What should we start/stop/keep doing here at Treehouse?

Hi Ryan, I've been a member since January, and I try to spend at least some time every day learning at Treehouse. There are some things I would like to see:

I would like to see more emphasis/advice on how to get started in the entry level tech market. There are many places online to find free tutorials and information on coding, but finding the most efficient and direct way to study it to make ourselves marketable is what is lacking. The Learning Adventures are a great concept, but I do think it needs to be developed a bit more.

More specific things I would like are forum/video integration. It would be great to watch a video, and have a link to the forum discussions that have taken place surrounding that video. It would be great complementary material. Some kind of office hour chats or video conferences with the teachers would be great too.

Those are general things that I think would be great for all users. I also want to put in a personal vote for more Wordpress classes. It's so easy to find beginner's Wordpress classes online for free, but I think there's a big demand for more intermediate courses. The theme building course is a great example of the type of classes I'd like to see more of.

Edit I see I didn't answer the question

1. Stop trying to be so hip and clever on the videos. Substance over style.

2. Keep improving. I think you have the potential to have something great here.

I've known about Treehouse since the early days of ThinkVitamin. Saw some videos, took advantages of some promotions where I would get free access, but did not use it, so decided not to keep my membership. Than I started my own business, and didn't find them time or money to pay for a membership. Now that I have become an employed at a company, where my tasks are mostly print/design stuff I have the time to study and improve my coding/webdesign skills to be ready for the future and that's why I decided to pay up for a yearly GOLD membership, and I havent regretted it one bit!

With that said and to answer your questions:

1a: I dont know how, but I think it would be awesome to have some kind of "Study groups" for members. Like.. Live Online sessions, webcams/skype, with 2-5 students and a teacher, assigned homework, reviews.. I think (hope) you get the idea.

1b: More features for GOLD users ;)

1c: Just a personal preference, but you should really hire more female teaches! Allison is doing such an awesome job!

1d: Dating ALL videos.

2: I dont have anything specific at the moment that you should stop doing actually. The only thing I can think of is that treehouse would pay their teachers to go on a acting course. But that's not a big issue at all. It's just that some teaches come of a little "awkward".

3: Keep (and improve) making it fun to learn, as I think you are doing a great job and now!

Just my 2 cents :)

Edit: When writing out a long comment like this, I noticed that the comment field it self, does not support scrolling. Really annoying :)

What should Treehouse start doing?

1. Taking opinions/votes on what topics to cover next. I can easily see (Library, Dashboard, Profile, Forum, and Votes) And there can be month long or two month long votes, about what lessons in a specific topic we would like to see.
2. Add Teachers Notes on a certain lesson when something is outdated. Some videos are outdated just because of how fast things change. (Like iOS and the @synthesize property. This was not apparent to me, yet it's shown in the intro lesson)
3. Add a button on videos/code challenges/ quizes for help. It will create a new forum post, but will auto fill in the title or body with the exact video/challenge/quiz they were on. Too many questions can't be answered because people think that everyone else knows exactly where they are at.
4. Much along the lines of teachers notes... maybe redo the videos on the "Intro to (insert topic here)" every 3 months? Or at least look over them every three months to make sure they are still correct and make sense. When I started to learn iOS, xcode was already a bit different, which caused me to have problems. Something I didn't expect from Treehouse. I expected the most up to date videos. This isn't a huge problem in my opinion, because only the parts where the teacher is screencasting has to be updated. And not the entire video.
5. Forum improvements: Mark things as solved/finished. Mandatory tags (Hate when I can't tell what topic something falls into. Add points to your total for helping others.
6. I've noticed some quizzes only ask you 5 questions, but there are more than those five available. How about when I complete a quiz... I can see all of the quiz questions and the answers to them?
7. Provide more timelines for topics? I believe you talk about a couple, but I would really like to know when I'm going to see Android Deep Dives!

What should Treehouse stop doing?

1. Charging so much for gold. I don't see that much of a huge benefit for double the price.
2. Stop making the quizzes really short on some topics. Quizzes are an awesome way to measure if I've retained any of the tech jargon I should know.

What should Treehouse keep doing?

1. Keep releasing nifty little features. (Possibly let us know what features you are working on. Maybe public Trello)
2. Keep making the videos funny. I love when mike the frog chimes in, it makes everything less boring.

1. What should Treehouse start doing?

• Smarter Feedback System: A button next or underneath the videos so when a user clicks on the button they don't have to indicate which course they are talking about. If minimalism is a concern then this feature could be implemented when a user clicks on the default Contact Support form.

• Social Network for the web industry : I don't suggest this because social network is still they hyped term in the industry. I believe Treehouse should in someway connect students to each other, that would facilitate the learning experience which is inline which Treehouse's mission. I can easily see Treehouse as a industry standard in future. For example I don't see Codeschool that way, even though they also produce very high quality content and working really hard.

What should Treehouse stop doing?

• Stop posting not-so-essential blog posts. Quality over quantity.

• Stop sending emails about the new badges. It's already in effect i guess.

What should Treehouse keep doing?

• Produce high-quality content at a faster rate. Especially more advanced topics. That should also be valid for the avg. user.

There was more but can't remember now.

Hey Ryan,

Just been having some thoughts on this (thanks for commenting on my blog by the way! :)

1. What you should start doing Having some sort of retention mechanic along the lines of "streaks" as reminders via email along the lines of how Codecademy does it. It keeps me engaged and coming back for more, it would be interesting to see how it would affect engagement and retention for you guys, even if it was a small experiment. Since you guys implemented points recently, maybe that's already in the works?

Have some system for spaced repetition learning? Would be cool to have quizzes to test my knowledge on a regular basis .. along the lines of Derek Sivers post http://sivers.org/srs

• re-examine the web development track on whether or not students can actually create rails apps. Okay, this is a bit selfish on my part, but if you were to ask me to explain and do things from scratch.. I'm still not able to recite or do stuff from scratch.. maybe I'm being too hard on myself or you guys for not picking up on this at a lighting pace.

1. What you should stop doing

2. I really can't pinpoint what you should stop.. sorry!

3. What you should start doing

4. PLEASE! Have subforums/Q&A in the modules in themselves - similar to Udemy. I think the user experience is broken when i have to open up another tab to check out the forum to look for answers or hints for a code challenge i'm struggling with.

5. perhaps have curated lists of resources - for instance, I tried to look for a CSS cheat sheet.. maybe there's stuff you guys can compile for us newbies - it's easy content for you guys and you can still remain top of mind for the value you provide as well as capture longer tail search traffic which (this is a hypothesis) can assist with micro-conversions?

6. in person classes or at least partnerships with "Dev Bootcamp" style schools? I'm chatting with the Bitmaker Labs guys here in Toronto and they're doing an amazing job training up newbies to become full stack rails devs.

Redo all of the jQuery videos and start with a beginners guide to jQuery and actually teach us the language like HTML, CSS and PHP is. I've been on Treehouse since April 1st. 26 days later, I've just started work for my first client. It's only tweaking a Drupal theme and adding bits and pieces but, due to the level of education I've received from Treehouse, I am 100% confident I can do it. I'm currently building two sites for my own personal use. An ecommerce site with news and reviews and a portfolio site for my work, great ways to put into practice what's being taught. Both are coming along nicely.

I would really like to see more on PHP. It's insanely awesome and should be used all the time in my opinion. An island on creating a blog in PHP so that news articles and review articles can be posted and then most recent can be picked from the database and shown on the homepage.

I'm currently following a good tutorial on youTube but I know if Treehouse did it, it would be awesome.

You guys have got the recipe for teaching perfect, except jQuery. That's a disaster. I keep banging on about it but when the teacher just copies and pastes something and goes "there, that's done!" and moves on...how are we expected to be able to learn about what it does and write it out in the code challenge. I quit at that point.

Also, REPLY TO MY EMAIL ABOUT SHIPPING ME THE TWO BOOKS TO THE UK PLEASE!!!!!! It's been about 3 weeks since I asked.

Thanks.

Hi!

I posted a suggestion a few weeks back for practice briefs

The idea would be to have members try to build a project on their own terms, with their own style and be able to get feedback from other members and staff.

It might also prepare us members for future freelance work and get us ready for designing/ devving in the real world.

Id also like to see material on industry practice, a bit like Martin suggests, how to prepare for and then go get a job in the industry.

Written like a dumb dumb as I'm very tired, please forgive me :P

Hi Ryan Carson thanks for reaching out to your Users to hear our opinion and suggestions.

What should Treehouse start doing? If possible show the process of building a site using tools like Foundation or Twitter Bootstrap. What I have found when you download the package is that it's not as easy to get a site up and running using a basic bootstrap tool. Still a good bit of work, but I'm sure there is an easier way to do things than how I or a lot of beginners dive in.

Add a Comments section to each video / session created so that Users can interact with Teachers for advice on certain steps that we watch or read.

What should Treehouse stop doing? I honestly don't have anything that I'd want you to stop doing. Everything so far has been incredible and has helped me in more ways than I thought imaginable. What I learned in some classes at college and while I was in the US Air Force didn't teach me anything near what I have learned from you guys. Keep it up!

What should Treehouse keep doing? Creating incredible, up to date content that engages all of us and helps us learn a new skill!

Treehouse Shop - sell stickers to put on our Mac like on Nicks Mac.

Ive only been here a couple of weeks and just wanted to say im learning alot QUICKLY - which is great because I tend to get bored quite fast. Anyway, some feedback for you ....

Have a forum for each learning adventure , or subject rather than using tags. Would be great to have the forum more organised and structured in this way - seems to be a popular request judging on the comments above. The forum has alot of potential here simply down to the kind customers you have and I think the current setup is limiting the amount people interact.

Include the date of the creation/publication of each video so we can tell how relevant certain parts of the material are. I know that the content mostly is relevant (and you update when it is not) but there are snippets like when it says " at the time of publication this element wasnt supported by firefox but was by chrome and opera" - a difference of a year or even just 3 or 4 months in this situation could make a big difference for example.

A bigger quiz for each badge and/ or even a learning adventure exam at the end covering ALL the topics again

For me the video streaming is really slow - unusable in fact - and I have to download every video that I watch. Now that is partly due to the fact I live in Bolivia and the internet is terrible here . but I do have a 1mb connection which I think should be sufficient to stream the videos. I have tried setting to flash not html5 and it is still unusable. I have gone to other sites to compare when having problems and streamed videos fine.Have tried in multiple browsers also.

Just wanted to backup what some of the other members are saying:

Charge less or provide more for being a gold member.

Hey Ryan, Keep on being you, because no one else can do it like you do.

Treehouse should include more tutorials on animation, Photoshop, or illustrator and I would also like more deep dives in android.

Treehouse should stop charging $50, and charge in the range of $20-35 for gold, because I happily tell everyone I know about the benefits of Treehouse but I firmly believe a price cut of at least 20 bucks to gold, would accurately target Treehouse's demographic, and with price drop to 19.99 for your basic. 29.99 Gold 19.99 Premium.

I was once told if your product is worth the price you list, then why would you offer a discount? Discounted product in the beging can leave the consumer asking why should I pay the high price.

For example, I signed up with Treehouse for a 50% reduced fee for the first month, I am enjoying my service, but why would I continue paying you so much when I can view all your gold member content in One Month, and I could wait until Treehouse produces a large amount of gold content to sign up on a different account at a cut rate just to view your content.

75% off the first month, leads to 50% off the first month, deteriorates to $1 for the first two weeks. There is a common pattern with websites and discount offerings. Treehouse doesn't have to discount your work to reach your finical goals, because I firmly believe schools like Treehouse have a place in the future of society's education paradigm, with their work at your own pace style and passion.

