Envato’s community and member base is made up of a diverse bunch of people: writers, designers, developers, video makers, editors, etc. The majority of us have projects which entail many jobs, normally organized by some sort of to-do list or checklist
Launchlist is a solution aimed at website designers and developers who have predetermined goals in a project. In Launchlist, you can create a project and set a list of tasks which can be checked off as time goes on. These tasks are mainly oriented around pre-launch (as the name suggests) website testing, although the app can be adapted to most needs.
Launchlist
Pricing
Launchlist is available in the aforementioned lite version but also in a handful of paid plans. Launchlist Pro is available on Astronaut, Rocketship and Planetoid plans from $5-30 a month. As the plans go up, the abilities to create more active checklists, create more active templates and add more users are available.
Each pro plan comes with a free 30-day trial but you need to setup a billing subscription via PayPal first. This was the option I took to commence this review and the process to cancel it was very easy. You can change plans at any time and cancel at any point.
Functionality
Inside the Launchpad dashboard you can create a list based upon a template of your choice, these are based upon one of the templates setup in the Templates tab.
After you’ve pressed the Let’s Go button, you’ll be brought to your checklist. Depending on what template you choose, there’ll already be a bunch of goals and tasks setup. Adding a new field is a breeze, and possible simply by clicking Add a New Field at the end of the page. From here, it’s pretty simple to set up your pre-launch checklist.
Setting up a new checklist is pretty simple.
So, now you’re ready to launch your website and run your pre-launch checks. For each field, you have the option to set it as not applicable or push the switch to “Yes” (indicating it’s completion). You can also add comments to each field if it is needed.
At the bottom is a fixed bar indicating the number of tasks left to check off. Depending on the number of checks, Launchlist will also indicate whether it’s advisable to launch or not. Once you’ve checked off all you want to, and wrote all the comments you need to, hit save to head back to the dashboard.
On the dashboard, your project now appears with a bar filled with the percentage of goals ticked off. Everything’s fairly simple and easy-to-use with the aim of the app being very simple, being able to launch a website in confidence.
You can add comments to any field.
Not only can you setup checklists for yourself, but you can share them with a test group with email reports being sent to and from each other.
Design
The web app is streamlined and useful from a usability perspective, but it’s housed inside a beautiful design. Everything works like an app with some really nice effects employed. The rocker switches are also a really nice way of checking off tasks.
The web design is also visually appearing and the usage of charts (such as the percentage-filled bars indicating progress) is a nice way of expressing statistics.
If you have multiple users, email reports are a great way of sharing pre-launch progress.
Launchlist Lite
Launchlist also has a “Lite” version available for those that don’t want to pay or enlist in a free 30-day trial. The lite version is actually favourable over the paid version from a single-project, single-user perspective as everything such as project editing and the checklist being contained on a single page.
However, if you have multiple projects or a need for real user managment, the pro version is a better alternative.
Final Thoughts
As I said before, I cancelled my plan but only because I’m not currently actively developing websites. If I were, this app is certainly helpful and a must-have if working in a group of multiple users. Great functionality is matched with a lovely design. However, I wasn’t too favorable of the pricing. For a month, it’s acceptable but generally there’s not that much need for more than a month of “pre-launch testing” on most websites.
It does what it says on the tin and that’s all you could want. Have a Launchlist subscription? Used it in a live project? Tell us about it in the comments!