We have added Expired Quests to HeroMode!
With this new functionality, you can mark a quest as expired instead of deleting it. For example, for a quest that you just can't get to, and you'd like to keep it in the record and track the stats.
Expired Quests, along with other updates on Stats and Activity Calendars, will be available in the next release!
In last week's blog post, our guest blogger, Jade, described how she uses HeroMode to structure productivity hours at work.
Towards the end of the post, Jade mentioned a feature request that she has proposed to the HeroMode team: missed quests. When Jade isn't able to complete one of her productivity hour quests, she'd like to designate the quest as "missed", rather than deleting it from the record.
We are happy to announce that this functionality has been introduced into the HeroMode codebase! We are currently testing it internally (including with Jade!), and will be releasing it soon in an upcoming version.
Mark a Quest as Expired instead of Deleting it
As we design the user experience of this feature idea, we felt the word "missed" would only apply to repeat quests, rather than all quests. And we don't want this new functionality to only apply to repeat quests.
So we are using the word "expired" instead of "missed". That makes sense and covers more use cases, we believe. When you don't plan to execute a quest, but still would like to keep it in the record, marking it as "expired" sounds intuitive.
Here is how it'd work (illustrated with the video below). Let's say you have a quest that you will never get to. Before, all you can do is deleting it. Now, when you click on the delete button, you have the option of marking it as expired instead.
When a quest is expired, it'd get an expiration date, which by default is the end of the day on which it was created. You can also change the expiration date to any date you want!
Now you are probably thinking, "hey does that mean I can also define an expiration date for an open quest, and have the quest automatically be closed if I can't completed before then? LIKE A DEADLINE!?".
If that's what you were thinking, we love it. You should tell us more about what you think and all your HeroMode ideas. The answer is, yes, we are indeed thinking in this direction. We are actively gathering feedbacks to see how much interest there is for defining deadline for an open quest.
See Expired Quests in Stats & Activity Calendars
Expired quests do not earn points. That's expected since the quest was not actually completed. But how do we track them in stats in a way that's informative, yet not overwhelming?
We considered many possibilities. We even thought about negative points: what if an expired quest subtracts points from your points total? This suggestion was very quickly vetoed. People really like their points!
Moreover, in designing HeroMode, one major philosophy we have is to "never punish effort". We want to cheer you on as you get stuff done and make progress. Sometimes, despite having the intention, and despite trying really hard, you don't get everything done. We want the user to feel that's okay.
So we came up with the implementation shown in the screenshot below. When you look at your stats, if there's any expired quest within a given timeframe, you'd see how many. In the activity calendar, any day with expired quests is denoted with one red dot.
Above: Expired quests can be tracked within stats and activity calendar.
Stats & Activity Calendars Also Got an Update!
Speaking of Stats & Activity Calendar, we also gave them an update!
Previously, there are three types of timeframes to navigate your stats: Daily, Weekly, and All-time.
It finally occurred to us "All-time" doesn't make too much sense, whereas "Monthly" makes a lot of sense. So now, you can see your points total "Daily", "Weekly", or "Monthly". A much more logical set!
Above: In the upcoming release, stats timeframe will be Daily, Weekly, and Monthly.
All these new features and updates will be coming to the next HeroMode release. We hope you will enjoy them!