I love Treehouse because of its "sesame street" style, video chapters short movie, and all the gold content aimed at helping the student reach his/her full potential. Additionally, the videos where the words are displayed as if it were a hologram and then the code is broken down in front of the teacher added a different dimension to the topic (maybe it was the visual highlighting of individual parts as the teacher spoke about them)

Anyways, I hope that helped and your weekend goes well, Daniel

(P.S. I second the add a scroll bar into the "reply to this discussion" text field)

Just to add, I think a proper full on forum would be nice because at the moment, this message board doesn't really promote discussion as your thread buggers off within a day.

Hi! I would like to take the opportunity to say that I've done a lot of tutorial type sites. lynda.com, code school, udacity, codecademy... you name it.

When I started your web development and design courses, I was blown away about the QUALITY of the information. It is fairly up-to-date. Nothing can be 100% up to date in this field, but it's closer than everything else that I've seen. But more than that, it's useful and practical. You encourage real world development scenarios and for that I freaking love you. So in terms of what to keep doing??? Keep doing that. It's AWESOME.

I guess that was #3... so I suppose we'll go in reverse order.

2 Stop doing - Hmm. Well I read some of the comments and some people are all like 'get acting classes' and 'stop trying to be hip and cool'... I'm not sure about that last one... I've seen no evidence of "coolness" or "hipness". I would categorize it at unrepentant nerdiness. And I LOVE it. The teachers are a little awkward, a little cheesy, and ADORABLE. Don't change a thing.... Wait. Was this supposed to be the stop doing question? Darnit. Um... Ooh! Got one. Don't make me click on every bloody link in the notifications section to make the badge disappear. If I'm interested in the title. I'll click on it. If not, I won't. The badge should disappear when I click on it and look at it the first time. Like Facebook notifications. I look once, the badge goes away. If I didn't get it the first time I can click on it again.

1 Start doing - I would love to see Actual Challenges a la jumpstartlab.com. Your code challenges are cute, but honestly, I've done the whole in-the-browser coding thing on a zillion different websites and you just don't learn it that way. You FEEL like you're learning. Look at me! I'm coding! Wheeeee! But then you try to actually do it in real life and you're like... wait a minute. I have no idea what I'm doing. You learn it by opening up your text editor and trying to make something real. That is why I love your videos so much. You use real tools in a real development environment and talk about how people would actually do these things in real life. So I would like to see "extra credit" or "code challenges" that are more goal oriented or challenge based. Something like - here, download this rails app (or better yet, clone it from github), now go and add a model to it. Here are some guidelines. Sort of like the videos, but with no step by step guidance. I think that that would drive people toward your discussion area and spark real conversations about how things are done, best practices, etc. Best of all, you could either a) let the community support each other in learning how to do it or b) add it to the gold membership and offer closer attention, help, and support.

I would extra special super duper LOVE to see it in the format of open source work using github or a github simulator. Have the person be able to fork from an "established app", and then maybe auto push feature requests or bug reports or "work" done by other "developers" to simulate stuff that might actually happen when you're working on a project with other people.

You guys are so great at giving practical advice on building apps/websites. How about practical advice about jobs? What does a person need to get employed in web development? What should a prospective employee spend their time focusing on? What is a waste of time? There has been a shift in programs like this and the rise of programs like the web dev bootcamp that now these "learn to code" programs are starting to focus on "how to leverage your new skills into a job".

Last, but not least, I would like to see a trial membership to the gold subscription. I've seen things marked gold... or something, but I have no idea if the content is better or why I would want to pay so much more. You should convince me of that. My trial membership convinced me to sign up, but at the time, I was so focused on doing the regular videos and courses, I didn't even think to click on the premium stuff. Now I look at it and think, wonder what that is. Double the price? Nope. Not when I don't even know if it's worth it. Convince me it's worth it.

Sorry for writing a book.

TL;DR - #3 You're awesome, #2 You're entertaining, but don't make me click on notification links if I don't want to. #1 - Real challenges and tasks - maybe forking w/github. Job advice? Trials for premium content.

I'm going to keep my ideas short.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with what you have going on. I think the videos are quirky enough to keep some interest when going over some of the boring stuff.

Love the little mini video series that you unlock another 2 min video after you complete some more stuff. They are entertaining, and help break up the learning process.

I am a designer, not a developer at heart. But that's why I'm here. I wanted to learn to execute my own designs. My brain doesn't work so linear. Let me explain.

What I'd like to see START is to show us real website example, the big picture on the puzzle first, to inspire my imagination, before teaching me the pieces to use for myself later. If I know I'm learning about css transitions to do other things than to annoy people by making a box spin around, more of the information will probably stick the first time through in my mind.

Also, a forum that is easier to find previous threads and questions about code challenges you might be stuck on, and a link on the code challenges that pull up previous threads that are tagged with that question or topic.

Syntax hints on the challenges as well. Many times I do not exactly remember the correct syntax and it's frustrating when I have to go find it online when I know the video just explained it 4 minutes ago, but the placement of all those brackets and colons haven't stuck in my mind yet.

I wouldn't stop anything yet. You're still too new I think to decide if something isn't working.

Martin Rheaume, Rasmus Willemoes, Ernest Grzybowski, Izel Nakri, Will Lam, Matthew Campbell, Spen Taylor, Justin Witz, Phil Rice, John Wheal, Daniel Cudney, L N, Kevin Korte - Thank you all so much for taking your time to share your thoughts with me and the Treehouse Team!

The good news is that a lot of the common feature requests are already in progress. Yay!

I've shared this post with the whole Team and Jeremy Jantz and Nick Pettit will be exploring how we can integrate your suggestions where they make sense.

Thanks again for being Students. We appreciate every single one of you! :)

Ryan Carson I would like you guys to pretty much slow down on the css video's i feel rushed when watching them but overall there great video's but just need to slow them down a little.

Hello.

