Our most important goal right now is to get users.
There are many paths to reach this goal and one of them is improved
usability. Another one is a better 'Introduction Experience' to
Chandler, what it's useful for, how it's different and how to get
started. The short-name we've been using for this in various
conversations has been 'better demos', but my sense is that it's
broader than that.
However, before we can tackle either successfully, we need for
ourselves, a crisp account of what the 'point', 'soul',
'essence' (whatever you want call it ) of Chandler is.
As Ted put it: I see a pony in the product.
So, what's the pony in the product? How do we bring it out?
And as Janice Fraser put it: You really have to know what the pony
is, otherwise you won't be able to tell if your attempts to bring the
pony out end up killing the pony instead, or uh, at the very least,
seriously maim the pony. (Sorry for the morbid imagery, I wasn't
intending to go there.)
For me personally, it's taken using Chandler for over 6 months, for
the 'theory' behind the design to instantiate itself in concrete user
experience. I hope to start a thread on the design list over the next
few days to try and capture what this experience is so that we can
articulate and show it to others (so that it doesn't take them 6
months to figure it out too ;).
Once we have this articulation, then I believe we will be able to
think more clearly about how to improve usability for new users,
while staying consistent and true to what is unique about the
Chandler experience.
Mimi
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