Detail view component spec

Status Cleaning up the page. First pass at .4 target for Detail View.

Motivation

• Allow users to create new items and then tweak them (via the mark-up bar) so that they end up with exactly what they want. Users don't need to know a priori what kind (Email, Calendar event, Task, Note) of item they want. They can start out with a blank item or a templated item (ECTN) and then activate and deactivate tools in the mark-up bar to refine the detail view. We're giving users flexibility about how to get started on getting everything in their brain onto their PIM. This is the biggiest barrier to entry for PIM usability and the application should optimize to minimize interaction obstructions to entering information.
• Give users more direct control of their items rather than forcing them to operate through a layer of "application imposed" indirection where the application defines kinds of items, users have to choose a kind and the best they can hope for is that they chose mostly right. See CreatingNewItemsWorkflow for more on workflow goals.
• Easy affordances for entering items
• Don't overwhelm users with too many attribute fields to fill out at once
• Make it easy to add attributes
• Make user feel like they can fill out the detail view partially and come back later
• Relatively uniform detail view that is consistent across item kinds
• Easy access to stamping and marking up items
• Integrate stamped items
• Clear differentiation between mark-up (lightweight processing, easy to access) and labeling (heavyweight organizing, a little harder to access) affordances. Oftentimes information management interfaces don't distinguish between the two and users are confronted with heavyweight organizing affordances when most of the time, they simply want a lightweight way to mark, flag, process items for later review. (ie. Users who go to the trouble of filing all of their email are often unecessarily expending cognitive energy on filing every last piece of mail by project no matter how trivial, when what they're really trying to do is simply process their email and get "Done" email out of their face.)
• See also CreatingNewItemsWorkflow

Structure

The Detail view is split into 4 sections to

• help users fill-in the attributes that are most important to them
• help users understand how the different attributes might be useful

At it's most complex, all 4 sections are present. At it's simplest, only 2 are present:

• Mark-up bar where users perform both "Processing" and lightweight "Organizing" of their content items
• Core attributes: Main content of an item including Headline, notes and time attributes
• [OPTIONAL] Message wrapper: Item transport information (message header) and comments about the main content of the item
• [OPTIONAL] Label area aka See also section where users "Organize" their items into collections

• anatomy_of_detail.gif: ignore "more mark-up info" retractable tongue
  

Mark-up bar where users can quickly Process content items by marking them up in various ways. Faster alternative to dragging items into folders to accomplish processing. There are various ways to order the items on the Mark-up bar just as there are many ways users might want to go about marking up their item. The order settled on below goes from COARSE grain processing (ie Triage status) to finer grain mark-up affordances.

• In search of a mental model
• Within the mark-up bar there are further distinctions to be made between
  • Marking up items to change their "thingness" or "nouness" (ie. what they are: messages, tasks, events, resources) aka Stamping
  • Marking up items in a more artificial way to give them special adjectival flags: Needs reply, FYI, Alarms
• Below is a breakdown of Chandler nouns and Chandler adjectives
  • Chandler items are: Notes, Messages, Tasks, Events, Resources
  • Chandler items can be described with: Triage status, Message type, Message status, Task type, Event attendance status, Needs reply, Needs to be filedImportance level, Alarms, Privacy

• Click to set Triage status:
  • Processing
  • Done
  • Deferred
  • Archive
  • JUNK
  • Trash

• Stamping
• Users can stamp and unstamp
• If an item is unstamped, Chandler remembers the stamped attribtute values

• Click to Send as message
  • Implicit states: Sent, Unsent, Error in sending, Unread, Read
  • Adds To:, CC:, BCC: to the Detail view
  • Cannot unstamp Sent or Received messages
• Click to Put on / Take off taskpad
  • Click + hold to select taskpad: Generic task (default), Calls, Write-ups, Errands, Chores
• Click to Put on / Take off calendar
  • Click + hold to set attendance status: Attending (default), Tentative, Not attending (auto-marks item as FYI)
  • Color of clock icon is Black (past), Green (today), Yellow (future) depending on time attribute value
  • Adds time affordances to detail view
    • Time for calendar tasks
    • Do on and Due by times for tasks
• Click to Mark / Unmark as Resource
  • Click + hold to set resource type: Note (default), Document, Presentation, Picture, Movie, Song
  • Resource type is auto-selected as well based on file extension

• Mark-up flags
• Click to Mark / Unmark as "Needs reply* ([OI^?] Puts Needs reply by reminder in Core attributes set to Someday Maybe)
• Click to Mark / Unmar as "Need to read"
• Click to Mark / Unmark as "Needs to be filed"

• Mail history
  • Replied to, Forwarded, Resent, Updated, Attachments, Size (non-clickable)
  • Click to open cluster thread collection to view related item
  • Click on Replied to, Forwarded, Resent icons to go to those emails (works like Apple Mail)

• Click to Mark / Unmark as Private

• Not shown but possibilities: Server Status (Right-click on mark-up bar to customize)
• Shared items have a different look

In the body of the Detail view

• From: / To: / CC: / BCC:
• Date received (if it's a message)

• Core attributes
• Headline (All)
• Location (Calendar)

• Time attributes
  • Do on date / recurrence / alarm
  • Due by date / recurrence / alarm

• Ticklers can be set on:
  • Defer until - Automatic (All kinds)
  • Needs reply by - Automatic (All kinds)
  • Do on date - User-invoked from the body of the Detail view (Just Tasks and Calendar)
  • Due by date - User-invoked from the body of the Detail view (Just Tasks)

• Content
• Notes field (All kinds)

