Really fun app to test. The concept is great, but I spent about 10 minutes trying to get set up and never managed to record one proper session. Here's the whole story.
Website
The website is very bare. It doesn't explain what Tacet does or how it helps me. You'll need a proper landing page, especially if you want people to find you through SEO.
Signup and onboarding
After clicking Create account it took a while to load with no feedback. Add a loading animation.
I was never asked to confirm my email, so anyone can sign up with any address. I also never accepted any terms or privacy policy. Look at the legal side: terms, consent, minimum age. Check accessibility too.
The survey asks for birthday, gender, lessons, posture corrections, and almost every question has Prefer not to say. If I can skip it, do you really need it? People can't see the value of those questions yet. They only see value once they're inside the app. Asking for the instrument makes sense, the rest mostly doesn't. My rule: every onboarding should take less than 30 seconds. Yours doesn't pass. It's also sometimes hard to tell titles from body text.
Guitar
I play guitar and was happily surprised I could pick it. But everything talks about piano, and after picking guitar it still said "Tacet tells you how to sit at the piano". Use the instrument people choose. And market to guitar players too, that's a missed opportunity.
Laptop vs phone
I started on my laptop. If the app works better on a phone, say so in your listing and show a QR code to continue on the phone. Still keep the computer as an option. In the end the laptop worked better for me, because I could sit further away and still see the screen. On the phone, check what's above and below the fold.
Devices and browsers
Laptop, Chrome: camera worked fine.
iPhone, Chrome: "Camera and microphone permission was refused." Couldn't get past it.
iPhone, Safari: camera worked, but setup was a struggle.
Setup, the main problem
The app keeps telling me to move the phone further away. Once it's far enough, I can't reach it, so I can't press Next or Start recording. Every time I need a button I have to break position, tap, and rush back. It took about 2 minutes just to get recognized, and the text was overlapping and too small to read from that distance.
Then it kept saying "Camera moved". The camera never moved. Maybe it trips when my hands move out of view while playing guitar, I'm not sure. Every time, the recording paused and I had to walk back to the button. After 6 minutes 38 seconds it said "Well done, you played for 6 minutes and 38 seconds", while I spent that whole time just trying to set up.
Some ideas:
- Add a voice check before setup. I always tell people onboarding should be short with few options, but this is the exception, because voice solves your biggest problem. Add one step: "Turn your sound on. Can you hear this?" with a test sentence and a big Yes, I can hear it button. Then guide setup by voice ("sit further back", "move a bit left") instead of text I can't read from across the room. You already have spoken feedback, it just wasn't on for me. One extra step saves minutes of frustration.
- No tapping during setup. Auto-advance when the position is right, or let people control it from their phone while the laptop camera watches.
- Give the model more grace. It stops the moment something isn't 100% right. Keep a small live part for setup and make the main thing a recording processed afterward, so it has more time to think.
- Save sessions. If I accidentally close the page, I want to get back to my results.
Your test questions
Did it notice my posture slipping? Couldn't test it, I never got a clean recording.
Did it speak up when nothing was wrong? Yes, constantly. "Camera moved" over and over.
Confusing steps or buttons? The buttons are the biggest problem. I can't reach them from where the app wants me to sit.
Did the voice help or annoy? It never turned on. A voice check at the start would fix that and most of the setup problems.
Did the camera lose me? Yes, many times, during setup and while playing.
Onboarding: too long, too many optional questions, fails the 30-second check.
I know this is hard to build, and you clearly do everything to get people to the point of playing. But setup is the thing to solve, because until people can record, they never see the value. Happy to give feedback on the results once I can get a session through.