This is great. I would like to see a Django course since it's one of the main web development frameworks.

With the videos, I would prefer to have slides accompany them. I took a course on skillshare and while it didn't cover everything you guys do, it had slides accompanying its videos showing a progression in code added to files. The videos go a bit too fast in terms of code progression for people who aren't used to pumping out bits of code.

More connections to jobs or at least potential projects that would lead to having somewhat of a portfolio would be nice, but that may be a bit unrealistic.

Not sure what treehouse should stop doing.

Hi Ryan,

I hope I haven't missed the boat here.

1. What should Treehouse start doing?

• Someone mentioned further up I think about having comments within videos/challenges, for direct assistance with issues/queries. I've generally been pretty lucky with my struggles because I've more or less copied the question into Google and been directed to a forum page, but other times I get bounced to Stackflow, where I'd prefer to be answered on Treehouse.

• Again, this has been pointed to further up but I'm not sure Javascript or JQuery have been that well covered yet. I've completed the learning adventure for those now but don't really feel like I've done enough to earn the points! I did however code along with the bonus video where a maze was created using Javascript and I thought that could have been fleshed out into a full project, with code challenges and the like. But I put the maze together, so maybe I'm just mad I didn't get any badges for it!

• I have struggled with one or two things... well, with Ruby on Rails really. I don't know how feasible it would be but a live chatroom-style group Q&A could be useful. The only thing Treehouse lacks in relation to school education is the ability to put your hand up and have chance to bounce ideas when you can't get your head around something.

1. What should Treehouse stop doing?

• It seems like some videos/courses get retired occasionally. I'm sure it's done when it makes sense to (like retiring Nick's CSS tutorials because they're duplicated in the more recent CSS stuff) but I notice on other users' profiles things from the past that I think it's a shame to have missed out on - for example, it looks like Coderacer was a badge at one stage, which makes me think there was more to it than just watching the video on how it was made (which was awesome in its own right).

1. What should Treehouse keep doing?

• Keep up the four day weeks. Judging by the end product, they obviously work. I just wish I had the freedom to give my department Fridays off when they've put their hearts and souls into Monday-to-Thursday.

Start- I've been a user for awhile now, Dec. 5 2011, and I'd say the biggest thing for me is that the code challenges for the more really hands on dev stuff such as the rails courses, don't really seem to do that much good. As stated before, it feels like you're coding, then you go to implement it from scratch on your own and you seem to be left scratching your head. They definitely help, but I just don't feel like a the teaching model ( a quick five minute video, a quick five question quick/challenge) really works as much as it could for the really dev heavy topics. However, I do think it works great for many of the front-end topics such as html, css, and photoshop.

Stop- I don't know really. At times the videos are a little childish. Yes it's charming and fun, but sometimes I wonder if this would ever have any impact on a future employer. Say they looked at a Treehouse user's portfolio and saw that they listed Treehouse under education. Then that employer decided to check Treehouse out. I sometimes wonder if the goofiness would deter a more serious employer from accepting Treehouse as a credible resource. I don't know if that thought seems way off, but it something that's crossed my mind before. Also, like other's have said, the gold benefits do seem to pass rather quickly. While I can't complain because I have the student pricing, I don't feel as though the benefits of the gold membership have not really benefited me that much since my first month or so of using Treehouse.

Keep- Keep providing quality tech education for affordable prices. Keep building a friendly, heartfelt, community centered around spreading knowledge and education to everyone. Keep providing great support by coming directly to the users and asking for feedback. You folks provide a great service and have helped a lot of people. If you keep progressing at this rate, you really will reach your goals and make a huge impact on the way tech education is presented to the world. Great job Treehouse team!

Pop up mandatory challenges from time to time from those courses we already passed. I figured out even though I've solved challenges easily that was mostly because I did it just after watching the video so things were fresh and lets try and keep it that way with more challenges every time we sign in

On my way to the store, it hit me....

I would love it if you guys give Jessica Hische free range on a series that she had complete control over.

I would love to see her do a course on lettering because of her skills and knowledge that she displays in her Treehouse Interview alone, not to mention her actual work.

Which leads to the other idea I had, Guest Teachers, teaching what they think is important or useful.

for those who don't know Jessica, http://jessandruss.us/ http://www.dontfeartheinternet.com/ http://teamtreehouse.com/library/treehouse-friends/how-to-launch-a-career-in-freelance-design-with-jessica-hische

Thanks again Ryan Carson

Hi Ryan,

Here are some of my thoughts to the questions:

1. What should Treehouse start doing?

Our mission is to bring affordable Technology education to people everywhere, in order to help them achieve their dreams and change the world.

The ultimate goal of Treehouse is to equip students with the skills and knowledge so as to help them get the dream job or even change the world. So I think Treehouse should keep this in mind to provide directions to student where they should move forwards. For example. Treehouse could build a web application that link students with professionals in the industry together. I believe everyone needs a mentor. The application encourage everyone to sign up as mentor or mentee. Whenever they sign up, they fill in the information such as their interest, skills, career goaml, etc and the system will suggest/recommend/match them to/with some of the professionals in the industry. In this way, the professionals can as a private tutor for the mentee and provide some guidance on how to get equipped with knowledge and skills for entering the industry. Moreover, the mentor can even refer the mentee to his own company or other agents, In this way, once the mentee successfully receive a job offer in the field, the mentor will be awarded with some kind of commission. This is a win-win situation and kind of business/revenue model.

Besides, I suggest Treehouse should take competitive analysis against Codecademy, Udacity, Coursera, Udemy, Khan Academy and so on. I really appreciate the way that Codecademy do for the code challenges part, which divides into some informative sections, instructions and hints that makes the users easy to follow. Moreover, their newly design interface for code challenge greatly enhance the user experience. It is neat and tidy. I really enjoy it a lot. That's why I think if Treehouse is able to get such kind of code challenge engine integrated with their awesome videos, then everything will be perfect.

