This is a follow-up to yesterday's email describing the use cases for
the web widgets. Mimi and I have spent quite a bit of time talking
about the widgets in detail and going through scenarios for how they
might be useful for different types of users. This email attempts to
outline our thought process and present a proposal for which widgets
we think should be implemented first and why. This of course needs to
be validated with the engineers but I am throwing this out for
discussion.
There are 3 types of users who will potentially use these web widgets.
+ A desktop user
+ This is someone using the desktop on a regular basis.
+ They will have a hub account and shared collections.
+ They might be collaborating with others or simply sharing with
themselves or both.
+ A casual collaborator
+ Someone probably using the web UI.
+ They have a hub account.
+ They have received ticket URLs and have subscribed to collections.
+ In reality a casual collaborator could also be an occasional
desktop user although we have not traditionally described it as such.
+ For the purposes of this exercise, the main distinction is that the
casual collaborator has invested some time doing something with the app.
+ A non Chandler user
+ Someone not very or not at all familiar with the project - there is
a range here.
+ They may have received a sharing URL before but they have not
signed up for an account.
+ From the perspective of the web widgets, they have not used any of
the web widgets before which is why they are described as a non-
Chandler user.
+ The important take-away is that they have invested very little time
using the application.
One thing to note is that there is some varying degree of
collaboration for both the desktop and casual collaborators. Some
people might be engaging in high-bandwidth collaboration and others
less so. Also, as mentioned above, many desktop users share with
themselves so in this context would be using the web widgets to view
and modify "their stuff". For now, we don't think it's necessary to
examine how the widgets may differ in their usefulness based what type
of sharing people are doing.
We did a first pass at grouping what widgets are useful to each group
of people.
Useful to the desktop user
+ Quick entry widget
+ Notifications SMS etc
+ Multiple calendars + week view + overlays
+ Single collection Dashboard list + Preview detail view (phase 1) +
Editable detail view (phase 2)
+ Search box
+ Bookmarklet
+ Mini-cal + Preview pane
+ Editable detail view
Useful to the casual collaborator
+ Quick entry widget
+ Notifications SMS etc
+ Single collection Dashboard list + Preview detail view (phase 1) +
Editable detail view (phase 2)
+ Search box
+ Bookmarklet
+ Mini-cal + Preview pane
+ Editable detail view
Useful to the non-Chandler user
+ Editable detail view
Based on this list above, there isn't very much in the non-Chandler
bucket since only the editable detail view is accessible via a ticket.
All other widgets require you to at least sign up for an account and
probably have at a minimum subscribed to a couple of shares. It's
important that our strategy helps those that are already using
Chandler (desktop user and casual collaborator) but it's equally
important that it reaches out to people who don't know anything about
the app (or very little) giving them a hook or a reason to check it
out further. Current desktop users and casual collaborators to some
extent will have already invested time signing up for accounts,
entering data, sharing collections. This varies in degrees of course.
They have enough familiarity that something has prompted them to
download, try out, subscribe to a share or use it day to day. The non-
Chandler users might receive a simple link to a shared editable event
and think "this is cool, tell me more". These users have the potential
of becoming full time desktop or casual collaborators in the future.
By generating a URL for an editable detail view, the desktop users can
broaden the scope of people they can touch. We wanted to examine if
there are other widgets we can make accessible to these users as well.
Proposal
+ Get the quick item entry widget working first. This is very useful
for the desktop user and high-bandwidth collaborator. It can be put in
lots of places - Mimi will talk more about this.
+ The second priority would be the email notifications. Dashboard
users and sharees receive an email summarizing the changes that have
been made to a particular collection. This reaches out to support
mobile devices and enhances the experience for regular users.
+ Implement the editable detail view. This is a great hook where the
desktop users can reach out to others.
+ Implement the simple list view in a way they can be viewed by non
Chandler users as well as Chandler users. It would be really useful to
share a list with others they can edit anonymously in the same way a
detail view is.
+ Implement the mini cal and preview pane so they can be viewed by non
Chandler users as well as Chandler users.
The goal of this proposal is to support the people who have already
bought into Chandler and improve the ability to reach out to more who
don't have a clue but might find over time that they are targets for
our other core features.
Comments, questions, suggestions welcome.
Sheila
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