Hey! That's the "bar design" I talked about the other day and couldn't
find... I knew you did something like that Mimi... :)
It's so graphically rich that I feel that the need for animation will be
essential to make the callout work. For a very crowded calendar, you can
imagine a smaller title/time sliding out on hover on the bar (like a
tooltip), this tooltip would expand to show the notes if you hover long
enough or click on an expand widget. Visual spatial/temporal continuity
(hence animation) will be necessary to make bars and related lozenges
work in a crowded space. It's very much a "Flash like" design actually.
I do like it (+1 for me) but we'll need a solid graphic engine to
develop something like that.
Cheers,
- Philippe
Mimi Yin wrote:
Here is a follow-up to the idea of controlling how your events are
displayed on the calendar. It's essentially a call-out model for
displaying crowded calendar data. Instead of allotting real estate to
events based on how much time the event will take up, why not display
the duration of the event with a bar graph and then use a
user-resizable callout to display the data associated with that event?
The idea being that the duration of the event
1. is NOT necessarily proportional to how much data you need to
display about that event AND
2. is NOT necessarily proportional to how prominent you want to make
the event
The calendar would look pretty standard for people who don't have very
busy schedules, but would gradually move into "callout" mode as it
gets more and more crowded, or as you overlay more and more calendars.
I'm going to forward this thread over to the scooby webUI list.
See mockup below.
On Nov 10, 2005, at 12:00 PM, Daniel Vareika wrote:
+1 with the concept of "drawing in your notebook"
Daniel
Mimi Yin wrote:
Looking back on what different people have been saying, perhaps the
"concrete way" to think about Stickies is NOT as a Kind of item, but
more as a way to display items.
So any item, one with fuzzy dates or specific dates, notes, photos,
documents, could be displayed as a floating "sticky" in a view. It's
simply a way to do what you were describing as "drawing in your
notebook". A way to visually differentiate important information
from all the rest.
Mimi
On Nov 9, 2005, at 11:11 AM, Daniel Vareika wrote:
Mimi Yin wrote:
Hi Daniel,
So if I understand you correctly, your concern is that Stickies
encourages the wrong kinds of behaviors? By allowing people to
pile on lots of fuzzy-date Stickies, do we set people up to delay
and perhaps never decide what their information means to them?
Possibly No. 1 way to not getting anything done, ever in GTD?
*This is precisely what I meant. Although 3M might sell a huge lot
of them and might be a really successful business *
I completely see where you're coming from and it's a fine line to
walk when designing any personal productivity tool. How do you
provide people with enough flexibility, such that they will
actually bother to use the system, yet herd them in the general
direction of more effective productivity? It was a recurring theme
in our day with David Allen and we haven't quite figured out a
party line on this issue.
*Neither have I*
However, a pattern has begun to emerge from our various GTD
discussions:
While the core of GTD is conceptual in nature and addresses basic
human behavioral tendencies and problems, I often feel the
specifics of GTD methodology have more to do with treating the
symptoms of the problem of human disorganization, not the problem
itself.
An analogy might be: Having chocolate cake around results in
over-eating for some people. But it would be very sad for everyone
if we had to ban chocolate cake altogether AND it's not clear that
getting rid of the source of temptation would solve the root of
someone's overeating problem either.
*If you dare to ban chocolate cake I will personally go up there
and kill you with my own hands, don´t even dare!! :o)
Being less childish, lets put an analogy.
One could go with a Freudian psychologist and would probably be for
many years trying to solve the root of a problem
One could go to a behavior (not sure the word in English)
psychologist and treat the symptoms but get you going in a month or
two.
Or one could go to first a behavior and after treating successfully
the symptom, then decide to dig deeper and do a Freudian but maybe
taking less time and pain.
If it was you, which one would you choose?
Please note that I know nothing about psychologist treatments, I am
only supposing.
*
In GTD, the resistance to keeping things fuzzy could be
reinterpreted as simply an antidote to symptoms specific to a
concrete and unflexible "information world" where:
1. a piece of paper can only live in a single folder
2. a note can only live in one GTD flat list and
3. pieces of paper and notes can't change to become other things
Which leads us to ponder: how would the GTD methodology change if
it was no longer bounded by the real-world physical metaphors of
files in file folders?
*Let me think it over the pillow*
In Chandler, items can live in multiple places and items
themselves can change (through stamping). Chandler items are NOT
like the papers and manila folders in our file cabinets.
