Marketplace partner that builds really cool project management apps for Jira Cloud. Our apps help 2,000 companies deliver work in a simpler way, and we’re quite thankful that we’ve managed to grow and build a sustainable business. We’re in no hurry to monetize Goosly.
Also, Goosly started out as Will’s side project (our Head of Engineering); he actually built the road mapping engine for our app Swanly. And so, Goosly shares the same roadmap engine which means that the main features we added to Goosly were already paid for by Swanly roadmap improvements.
Think of Goosly as a timeline maker, your own roadmap creator, the safe place to build, store and share your everyday plans. Roadmap templates are countless, just copy and make them yours. Pretty cool, hein?