If possible, provide more in-person tutorials for each students since education should not be a mass production.

2. What should Treehouse stop doing?

Frankly speaking, there is not anything that Treehouse should stop doing, except that in some of the videos, Treehouse teachers should stop moving forward too fast and keep explaining the concepts in more details.

3. What should Treehouse keep doing?

Treehouse should keep on shipping new and up-to-date contents and projects that is out of users expectation.

Hey everyone,

This is all amazing feedback! We've taken on lots of new members lately, so like Ryan, I should also introduce myself. I'm Nick Pettit, Chief Content Officer at Treehouse. You may have seen me in quite a few of our videos as well.

Jeremy Jantz (Head of Design) and I are working together on lots of exciting changes to the Treehouse experience that you'll see over the next several months. There's lots of excellent feedback here that we'll take into account, but please do keep it coming!

Nick

I really love Treehouse. I already learnt a ton, and Jason Seifer is so funny!

However I would love Treehouse even more If they add to their downloadable exercise files also the unfinished code, so one can code along with the instructors. Now the exercise files contain only the completed code.

At lynda.com they provide for every tutorial two folders: the 'start folder' and the 'complete' folder. This makes it really handy to follow along with the instructor videos.

This said, I wish Treehouse lot's of success with their undertaking, keep up the good work, and help developers like me become better professionals.

Anthony Candaele Belgium

Anthony Candaele,

Good news! We're working on something like this that should be available in the next few months; I think you're really going to love it. :)

What about pairing design track students with development track students and having paired badges for projects? That way the focus could be collaboration and the use of Git and something like Basecamp.

The designer and developer could work together and make an app, a store, a startup, etc...

I would like to see more contests for prizes!

Matthew McLennan: Stay tuned... We'll have something like that in the next few months. ;)

Thanks Rasmus Willemoes for the kind words. :) I really appreciate it! And to the rest of you who gave really great constructive feedback!

*Would be great to see timing estimates for how long a full course would take.

*The coding challenges can become a bit frustrating and getting help/looking back at vid a bit fiddly

*More needed for gold memberships

Another addition (That I guess I mentioned before): Have votes for things! Just because one student voiced his/her opinion about something doesn't mean the rest of us feel that way!

Definitely make videos faster... one month there are a lot of them and another nothing!

Make Roadmap a little more real! April is over and nearly none of promised parts are out!

more of Exercise Your Creative... Mat Helme 's works are really good..

maybe a goal helper in the site, where students add their goals by subject (mobile, business, ...) and the date they want to make it happen and the adventures get changed because of that person's choices...

also a long long time ago I tweeted to Nick Pettit about having a link center for Bonus part which is easily accessible and users can just search by their interests in the center ... get them tags, categories and so much.... but I never heard of anything about it...

yet If it's needed, I have all the links in one simple Excel that I can share and if you need a partner for helping to make things faster; I'm here... I know... I'm a starter, but I think with a little help of others I can make a contribution...

Hi Mohammad Hossein Mojtahedi,

Indeed, we've missed quite a few estimated dates in April, but those should come out very shortly. I apologize for the delay! We're working on transitioning our Content team to a full-project release schedule, instead of releasing one stage at a time. This should introduce much more predicability and reliability into the schedule.

Regarding the Bonus content section: We're going through a lot of UX changes over the next few months, and we plan to tackle our Bonus section. I think you're going to like the new navigation and organization of the site! :)

Nick

Another idea:

Maybe this exists already. I have the basic plan. I've looked at the gold plan, but at the moment I don't see the additional value of doubling my monthly subscription. I still have so much to learn from the basic plan.

Now, that is not to say the gold plan isn't worth it. So maybe an option for a basic plan member to upgrade to gold for one month free, with the ability to cancel the gold membership and go back to basic at any time.

I'd certainly upgrade to a free month of gold, and I might find the additional value there to keep that extra subscription. More info for me I might not have found otherwise, more money for you guys....it's win win IMO.

Just a thought. If something like this already exists, can you post a link?

Nick Pettit ... Wow... I really hope to see those months... :D

Ohh one more:

In various areas and projects you guys have introduced using plug ins from github, for example the wmuSlider plugin. I know twitter bootstrap was used in the RoR project.

I'd love to see some of the more popular frameworks and plugins out there given some attention on basically what they do, and in general how to install, use, and customize them.

It'll help someone like me discover great plug-ins and frameworks I didn't know about otherwise, and how to use them.

One plug-in I've been playing around with a lot is the jquery.validationengine plugin on github. It seems really solid and offers a lot of customization, but it's also so massive it has taken me a while to wrap my mind around it. I could see a full lesson and set of videos just on that one plug-in.

I'd also like to learn a lot more about ajax and Json.

Great job with all the content so far!

1. I would like to see an entire work flow learning adventure; personally for web design, but any area would be great. For instance what to do when you first meet with your client, and then wire framing, getting feed back, and the process of designing the entire website taken in bits; i.e., typography, color schemes. I know there are videos about some of these things, but it would be nice to see it in a cohesive step by step learning adventure.

2. Downloadable summaries of each stage. Like a run down of the most important bits to help with remembering or for one to asses if the video is actually what they are looking for or not.

3. a restructured help forum. as of now, one has to go through each post, as they have vague subject lines, to see if they are related to one's question. being able to select what video your question is about would help. Then in the future, others could easily look in that category for help.

4. longer interviews with specific industry questions. i.e., life hacker's "how i work" or kevin rose's foundation.

again, thanks for all the great work!

Somehow I missed this thread. I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I know I can count on the Treehouse team and that you'll read this and seriously consider the suggestions!

What should Treehouse start doing?

Nick seemed to hint that this is happening, but I'll say it anyway. The library needs to be re-organized. At the moment, it's so illogical.

The programming section is only web programming, despite the fact that mobile app development is programming too. iOS and Android, despite being taught with identical projects, get separated into their own sections - while PHP and RoR are taught with totally different projects, but get lumped together under the very broad umbrella of 'programming'.

