We've heard from many corners that starting up Chandler is an
intimidating experience, the app feels heavy, over-bloated with
features. It's taken me a long time to 'get' what that means. As
usual, the explanation for this disconnect has to do with context,
history.
When Chandler began, it was going to be the alpha *and* the omega of
information management. It was going to swallow traditional PIM
functionality wholesale (Email, Notes, Tasks, Calendar, Contacts)
*and* extend to manage non-PIM data as well: Documents, Media, URLs,
etc.
The theory was, the reason why information management sucks is due to
a lack of integration. Integration in terms of data types and
integrations in terms of workflow.
In the meantime, the world around us has changed. Instead of a trend
towards more 'integrated' solutions, people are adopting a wider
range of tools and workflows are knit together via a wide variety of
interoperation techniques.
What does this mean for Chandler? Do we still have a place in this
new world?
I think so. I think we've actually been evolving with the rest of the
world. We have *not* been working in a vacuum for the last 2 years.
Instead, we've dramatically re-framed the way in which Chandler
integrates. Chandler is no longer about replacing your email client,
enterprise email, calendaring and content management systems, wiki,
project manager, IM, news reader...
Instead, Chandler is meant to live in the middle of all these tools
as a way to pull all the disparate bits and pieces of information we
receive out-of-context into a contextualized, personal and shared
'source of truth'.
That being said, the UI we have today is misleading. It contains
vestiges of the 'old' way of thinking about integration which has the
potential to scare new users away, both because there is a gut-level
sense that the app is big and complicated and that you can't get
started without moving your entire world into Chandler.
In particular, there is an out-sized emphasis on email functionality,
left over from the days when we were adamant about being a complete
PIM solution. In reality, email in Chandler today plays an important,
but supporting role. We talk about it as a means of:
1. Outreach, a way to get information out of the 'Chandler' eco-
system into other people's Inboxes; and as a
2. Bridge a way for Chandler users to get information *from* their
email clients into Chandler.
So, how do we proceed to 'lighten-up' the UI so that it's a more
accurate reflection of what Chandler is meant to do? Here are some
ideas:
1a. Remove the Reply, Reply All, Forward buttons from the Toolbar; and
1b. Add a Reply/Forward menu item to the Item menu
2. Remove the the 'New' button from the Toolbar and really focus on
the quick item entry bar as *the* way to create new items in Chandler.
3. Rename the Mail application area Messages so that it's more of a
'Message Center', a place where you can see the messages you sent/
received from Chandler (not un-like Inboxes for social networking
sites like Facebook or Linked In), and less of a "Mail Application".
In a previous message, I suggested that we address the 'Where do I
put my projects' problem by renaming the Tasks, Projects and
Collections, Workspaces. I'd like to hold off on that idea for now
and see how the suggested 'paring down' above plays out with new users.
Thoughts, comments?
Mimi
On Nov 30, 2007, at 2:05 PM, Mimi Yin wrote:
Proposal for addressing 'How do I get started' moment when setting
up Chandler Hub *and* Desktop. We've already discussed the FLOSS
feedback and 'basic standalone usage' scenarios in detail on the
list, so I'm going to focus this email on getting people up the ram
for 'Task/Project Management'.
(This proposal does not include ideas about how we might improve
sign-up / start-up experience, demos, marketing language, landing
page, etc.)
Problem: People often ask: Where do I put my projects? As a
collection in the sidebar?
The sidebar isn't really a scalable solution for storing and
tracking projects, nor does it have the right affordances for
managing projects (ie. Managing focus with triage status, assigning
alarms, etc).
Instead, we really want to encourage users to enter and manage
projects as items in a collection and collections are really
persistent 'areas of responsibility'.
So, why not call these things what they are?
1. Rename collections to be something like 'Work Spaces' (I've seen
this in other Task Management tools.)
2. Add a label at the top of the sidebar that says: 'Work Spaces'
3. Change the Tasks application area and Task stamp to 'Projects'
and 'Add to Project list' ('Mark as a Project' on Hub) respectively.
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