Group items tagged

substance of the task

increasingly blurred

what’s a thought *about* a task

what’s a task

inspired by user feedback

starred items (furtively used as tasks)

users who regarded *everything* they put into Chandler as a task, thereby rendering a specialized “Task Label” superfluous

Modeling “Task-ness” well is critical to both workflow and usability in Chandler so rest assured that we will continue to work through it!

extremely basic notion of Contacts

Reference Kind

don’t propose this instead of the Now/ Later/ Done system, but adjunct to

enter deadlines

see my tasks organized by those deadlines

and not necessarily a “to do” item

compilation of reference information

a configurable Chandler would be the most scalable solution

NOTES or REFERENCE feature would be useful

keep track of “reference material” that you want to keep around forever, just in case

even more useful as that user pulls in other people to collaborate

We want happy users be successful evangelists for Chandler

web widgets that might be deployed in different contexts — iGoogle, Facebook, on an iPhone, etc.

widgets should be compelling to a new user who does not use the desktop, in addition to providing features that complement the desktop. Eventually, the widgets can be building blocks

misperception in the press

Being a CalDAV reference implementation is not a priority.

the Microsoft product with the most overlap with our design objectives is probably OneNote

web widgets (in the browser, on mobile devices and on the desktop)

not trying to be a GTD specific tool

Chandler’s philosophy is different enough from GTD that it would be misleading to call Chandler a GTD tool

Our best articulation of our core value to date is: Chandler is a way to manage and collaborate on ideas using: A List View built around the idea of the Triage Workflow A Calendar View Chandler Hub Sharing Service

the user problem we are serving is an emerging market

there isn’t a shared, public vocabulary to describe what we’re doing

Better product messaging so that people understand what ‘user problem’ we’re trying to solve and how we’re trying to solve it.

more ways to get data in and out

we will not be implementing CalDAV scheduling

We’re not looking to be a cheaper alternative to Outlook/Exchange. This means we’re not investing in support for free/busy-style scheduling. We’re not looking to be the ‘everyman’s’ version of Microsoft Project or Bug and Ticket-Tracking systems. This means we’re not investing in support for complex task and project management, e.g. task dependencies, tracking percent done, time estimates, robust support for assigning tasks, etc. We’re also not going to be implementing the GTD methodology.

Users expect these shortcuts to mean the same thing from application to application. Provide these shortcuts if your application performs the associated tasks. You should avoid using these shortcuts for other purposes

Extend selection to the end of the current word, then to the end of the next word.

Extend selection to the beginning of the current word, then to the beginning of the previous word.

Extend selection to the beginning of the current paragraph, then to the beginning of the next paragraph.

Extend selection to the end of the current paragraph, then to the end of the next paragraph

Information is the substance of their work and more information is the output of their work: Research, proposals, priorities, direction and decisions?

knowledge is gained and shared

how people actually work

(too) many interesting things

There's something wrong with the way data

doesn't flow between the tools we use to manage, process, organize our information

software should be modeled around information

technological barriers

too much copying and pasting

false assumption that information management tasks are binary

false assumption underlying most productivity software that information and the organizational structures needed to manage that information are essentially static

A lone email languishes for a long time in your Inbox and then all of a sudden, blooms into an unending thread which dies down

the thread is revived and mushrooms into a full scale project

Three weeks later

you barely give it a thought

the same workflow hiccups show up again and again

an information management environment with built-in workflows that mirror what people hack together

three basic workflows everybody seems to construct for themselves, regardless of what tools they use

varying degrees of complexity and automation

These three workflows however, need to exist independently of each other

no complicated rule-builder

push-button interface

always assume a need for iteration and change over time

Peeling the Onion

Allow Organization to Change and Flow

the entire gamut of organizational affordances

Tagging

Filing, Rules, et cetera

won't ever be asked to decide between them

turn it into a Custom Attribute

Add semantics to a Tag

Custom Attribute

Drag a Tag or a Cluster to the sidebar

a Cluster: a way to thread items together, a way to reflect dependencies

Group collaboration systems exist in parallel with personal communication tools

does not scale down to work for small groups

the majority of the significant emails we send are sent while still in a draft-state

Future

a well-defined end-user information model

by modeling the user experience around how people work today and the substance of that work, we can be more than just another software tool and instead aspire to be a system for information management: A smarter way to work. A better environment for collaboration

We want Chandler to be able to talk to other applications

As we make Chandler's end-user information model richer, the number of interesting applications to talk to will increase. This is one of the many areas where we hope that people in the community will help increase Chandler's ability to talk to other applications

separating these items into hard categories with totally different interfaces makes organization more, not less, difficult

as Tasks (VTODOS)

NOW and LATER triage status will both be interpreted as “Not-Done”

Anytime events will look the same as All-day events

Most people are using Chandler exclusively for tasks and calendars

saves me the trouble of having to leave the Chandler item I’m working with, find the GTD Projects List item, and then find my way back to the original item.

Every time Chandler syncs with the email server

it checks for any new messages in one of the Chandler folders

even though it remains in the folder it is only imported once into Chandler

(too) many interesting things

There's something wrong with the way data

doesn't flow between the tools we use to manage, process, organize our information

software should be modeled around information

fundamentally non-linear, non-binary nature of information work

processing and re-processing information to help you stay focused on the task(s) at hand

everything you can't and shouldn't be doing right now

many of the messages we send are really still drafts

too much copying and pasting

organized around your data and the semantics

not around which feature you used to create them

or over which transport protocol

Not around which file format

new Kinds of Items

designed to let you re-define what it means to be a PIM

personal definition of "Personal Information"

Extend the existing schema of Attributes

DUE property has a DATE

invalid per the new calsify spec

pull all the disparate bits and pieces of information

into a contextualized, personal and shared ’source of truth’

the user interface we have today

contains vestiges of the ‘old’ way of thinking

proceed to lighten-up the app so that it’s a more accurate reflection of what Chandler is meant to do

focus on the quick item entry bar

the way to create new items in Chandler

see the messages you sent/received from Chandler

less of a “Mail Application”

credibility as a useful product

huge amount of effort and $$ we need to expend to be acceptable as a complete email solution

trust is important

move my group’s calendaring over

my own TODOs

Hopefully contact/address book stuff is next

Mail, iCal, Address Book

all separate, all highly functional

no clutter

the roles of the programs aren’t confused

interfaces aren’t cluttered up but there’s a heck of a lot of functionality

deceptively simple

Enterprise CRM’s are too complex and can only be used effectively when connected

fundamental link up between people and events, complex tasks and so on

I may be using ‘workflow’ differently

a loose framework of usage patterns

workflow-centric designs that bridge silos