The business projects are really deep dives. JavaScript is included in both the websites and the programming sections. And Photoshop isn't just for websites, yet it's under the websites section.

What should Treehouse stop doing?

I think what Aaron said about the childishness/goofiness of the Treehouse brand is spot on. I think you need a more professional image if you want to be seen on the same level as the likes of lynda.com. Not 'cold and corporate', but not childish either.

I disagree with those who say that the videos are boring without the 'kiddie fun'. Those who are serious and have a real desire to learn technology won't find them the slightest bit boring.

Secondly, you need to stop outsourcing your affiliate program. The incompetence of your agency's affiliate managers (they refer to your brand as "TeamTreehouse") is not something I want to associate with the otherwise high-quality service Treehouse provides. I would much rather an in-house team of affiliate managers.

What should Treehouse keep doing?

Keep asserting your service as the leader in online technology education. Codecademy, Code School and the others currently don't come close to the quality of Treehouse. Make sure it stays that way!

Thanks Ryan,

Im very happy the way the Treehouse is now.

I had just one suggestion.

I think it would be great if there would be a courses on SASS or LESS. Thank you

Thank you

Create a suggestions area!! I want to give feedback on the curriculum but I don't want to bog down the forums with my suggestions as I see that area being for help and discussions on actual coding and design.

Maybe there could even be specific feedback/comment areas for each project/deep dive or even each video (that might be too much though).

In general, I feel like sometimes, topics are introduced without a ton of explanation as to their real-world application (mostly feeling this in the CSS deep dive). I think doing that would really take advantage of the video format. Just going through and listing all the different properties makes it not that much more informative than a text-based tutorial.

Hi Team Treehouse,

I have enjoyed my experiences here at Treehouse. In the future, I would like to see a deep dive into the Java language.

Besides that, In the future, expanding your curriculum to cover other general purpose programming languages might become advantageous.

I'd like to be able to get the information given during the videos in another format, more accessible for future reference. It is beneficial to "force" the videos, but returning to review something or refresh my memory is clumsy.

One option that came to mind was transcripts. You already have subtitles available, so I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to convert those to a PDF or text document.

Another option, preferably in addition to transcripts, would be something along the lines of a "worksheet" with the most pertinent information (vocabulary, examples, references) from a video or series. Including the code challenges and quiz answers would be great. At the same point where you are rewarded with a badge or video, there could be a download link that is also accessible in the future.

I've been a paying member since Autumn 2012 after following you from the ThinkVitamin days. Here are my answers:

1) What should Treehouse start doing? Streamlining the lessons. What I mean is, certain teachers will do a 2 minute video and then a quiz. Rinse and repeat. Others will do 30 minutes of videos and then a quiz. Personally, I think the first is too short and the second is too long, but at least pick a happy medium and make all of the lessons of similar length and with similar checkpoints.

2) What should Treehouse stop doing? Charging so much for Gold membership. :) As someone else mentioned, the extra features don't justify doubling the price.

My second suggestion is a little touchy, but stop giving so much away for free. ducks for cover I started with Treehouse right when you were giving away scholarships (which I supported, even though I wished I was eligible), then you gave away memberships for Thanksgiving, and then Christmas... I was starting to feel like the only person who actually paid for a membership (everyone I know is enrolled for free, somehow). I know this isn't true and I realise you have the same video production costs regardless of how many students are enrolled, but for a time I was really down about it. :( Alternatively, do an internal contest where only students can win. I would love to win anything, even a t-shirt.

3) What should Treehouse keep doing? I like the way the videos are made (some might call it cheesy). I use Treehouse because it's not bland. I love the reward videos and I like the story of Treehouse Island and how you occasionally refer to each other ("Mike, I see you've been working with Amit in Business Bay...").

Overall, know that I love Treehouse and support what you're about. Any criticism is meant with love and a desire to see you all succeed. :)

Just an idea for future videos. Please try to scroll down just a little bit while typing code in videos, the active line is often right below subtitles. Stay awesome, folks ;)

What should Treehouse start doing? I would like to see you improve the job board, so that we in the UK can find jobs or contracts in the UK/EU market.

At the moment, much of the content about companies etc are aimed at folks in the States which is annoying to say the least. It would be awesome if you could include a course about starting a company in the UK, and give information about the rules and director responsibilities etc for UK based companies.

What should Treehouse stop doing? For Pete's sake, please stop with the overacting and the cheese. Not only do I cringe but it's terribly distracting for me.

What should Treehouse keep doing? Keep coming out with quality content. :)

Thanks everyone for these awesome answers! We're honored to have amazing Students like you all :)

What should Treehouse start doing? I really like the point system. When I see users that have way more points than me I instantly want to learn more. Maybe adding a competitive ranking / standings system between students could help keep them engaged. I'd probably fall asleep at my desk trying to get more points. Maybe some sort of "top student" monthly award (free month subscription, or even something non-monetary; like a fancy badge added to their profile).

Also I would like to see a sass course that gets into advanced topics.

What should Treehouse stop doing? I will agree that some of the instructors / videos are cheesy but I think it's made a good branding in general. Personally I don't like childish stuff but it's possible it adds to the learning environment.

What should Treehouse keep doing? There are nights where I'll say to myself "ok, after this video and quiz I'll go to bed" but end up staying up for hours because I'm hooked. This sounds super lame but you guys have made learning fun for me. Keep growing and adding new content.

Too bad I can't upvote some of the replies here because I really like most of the ideas. If some of what I'm going to say however, has been mentioned before... I am sorry. Maybe the Treehouse Forum could have a section where students could submit / vote for future course topics (what we would love to learn) or future product features, like on Spotify.