So now if we address two of the specific GTD concerns you brought
up in the context of Chandler's "new world" paradigm, how does the
discussion change?
1. Do Stickies encourage people to have multiple Inboxes? One on
their calendar, the other in the Dashboard. Not really, since
items live in multiple places in Chandler, any sticky you add to
your Calendar would have a Triage status (just like any other
content item in the PIM) and would be managed in your Dashboard as
well with the help of automatic Ticklers.
*I am not at your same level about Chandler to give you a quick
response to this one :o(*
2. Will Stickies just pile up into an incomprehensible mess over
time? This is certainly a danger for some people. But I wonder if
one of the problems with Stickies (both electronic and paper) is
that they're great for capturing fuzzy data, but once they've been
created, they can never become more than that. They can never
become more structured and specific OR at least, it's an onerous
process for you to turn a generic sticky into something that has
specific meaning to you.
*You really have a point in this one. Please note that in my last
mails I was speaking of the stickies less like stickies but more of
what they could actually mean to the user. Fuzziness, Different
kind of graphic representation. I would include the property of
morphing into something else maybe from your words above.*
Which is where stamping and labeling in Chandler comes in. You can
start out by plopping a sticky on your calendar for this week. And
then over time, you can add specificity to the sticky: Tuesday,
2PM, with Joanne, at Mondo's, to talk about: new hires, etc...
=====
In sum,
The ability to easily"turn your sticky" into more and more
structured data over time PLUS
The ability to keep track of this "fuzzy" data through Triage and
Tickling in the Dashboard may EQUAL
A self-sustaining system that actually allows people to be
flexible with data and iterate on information WITHOUT losing track
of it and having it all end up in various messy piles all over the
place.
At least that's the dream.
*I now it´s a dream and I am well intentioned to feed it.
I for sure love to dream.
What I feel right now is that everything is very abstract (minded).
It´s like I would love to give it a try and say well I was wrong or
well this is great but with this little twist it would be excellent.
But what is sure is that I am here to help (or at least I want to).*
I think this gets at some of the core concepts behind how Chandler
is a system, not just a storage facility.
*I have been doing some thinking about this, I have (I believe)
some interesting concepts I would love to share, but still I could
not find the time to fully (even quickly) develop.
Yours,
Daniel*
:o) Mimi
At 11:14 AM -0300 11/9/05, Daniel Vareika wrote:
Mimi:
As I said, with stickies I am not sure where I am right or wrong,
I was just putting forward a pillar of GTD.
I understand every point you make, I do not disagree with you.
A part of me loves the stickies in the calendar, the other part
tells me it might be wrong.
*Self Criticism:*
I do have stickies (real physical ones) around the computer monitor.
They are actually even one on top of the other.
I have counted them, there are 40 of them in 12 piles.
Some are short lived and work, some are not.
I did use stickies on the mac, but in the end I decided that it
was more of a mess than a help (this is truly personal).
DSCN3695.gif
*Points in this issue:
*1) To know whether people find stickies (physical or software
based) really useful. What I mean is whether they help more than
get in the way although one might use them a lot.
I use them a lot but doing a serious self criticism I would
prefer not having to use them at all or limit my usage.
2) White spaces in a calendar is really telling us something not
nothing. It is telling us how much time by the space do we have
left so as to use thoughtfully.
White spaces are useful, the size of them transmit invaluable
information.
3) I love the concept of fuzziness in a calendar, that is for me
the greatest point Mimi has. With other calendar apps like the
Palm Desktop one finds things to be sometimes too rigid.
Fuzziness is a great concept to explore.
4) Going over the stickies concept what I love is not really the
concept as a stickie but graphically speaking, another way to
convey info.
Let me explain myself: I, might be boring regarding calendars,
but I recall what girls did in school and high school. They did a
lot of drawing, some really beautiful, most of them conveyed
really useful info for them, like their best friends birthdays.
To be able to convey some type of info in a different manner,
even different size makes it much more attractive, but mostly
much more useful, since for them, their best friends party was
the most important thing.
I know this concept is adding a layer of complexity not intended
even for 1.0 but it could be good to brainstorm on it, why we are
compelled by some other form of graphically presenting the
information.
For one thing we have different icons in our desktop that
transmit clearly their function.
5) I believe there are other, really useful ways of managing and
arranging information.
This might have nothing to do with tags, keywords, dates or
users. It is how we arrange spatially that info. I do it for
certain with my desktop, even taking the time to change some
folders icon to more descriptive ones.
