Sharing workflow decision history

Executive summary

• There are currently two proposals for how users might initiate the sharing process. They are not completely mutually exclusive. However, we could opt (especially in .4) to only accommodate the simpler scenario (Staged + Dual Workflow).
• Staged + Dual Workflow Users establish ListOfPeopleYouShareWith relationships with other Chandler users either through automatic discovery via Email or Jabber, or through some out of band means. Sharing ACLs will only accept contacts that are members of the user's "Sharing Circle".
• In-line + Unified Workflow Users can initiate the sharing process by selecting an item to share, add contacts to an ACL and invite contacts to establish a sharing relationships in the same workflow. Contacts that accept will immediately start sharing. Contacts that do not accept will either receive nothing (02_dual_UI proposal) OR receive a 1-time send "static" copy instead (03_unified_UI proposal).

The ORDER of things: Staged v. In-line Workflow

• Q At the highest level, how to users get started on Sharing? How does establishing a Sharing Circle work with actually Sharing collections, views and items?
• A 2 options

1. Staged workflow: Establish sharing relationship first. Then share. OR
2. In-line workflow: Try to share and establish sharing relationship at the same time.

• Should users grow their Sharing Circles through the act of sharing (ie. mail clients automatically add email addresses to your address book as you send and receive emails.) OR Should the Sharing Circle act as a safeguard against rampant sharing? The Staged workflow is simple and needs to be supported no matter what. The [OI^?] is to decide whether there are compelling use cases for the In-line workflow.
• Use cases for Staged workflow:
  • Close working group in a small organization will probably establish sharing relationships immediately
  • Spouse and close friends
• Use cases for In-line workflow:
  • User has never heard of sharing, they won't know to establish a sharing circle until they want to share an item. At which point, they will need to backtrack to set up sharing circle.
  • People you don't usually interact with, but once in a while an item might come up that you want to share with them. (ie. Sharing the Me contact. Users will want to share their Me contact with many more people than the relatively small group of people they initially include when they first set up their Sharing Circle.)
  • Setting up a meeting with outside clients who also happen to be Chandler users. (ie. This is most important for small consultancy firms or sole proprietors who interact mostly with outside customers.)
  • Accomodate the complexities of resharing.
• 01_workflow_order.gif:
  

The NUMBER of things: Dual v. Unified UI

• Q Do we simplify things and separate 1-time sending from Sharing into two distinct UIs and workflows?
• Advantages Under the hood, 1-time send is very different from Sharing and while in a perfect world, the two would integrate perfectly, that is not the reality for Canoga. Rather than covering up this imperfection with a workaround, we should be reveal Chandler's shortcomings upfront so that the user is clear about expectations.
• Disadvantages The reality is that users will often try to "give out" information to a mixture of people, many of whom they cannot share with. It would be nice to help users overcome the burden of maintaining separate lists of recipients (1-time sends to non-Chandler users, Shares to Chandler users) with an integrated workflow that will allow them to initiate and maintain a single list of recipients for any item they "give out" and Chandler will do the "right thing" under the hood.
• Users are also constantly presented with the question: "To Share or not to Share?" The answer may not always be apparent.
  1. I may not want to share now, but what if I do in the future?
  2. I don't know, what's Sharing?
  3. That depends, is this someone I can share with?
  4. That depends, how much maintenance is this Share going to require? If there's a lot of back and forth communication and half of it is in the Sharing UI and the other half is in the 1-time Send UI and I have to coordinate all of the discussion between the two, that's going to be frustrating. But if no one has any strong opinions OR the Sharing people and the 1-time Send people happen to be two very separate groups of people who don't really need to communicate with each other, then it's not such a big deal to set it up once in two separate UIs.
• 02_dual_v_unified.gif:
  

Making a decision

• It turns out that the intersection of ORDER and NUMBER bring about an interesting set of circumstances that may force our hand in this decision making process. The following discussion explains the decision matrix below. We're fairly confident that whetever we decide with respect to ORDER and NUMBER, most combinations will work out in clean, elegant workflows...with the exception that IN THE CASE that we decide to go with an In-line workflow that allows users to "try" to share with people they haven't already committed to their Sharing Circle, it may get very ugly to couple that with a Dual UI approach.
• 01_decision_matrix.gif:
  

Walking through the scenarios

• Staged Workflow + Dual UI
• This is largely a no-brainer workflow. Non-Sharing Circle contacts will not be allowed in the Sharing UI. The user has a very clear answer to the "To Share or Not to Share" question: Chao is not in my Sharing Circle, therefore he goes in the 1-time Send UI.
• 02_dual_UI_nobrainer.gif:
  

• In-line Workflow + Dual UI
• Storyboard description
• I want to get some information to Chao
• I am confronted with the choice: To Share or not to Share?
• I say: What the hell, I'll try to share with Chao even though he is NOT in my Sharing Circle
• Sadly, Chao doesn't accept the sharing relationship invitation. A number of things may be true:
  1. Chao is away on vacation?
  • Perhaps Chao doesn't want to be in my Sharing Circle but is too polite to reject me. (This probably happens quite frequently on Orkut.)
  • Chao doesn't understand what this Sharing Circle business is so he just deleted the email and assumed there was some kind of delivery error.
  • Most probably, Chao doesn't have Chandler
  • How can I tell?
  • At what point does the user move Chao over into the 1-time send UI and send Chao a "static" copy of the item? Yet another decision I feel unequipped to make.
• 02_dual_UI_dilemma.gif:
  
• Post action analysis I don't know if Chao is in my Sharing Circle. Yet, Chandler is tempting me to try to Share with Chao anyway because it will allow me to add him to the Sharing UI in spite of his unconfirmed Sharing partner status. Already the user is confronted with a choice that they will not feel fully equipped to answer, especially if they are unfamiliar with Sharing.
• I could play it safe and just do the 1-time Send, and Chao would definitely get the item. But on the other hand, it would be nice to Share and then Chao would get automatic updates. But what are the chances that he has Chandler? In the even of a Zero Install user base, the odds are against Chao having Chandler. The odds are against Chao being a viable Sharing partner and therefore, the odds are against a successful Sharing experience with Chao. With that knowledge, we would be misleading the user by allowing them to enter unconfirmed contacts into the Sharing UI, unless we provide a automatic back-up plan: The user can TRY to share with Chao. BUT, if Chao is not using Chandler, Chao sees a 1-time send of formatted Email text that all clients can read.
• automagic.gif:
  

• Proposal for a Unified workflow for "getting items" out: 1-time send AND Sharing
• I have an item I need to get out
• I have a list of people it needs to get out to
• I enter those people onto a single list
  1. Some of them I know I can share with
  2. Others I know I can't share with
  3. Still others I don't know if I can share with them but I will try and it will succeed and they will become members of group 1
  4. And still others, I will try to share with, it will fail and they will become members of group 2
• Chandler will send the right things to the right people
  1. Shared content items to group 1
  2. Nicely formatted email text
  3. Invitations to share to group 3 + Shared content item once they are confirmed in your Sharing Circle
  4. Invitations to share to group 4 + Nicely formatted email text in case they don't or can't accept your invitation
• If all this sharing stuff is just confusing, don't turn on sharing at all and it will look just like email.
• 03_unified_UI.gif:
  

• Caveat
• All of the above notwithstanding, we do have a fallback plan. If it turns out that the unified workflow is simply too hard to understand, we will simply not allow users to Share an item unless all recipients of that item are at the very least confirmed Chandler users.

-- MimiYin - 07 Apr 2004