I love what you are doing in terms of the learning experience; I would change very little. Maybe add keyboard shortcuts to navigate through quizzes faster, like on Duolingo. Also, I'd maybe gamify it up a little more, with streaks: I find that it is a great motivational tool, just like leaderboards and props. I would love to have something like this https://lift.do/habits/treehouse-lesson implemented inside of Treehouse. (Or have my Lift account linked to my Treehouse account and have all this happen automagically. One can dream.) I would really like to be able to give props to my contacts or even to random people for taking a quiz or completing a badge, as a simple hassle-free form of encouragement, one click/tap of a button... and/or at the same time compete with them, thus keeping both of us emotionally invested and motivated.

I'd also love to have some kind of system in place for revision. Duolingo's "you haven't practiced conjunctions for a month therefore you're gonna lose skill points" approach may be too harsh for Treehouse, but I've come to realize that earning the badge and then quickly moving on may give one a false sense of competency that, if the skill isn't used regularly or isn't refreshed in a second or a third pass, can really come back and bite one in the back; it's the "hey I thought I knew this" feeling and I'd love to somehow lessen its impact.

Keep up the amazing work, I've come to love the cheese (even the crazy adventure videos where you go overboard with the steadycam), please don't stop. I have learned/refreshed so much over this past year and to me it's really the packaging of the content that sells the service; the fact that there's structure, a 'map', a 'learning adventure', badges to unlock. How there's always something to come back to regularly has really made a difference.

Treehouse Learning Adventure Leaderboard would be great motivation! Duolingo does something like this with (non-computer) language learning.

Also - more female presence generally! There are ladies who code ya know! :D

I'm a bit wary that the Ruby on Rails section seems to be drawing to a close. It's been fantastic working along with.

I wonder, though, if it would be possible to have a deep dive for Rails? Each thing learned in the project is brilliant but I really struggle to apply it to my own projects. I tried working along doing a similar project where the user wouldn't have a profile name and I just couldn't get it together.

I suppose I'm saying that it might be good to also have stand alone lessons - such as, this in really basic terms is how you paginate or this is how you validate, create users, add a PayPal section, check if someone is logged in, etc.

(The Treebook project is phenomenal, so this isn't a criticism. I just mean a deep dive might make Rails easier to apply to our own projects.)

Jennifer Fry - Great suggestion. I believe Jeremy Jantz might already be working on this idea.

In the members profile summary I thought it might be nice to see something like ....member since, July 28, 2013, or something similar. I guess I could always add it to my summary myself but it would be nice to see what others members have been doing. Maybe this information is to personal? Just a thought anyway. Thank you for this learning site!

One other suggestion I thought of - it would be great if each lesson could link to relevant forum topics raised by fellow students. Although the forum search feature generally gets me where I want to go, its helpful to see where others have questions and when they are experiencing the same difficulties with the material presented.

Some way to compare the stages in each course would be nice. I'm planning on taking the web developer and design courses (and...probably all the rest), and I wanted to see what stages were not included in those courses, but were available on the site. I basically had to make a chart for myself to compare the courses and figure out what else to add.

1.There is still more content that students are looking for like advanced topics in responsive design,wordpress,e commerce.so it would be great if treehouse bring it up asap.

2.I Really appropriate if treehouse can take necessary steps to bring the student subscription benefit of adobe CC to Treehouse students . also apple student program

Thanks gopi p :)

I like the response above. Advanced topics that would ultimately enable me to build and sell wordpress themes (to WOO themes, etc) would rock. Example topics: Building custom post types and custom fields with the wordpress settings API. Building shopping carts which could involve building a shopping cart plugin. Building a custom openstreetmap plugin using technologies like JSON (I've been working on doing this on my own for way too long ;) Having an associates degree from one of those online "accredited art colleges" in web design and development, I can say I am truly appreciative for this site. The PHP e-com site and the wordpress site that I've built from these lessons in the last 4-5 weeks have been invaluable. Thanks treehouse!!!

I would like to see some more "real-world" coding assignments....what a classroom teacher of coding would be giving out. I thrive when I apply what I am learning and need project ideas to help me do that.

I would also like to see an improved download of the transcripts because I rely on them heavily for my learning. Some can learn via lecture/video alone but I do best with both or written teaching alone.

You are great and I can see great things coming from Team Treehouse! Keep up the good work and listening to your customers!

PS. Eagerly awaiting a Meetup!!

I love what I am learning so far! The learning style is great. In the ad for Team Treehouse, you mention putting students in jobs. This doesn't seem to be occurring, which makes it sound like false advertisement. You should say instead in the ad that the skills Team Treehouse teaches you will greatly help you find employment, as this is more accurate. There should be more prizes and more contests. Contests and prizes are fun! You should not charge $49 for gold membership. That is too much! You can just as well charge $35/mo or $350/yr, which bests what lynda.com is currently offering. There should be more lessons on Photoshop and Illustrator. There is so much from those programs.

P.S. What is the best way to get started in the business after taking these courses?

Ryan,

First, congratulations on an awesome achievement. You and your team are shaping the way the future will learn.

I may have missed these within the system so I apologize if I'm being redundant:

1.) The forums are spectacular. At this point I use them almost exclusively to solve challenges when I've met my wits' end. I've noticed that when searching I have to get a little creative to find responses to the challenge I'm seeking. I think it'd be ideal that a single thread be created for a specific challenge, whether it originate from the "Start Discussion" control or be referenced from the challenge page. If a thread hasn't been created for the challenge (specifically "Challenge X, 1 of 3" for example), the "Start Discussion" control would pre-populate the Subject Line with a uniform subject (again, something specific and patterned for recognition). Once created, a reference control to this thread would display on the challenge page for future students. This would reduce clutter within the forum and consolidate best responses. I realize that the more posts users post, the more opportunity for others to respond. I get that value, but it ultimately hinders/delays a student's (the seeker in this case) ability to move forward.

2.) I love the quizzes. I often come to a question where I've narrowed down the correct responses to two of the choices, usually choosing enough correct ones to barrel through. But sometimes on the questions I've guessed incorrectly, I'm left guessing as there were more than one alternative I would've chosen. It'd be great to have an opportunity to see the correct responses to incorrect answers at the conclusion of a passed quiz.