• Comments

• Notify or Send
• Click Send to send item out for the first time
• Send button toggles to Notify after initial Send
• Click and hold Notify button to send "N"otifications to just the Organizer of an event or Newly added contacts

Wireframes

• Mark-up_bar.gif for .4:
  

• Icon_exploration.gif:
  

• Detail-view_20040903.gif:
  

Feature list

.4

• Stamping
• Add people
• Put on taskpad
• Put on calendar
• Chandler remembers stamped values

• Mark as private

• Addressing
• Add people to To: and From: fields
• Addressees resolve to Contact name, if there is no Contact name, then substitute email address for Contact name

• Core
• Headline
• Location (only for items on the Calendar)

• Time attributes (See IntD section above)
• Tickler time [no recurrence]
• Time
• Do on time
• Due by time

• Content
• Notes

• Notify or Send
• Just Send (no "N"otifications in .4)

• Entering affordances
• Existing wXWidgets standard for entering affordances

IP-A status

• Removed mark-up mail history attributes (shouldn't have been there)

Post .4

• Mark-up bar
• Triage status
  • Processing (default)
  • Done
  • Deferred
  • Archive
  • JUNK
  • Trash

• Possibly more complex implementation of stamping buttons with combo toggle / pulldown affordances
  • See Structure section above
  • KindsContentModel.xls:

• Mark as "Needs reply"
• Mark as "Needs to be filed"

• Status of calendar and reminder mark-up icons (Auto-colored based on time attribute value)
  • Future = Yellow
  • Now = Green
  • Past = Clear

• Auto-marking related attributes
• Calendar items marked "Not attending" are auto-marked as FYI
• Incoming, unread items are auto-marked as Important
• Items tickled to be reintroduced into the Processing area of the Dashboard view are auto-marked as Important
• Items with Yellow calendar / reminder icons are atuo-marked as Triage status = Deferred
• Sent items are auto-marked as Triage status = Done
• Deferred items auto-set alarm to Someday Maybe
• Needs reply items auto-set alarm to EOD (End of Day)

• *Mail history
• Replied to
• Forwarded
• Click on Mail status items to open up ad-hoc collection and jump to related item (ie. forwarded message)

• Non-OOTB attributes: Server status, Item size

• Add people
• More complex mapping of From and To (ie. Requestor/ee, Organizer/Participants, Author/Subscribers)
• Show Chandler users
• Option to turn on auto-updates for sharing items with Chandler users
• Set ACL
• View sharing status
• Mark down attendance

• Time
• Recurrence and Alarms

• Comments

• Notify and Send bar
• Select transport: Email / IM
• Notify preferences
  • Send to newly added contacts
  • Send to organizer

• Entering
• Auto-complete entering
• Dynamically generated pull-down list of options based on user's previous interactions

[IntD] specs

• Toggle and Pulldown blocks

• Toggle block
• Click to activate (ie. Click to mark as private)
• Click again to deactive (ie. Click to *un*mark as private)

* Pulldown block

• Click and hold to reveal pulldown menu
• Select item (ie. @home)

* Toggle pulldown block

• Click and hold to reveal pulldown menu
• Select item (ie. Stamp as unblocked task)
• Click, click, click to cycle through options for selected item (ie. Todo, Done, Cancelled)
• interaction_blocks.gif:
  

• Editing attributes
• Most attributes will be fairly simple. Users click on a grey attribute label to edit the attribute (ie. Headline). For more complex attributes (ie. time, recurrence, tickler) we want to provide users with improved editing affordances. Right now the biggest ergonomics problem with most editing interaction flows is that users are constantly required to switch between keyboard and mouse. We would like to see how far we can push the "Safari" style auto-complete text-entry / pulldown combo box widget to allow users to enter complex attribute values in one fell swoop using natural language (ie. time = January 12, 2004 2-4PM) as opposed to selecting or entering
  • Month = January
  • Date=12, Year=2004
  • Start time=2:00PM
  • End time=4:00PM as separate fields.
• The biggest challenge with a "natural language" approach is that users will type attribute values in formats unreadable by Chandler. We're hoping that by providing sumbliminal formatting clues users will intuitively enter attribute values in the right format (ie. put mm/dd/yy in gray in the text box).
• Below is an interaction flow proposal for entering complex attribute values. This will probably carry over to the summary table widget.
• IntD_editing_attributes.gif:
  
• Additional "time" option: Sometime maybe

• IntD_Recurrence_Tickler.gif:
  
• Time options for recurrence:
  • hourly
  • weekly
  • monthly
  • yearly
  • every ? hours
  • every ? weeks
  • every ? months
  • every ? years
  • ? times an hour
  • ? times a week
  • ? times a month
  • ? times a year

• Add button
• Creates a combo edit box
• Clicking "Edit" in the pulldown locks the pulldown in place, allowing the user to customize the pulldown a la DnD. For adding attributes to:
  1. Detail views
  2. Attribute columns in the summary table view
• combo_box.gif:
  

Open Issues

• Can users DnD attributes around to reorder them in the detail view?
• How do / Can users format ad-hoc attributes? How do / Can users create sections of attributes?
• How does the genericized Detail view work when multiple items are selected?

Detail view evolution

• [OI^?]
• When are the following features happening if not in .5
• Is it easy to do flat graphical buttons in the mark-up bar for the stamping buttons
• Type over text feature
• Auto-complete email address lozenges
• Show me on calendar button
• Label section
• Text alignment (ie. Recurrence and Ends fields)
• Detail_View_20041109.gif: