Hi Mimi,
I took a look at the screen casts in order, and John has covered many
of the things that I would have said. Making sure that we define
any terminology that might be unfamiliar is important. Specific
terms that I would be sure to define are collection, application
area, and triage. In Smorgasbord, I think there needs to be a little
more of a tie between drafts and things that people might already be
familiar with.
I understand the rationale for putting the navigation stuff first,
but it didn't seem to work well for me. I was wondering if doing
Smorgasbord or Stamping first might be clearer.
I think that the screencasts would be much stronger if there was a
little more of a scenario that showed how the various features of
Chandler are used. I recognize that this would require a bunch more
work, and that there might not be time to do it.
I'm assuming that the voiceover for the Sharing movie is on the way.
As far as the production values go, the background audio in
Navigation was pretty distracting - you don't have to do music, but
reducing the noise somehow would help. In both Smorgasbord and
Triage, some of the pauses seem a bit too long to me.
Ted
On Aug 21, 2007, at 2:36 PM, D John Anderson wrote:
On Aug 21, 2007, at 11:21 AM, Mimi Yin wrote:
As for content, the presentation looks slick, but I think we need
more context for new users to understand some of the Chandler
specific terms and concepts you present. In the "Navigate"
section, for example, the explanation of the "application areas"
and "collections you define" doesn't include enough explanation
to know what they are.
I agree re: providing more context. Do you have something specific
in mind? What additional context would you provide?
Well, this is the "meat of the task" that whoever does this project
must spend time figuring out. But here are two examples that come
to mind:
I wouldn't use the term "collection" without first explaining it in
the context that your typical computer user would understand. For
example, you could show a list of tasks and mention that they are
all grouped together into what we call a "collection", much like
files are grouped into a directory or folder. Notice that we call
our collection "Work Tasks" and that it's displayed in this left
hand panel which we call the "Sidebar". Like directories and files
we have collections and items. You can have many different
collection each containing different kinds of items, for example:
calendar events, tasks, emails, etc.
Introduce the term "application area" with a example everyone can
relate to: You have lots of different kinds of items you deal with
on a regular basis: emails, tasks, notes. It's really useful to see
them all at once or maybe just the emails or just the tasks. In
Chandler this is easy to do. The Dashboard collection shows you all
your items in a special view we call the Dashboard that lets you
easily sort by time, title of the task, etc. In this example you'll
notice that there are so many items it's hard to focus on just your
email messages. If you choose the "Mail Application" area Chandler
filters out everything except for your email messages. Notice that
when we choose the Calendar application area, Chandler
automatically displays just your events in a calendar view.
This kind of context often isn't obvious to us because we are so
close the the project. I find it really useful to do "dry runs" of
my demos on friends, co-workers and relatives before sitting down
to produce them. That usually makes it really obvious where I'm
making mistakes in assumptions about what people know.
If, after a 30 second demo with someone unfamiliar with your
project you notice the light bulb going off in their head, they
"get it", and seem excited, then your demo will be a success. It
usually takes more iterations to get it right that you think, but
in the end the extra effort usually pays off.
The "Dashboard and the All Application" section is also missing
context that will leave people confused. For example, it's not
clear what the Peepeedee collection is and why it's named that.
It would be better to give it a more obvious name or include
explanation about why it's called Peepeedee.
Does it matter what the name of a collection is? It could be Daisy
or ipsem lorem. I'm not sure that the 'content' of the collections
matters. What's important is the mechanism / feature being
explained: This is a collection. It contains items.
Rather than using PeePeeDee as the example of a collection, use
something like "My Wedding Plans" (or something else people will be
able to relate to). Then when showing navigation, navigating
between collections that people can relate to makes it easier to
understand what is going on. The idea when demoing is to create a
world in your app that real user might have or can relate to. Then
demo that world.
There are a few timing issues, for example the "dead air" after
descriptions is a bit disorienting and should be shortened.
I'm not sure how I would go about doing that (easily) without
cutting out demo content and/or adding in unnecessary, extra voice
text to fill in the dead-space. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what
you're saying?
Normally you would do this by going to the timeline in your
particular app, e.g. Quicktime Pro or iMovie, select the area that
contains no voice and no useful demo and choose delete.
And the ending of the movie is too abrupt. Can you fade it out?
Not easily using Quicktime Pro, which was the only tool I could
find that didn't horrible degrade the quality of the video.
I'd try exporting from Quicktime to iMovie and doing the fades
there. If that doesn't work, let me know and I can find out for
sure. Also iMovie lets you export to MPEG-4, which might be a good
choice for final viewing.
As I think about how best to explain Chandler and get people
excited about it, I think it might be better to focus on a few
common simple tasks that everyone has experienced and that other
applications have trouble with. Show people how you would do the
tasks in Chandler -- and along the way introduce Chandler
specific jargon, e.g. Dashboard, the All Collection, etc. in a
context that they are more familiar with.
Currently the task-workflows I have are:
+ Navigating around Chandler
+ Creating new items in a collection
+ Sending out an invite with stamping
+ Triaging and Tickling items
+ Sharing via the Hub
Did you have a different set of workflows in mind? Or perhaps it's
just a matter of making it the workflows clear with good titles on
the Features page?
I'd choose examples motivated not by Chandler features, e.g.
navigation, creating items, etc. but examples motivated by real
world tasks, e.g. planning a trip to France, collaborating with
another person on a shared project. First explain the project in a
context outside of Chandler then give specific examples of how you
would accomplish the task in Chandler. Also, choose tasks/features
that illustrate Chandler's strengths over other products.
Finally, I was curious to know what application you used to
create the movies?
I created the movies with SnapZ Pro and edited them in Quicktime
Pro. The music I put together in Garage Band and the voice I
recorded in Quicktime Pro.
I wouldn't recommend Quicktime Pro for editing movies, but it was
the only tool I could find that didn't turn screecast movie files
in DV, which makes it look horrible.
The choice of which applications to use is pretty important, not
very obvious, and takes lots of time to figure out. For example,
SnapZ Pro lets you do screenshots, but doesn't let you edit them
like Quicktime Pro. And Quicktime Pro doesn't let you easily do
fades. Some apps like Adobe Captivate claim to do it all, but run
only on Windows and you may end up with only one style of text
balloon that you may not like. The best way to learn this is to get
get to know people who have lots of experience building
professional demos and ask lots of questions. I have some friends
who would probably be happy to help out with free advice and
answers if you're interested.
Finally, in the first movie I didn't hear any music.
John
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