Thanks again!

I would very much like to see a Java Track/Deep-Dive.

Hi Ryan,

I'm a senior learning code for specific projects I want to launch. I'd love finding a place on this site where mentoring is encouraged and teaming up with like minded people possible. Solitude for a coder could feel heavy.

Concerning Gold membership, does not seem marketing-ly exciting enough for doubling the yearly investment. Must be muscled.

Some bugs while using workspaces sometimes. The preview had to be closed and reopened if let opened during the night. Sometimes the video page needs a refresh. Minor problems though but breaks the user experience.

I'd love to see things like Project-Path-Mentoring connection in the same spirit as bloc.io or others. For people willing to learn code with a project purpose there should be some "special program" available to "seriously" direct them for planning their portfolio or startup project. That is definitely missing.

Ryan, Personal Feedback on June 2014 on Treehouse apprenticeship :

My personal plan : -Codecademy -Treehouse -French online schools for coding -Codeschool -Mentorship on projects (Bloc.io and-or mentors and-or freelance) All of this are considered complementing themselves. They add up to my learning process. But more importantly they add up as such. Judging them by each other standards could prove not relevant and not helping. Comparing them to get the pluses of each one of them to add up to the total experience make things more productive. I'm at the 44 badges level so... at the very beginning. I'll try to review my comment later on.

The very good : -Notifications with a lot of material Videos, Deepdeepdive stuff, Tips, tricks etc -Videos, vidéos, videos. Allow me to get on track quick with examples, simple wording, right to the point (basic) examples and no unnecessary theory for now. -Anchors look nice, pro and humble -From China, things run smoothly on my internet connection (except the console which is not working) WITH a VPN -My account memorizes my last position in the track -Transcripts when we can't catch a word or when we are tired of viewing and reviewing the same video cause we don't get it -Track structure -Badges : It's addictive -Concerning the movie series : I think you got a hell of a good time to storyboard it and shoot it. It's relay nice team building experience and a good exercise in indie filmmaking. It's cute. Don't really know here you are heading but you probably had fun. Does add the relax factor for the student, not more. I'd suggest some web coding thriller or mystery in the Da Vinci code style for more fun.

The good: -Exercises, Quizzes, badges (in fact getting badges is definitely very addictive, I love it although it does not make me a code genius. It's more or less tailored for the LCD (lowest common denominator) students that I'm part of. No offence there, it's only your marketing choice. And it fits my personal coding level anyway. But it would probably make recruiters go hmmm… We need to start somewhere, don't we? And with a few very committed, willing and hard working individuals that make it in the big bucks job after Treehouse (so I'd recommend students to consider their time on treehouse about 1/100th of the time necessary to become highly hireable.

The "can be improved": -Succeeding in taking Quizzes does not make me more knowledgeable, since it's more or less copy and paste environment. BUT it's good first step learning for a total beginner. I need more exercises, real life examples, code hacking demonstration. BUT I understand that we need to reach at least the "general comprehension" level first. -Forum looks like a one person interaction. No real students community as far as I see it.

Maybe some bugs : -While finishing a successful quiz, we should see the preview result BEFORE seeing the "NIce Work ! + 12 points" popup. I can see the results by transparency but it looks a little precipitate. -http://teamtreehouse.com/library/console-foundations-2/getting-started-with-the-console/running-commands-2 after the first video (this one is the second) there is a quiz and and one right answer specifies : "Web design can only be done via console" (not the exact wording). Is there really a right answer ? Doubt…. -in the same video : transcript error at 7:12 : "This means the treehouse group can also read, write, and executed." -console not working in vpn environment (from China) and turn on itself if no vpn connected -in teacher's notes : su command (parenthesis pb) -...

Although your company (Teamtreehouse.com) does not value the idea of management, I'd recommend, if I may that you recruit a quality control manager that can undertake audits (best if be a total coding newbie) and make the appropriate changes to make the different courses fit together with even more engaging path on a same project ground, correct misspellings in transcripts, unify tone and "acting" practise of the different teachers, etc. I love treehouse and I'm addicted to it right now but we always can make things even more engaging.

Please, take all this with a huge spoon of salt, I'm a newbie, I don't hold the truth, I don't know the company from the inside so my remarks come from a humble student trying to sweat something concrete with his own projects by adding some basic coding abilities to his work. And I'm a very slow student.

I would like to see that members that pay get additional benefits other than what the 'free' versions you are giving away to public libraries. If I can get it for free via the library, I see there's no reason for me to pay any longer.

I would very much like to see a foundation-level and up track for general computer literacy.

Treehouse is a fantastic learning tool but I'd like to see your attempt at teaching basic computer skills, which is something I lack.

Programming logic. Isn't it essential for a developer to be able to sequence the program? What happens after the various program tutorials? We are limited to duplicating what we've learned. With programming logic skills, We can evaluate the order of steps with which we can apply the techniques and patterns learned in the various tutorials.

What about a Portfolio Builder Feature for students who have completed one of the tracks available here at Treehouse? The portfolio builder could include critique, feedback, maybe a showcase, student of the week/ month/ year? Also I took a coding class not long ago, and we'd always have a coding challenge to be completed by anyone who likes a competition. I did so much research on my own in order to compete the challenges, and I learned so much that way.

I'd like to see a C++ course

I thought i'd chime in again!

Currently, I am working my way through Intermediate PHP courses and am at the SQL section right now. One of the things that I like about this section is that when you get toward the end, if you open up your workspace, they give you some practice exercises. It's a little different from the code challenges because you aren't given points and there is no system in place to check your answers. However, being given the opportunity to practice what was just learned or introduced is everything.

I understand that the plight of the programmer is mostly fueled by individual efforts, natural curiosity, and fortitude but being able to complete programming exercises outside of the video / code challenge / quiz format would be so helpful!