Doodle Blog

We just finished putting the latest Doodle release online. It features a number of improvements:

• Doodle now also works properly with Google’s Chrome browser.
• Doodle now stores the information you already entered when you choose to add a comment. Thus, after having added your comment to a poll, your information is still there and you can easily continue where you left off.
• When you edit an entry in a poll, the browser jumps to the correct position in the table and centers conveniently on the input field where you’re supposed to edit your information.
• When you create a new date/time poll and click on “Copy and paste first row”, your browser no longer jumps to the top of the page.
• Mobile Doodle has been available since August and allows you to participate in an existing poll with your mobile phone. Now you can also create new polls using your mobile. Give it a try at m.doodle.com and send us your feedback!
• Last but not least: Basque is Doodle’s 26th language. Thanks to Ander Goñi!

Yesterday, we set up a new Doodle release and are proud to present Doodle’s new look today. Most importantly: All existing polls remain unchanged. And the complete Doodle functionality is still available. But Doodle has undergone a major redesign and is even easier to use now — if this is possible at all.

Why the Redesign?

Doodle had been online for years without a substantial redesign. At the same time, we’ve added feature after feature with each update. Today, Doodle is used by 2 million users each month and also needs to cater to our advertising customers. So while Doodle was able convince many users with its “retro” charm, the need for some design work was obvious. To that end, Doodle has undergone extensive usability testing in order to reduce its functionality to the max again — always keeping the user in focus.

What’s New?

• Creating a poll: “PowerDoodle” disappeared and replaced by a simple options step during the setup process
• Accessing a poll: All poll-related functions available right beneath the poll, where users need them
• MyDoodle: Users can now log in on every Doodle page without losing the info on that page
• Improved visual design
• Still no introductory videos explaining the service on our home page — we think Doodle is easy enough to make this unnecessary

Read more about the changes introduced by the redesign. Or read some background information written by Information Architects.

The CTI Start-up Label is awarded to companies which are ready for sustainable growth and meet the following requirements: working and industrialized product, market acceptance, professional and experienced management team, growth.

We are excited and would like to thank CTI Start-up for all their support.

Today, we are launching the Doodle Gadget. It allows iGoogle users to integrate MyDoodle into their personalized portal page. MyDoodle is an optional Doodle account which allows users to access and manage their polls and scheduling acitivities in one central dashboard.

The gadget allows MyDoodle users to integrate this dashboard into iGoogle and gives them an easy and up-to-date overview of the latest acitivities and the current status: How many people have participated in which poll? When was the last update?

» Add the Doodle Gadget to iGoogle
» Open a MyDoodle account

Facebook and other integrations: The Doodle gadget is the latest step in a series of integrations. In September, we launched the Doodle Facebook application which won the 1st prize of Facebook’s German Application Contest one month later. Doodle is also integrated into a number of web sites and is used by various organizations to schedule their business events and meetings.

Starting today, we provide Doodle to the Facebook-Community as well. Facebook users who have added the Doodle application can poll their friends for a date or time in a few simple steps. Invitations to participate in a poll can be sent via Facebook’s messaging system. And even people without a Facebook account can participate in the poll upon invitation by e-mail.

Doodle is a great extension to Facebook. While Facebook’s current features are good for managing events given a date, Doodle is the easiest, most efficient way to find the best date or time for a group event. And it is the first application to add this functionality to Facebook. We’re excited to find out how much the Facebook community will like the new Doodle application.

» Use Doodle for Facebook

Update on coverage so far: Lifehacker, Life Clerks, Download Squad, 901am, BlogSchmog.

Doodle for Facebook

The newly introduced PowerDoodle options also allow a poll’s initiator to limit the number of answers allowed per participant (row) or option (column). You can use this feature to utilize Doodle for any kind of resource planning and reservation. For example:

• As a teacher to organize your consultation hours
• As an exhibitor to staff your stand at a fair
• As a group of people who want to coordinate “stuff” they own or use as a group, e.g., a tennis court, a boat, or a cottage

How to specify limits for the number of answers per participant (row) and option (column)

Using Doodle as a simple resource planning and reservation tool

Doodle always allowed to specify time spans like “8am-9am”. But now Doodle also “understands” time spans and properly recognizes an appointment’s start and end time. This is very useful when you import a Doodle appointment directly into your calendar (e.g., Outlook, Google Calendar, etc.), because the appointment will then show up with the correct times, along with all the other relevant information like date, subject, description, and the list of participants.

Example of a Doodle event imported into Google Calendar

Doodle’s standard poll is the transparent, binary yes-or-no poll. But Doodle also supports hidden polls and so-called ifneedbe polls. Hidden polls hide the answers from participants, only the poll administrator can inspect the results. Ifneedbe polls support three options instead of two: “yes”, “no”, and “I can make it if necessary, but I’d prefer a different option”.

In our latest release, we also included PowerDoodle, which allows poll administrators to freely combine these options in a last, optional step when they initiate a poll. As PowerDoodle is optional, our users can also choose to just ignore PowerDoodle or to even skip the last step. Please refer to this overview page if you’d like to see in what ways you can combine the PowerDoodle options.

The PowerDoodle button is displayed when a poll is initiated — you can skip PowerDoodle by clicking “Finish” here

PowerDoodle options