For me, the spatial relationship of these folders, their icons
and how they are arranged, conveys really useful info.
The same thing happens with our physical desktop and our office
in a broader sense.
6) Clutter. I understand Mimi´s point in that visual clutter
regarding the GUI is different from one owns clutter.
From experience we all know that what might be clean for one is a
mess to another, and one is capable of finding even in it´s own
mess that little paper. Nonetheless, reading GTD points out some
other things, like its bad to have many different in boxes, that
we end up not really managing our life. I am trying to work like
GTD although it´s hard to be methodical, but I find there are
really benefits on it. Still I would not generalize an opinion (I
am talking only for myself).
*Idea:*
Maybe those stickies could be really small ones like the notes in
Acrobat (much cuter though!) and that you could open them or see
inside them if you point at them. This way they won´t use much
real state. On the other hand they could be different icons like
smiling faces, etc.. to be able to personalize them and mean
something to the user. This way it gets much more personal a
calendar in a traditional sense.
Transparency and Fade in or out as Brad pointed out, I think are
worth brainstorming.
Yours,
Daniel
Mimi Yin wrote:
Yes you're right, David Allen does say to only put things on
your calendar that are appointments, commitments to time that
you will not break, not well-intentioned plans to get work done,
that in all likelihood will get pushed aside as new emergencies
come in to throw you off balance.
By simply maintaining a list of things you CAN do rather than
trying to adhere to traditional notions of "time management"
where you try and plot out exactly when you're going to complete
tasks, is his way of maintaining a state of mind like water. You
stay flexible, by not locking yourself down with a "schedule"
you can't keep anyway.
I wonder though, if the stickies on the calendar is something
different from "time management." The whole idea is that you
keep things loose. You're not blocking out time to complete
tasks (ie. Next Monday from 1-3PM, I'm going to write this
proposal) which is simply unrealistic, because you have no idea
what's going to have happened Monday morning that's going to
blow away your plans.
Instead, you're simply placing reminders for yourself near and
around the appropriate time period.
So think of the stickies as yet another way to display a GTD
context. Time sensitive contexts. This is essentially what David
Allen does himself with his month-based Tickler files. He puts
items into folders labeled with each month of the year and the
beginning of each Month, he dumps the contents of that Month's
folder into his Inbox.
Instead of @hardware store or @computer, this is for things that
are @October (ie. Go enjoy fall colors in the park.) or @Next
week (ie. Pick up pastries for people at the Office on the way
to work.)
Whenever you are looking at a week on your calendar, you are
pulling up an @context list for things that are relevant to that
week. The same way when you pull up an @context list for things
relevant to the hardware store, you're asking yourself, what
things can I get done at the hardware store?
So if anything, stickies on the calendar could be conceived of
as the opposite of time management. Instead, it's a way for
people to "be fuzzy" about when they do things and simply assign
a loose date range. Over time, as things become clearer, as your
calendar fills up, as new information comes to light, you may
narrow the window of time...but like most other things in
Chandler, it's an iterative process.
:o)
As for clutter, I generally believe that self-made clutter is
okay. Some people thrive on it. What's overwhelming is when the
UI comes pre-cluttered with concepts and gizmos you don't
understand or when you have to navigate someone else's self-made
clutter.
On Nov 8, 2005, at 5:20 PM, Daniel Vareika wrote:
Mimi:
Although it sounds compelling (to use real state that is in
other way unused, we would be promoting as for GTD a bad habit.
If I was to stick to the rule of GTD that only those things
that one should do on a certain moment should be in the
calendar, then the concept of stickies shouldn´t go.
On the other hand one is being too orthodox on this matter.
It is extremely attractive the idea and the display, but again:
would we be promoting clear, fast transmission of the info, or
clutter?
I still prefer the Mac OS simplicity.
I do not know how to make this powerful, attractive idea
something that empowers users instead of getting into the way.
I would like feedbacks on that matter.
I might be completely off
I think it means much more than stickies whats in place in this
one.
Yours,
Daniel
I am being the devils advocate on purpose, not because I want to.
Mimi Yin wrote:
Also sending out an idea that someone who is interviewing for
the Scooby designer position came up with during their interview.
The problem they were presented with was: There's all this
free space on the calendar that's not being used, how can we
help the user maximize screen real estate?
It's potentially a really great way to simulate the way people
use paper calendars.
Proposal: Floating stickies on the calendar.
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