Triage

Status Sheila is writing the official spec.

Use cases

Base

1. I get an email and I flag it as a task. I want to keep it in front of my face, but as new emails pour in, it scrolls away and disappears.
2. I get an email and I flag it as a task. I know I can't do anything about it for 3 weeks but there's no way for me to get it out of my face for a little while.

Advanced/Corner cases

1. I get an email about fun things to do in New Orleans. Just from the subject line, I immediately know to file it in my "Entertainment" project. But I want to keep the email around to actually read it later in the day. When I read it, I find out that it also contains contact information for my friend's favorite restaurant. I create a new contact for that restuarant, turning the restaurant name in the email into a link. Then I mark the item Done and purge it from my Now bin.
2. I create a meeting for next Tuesday. It's on my calendar for next week, but I want to keep it in front of my face until I finish writing up the agenda in the notes field of the calendar item. I could create a separate task to "Write agenda" for meeting Next tuesday and keep that in front of my face, but that seems cumbersome and heavy-handed. Mostly, I just want to keep the calendar item in front of my face right now even though technically it's "deferred" until next Tuesday.
3. I just finished up a meeting so technically it's "Done." However, I'd like to keep it around until I finish writing up the meeting notes. Half-way through the day I give up on finishing the meeting notes AND I find out my boss is going to be out of the office until the end of next week anyway. I set an alarm for next Thursday so I can get the calendar item out of my face until then. The following Thursday, the item reappears in Now as if it's a "new" item.
4. I've scheduled the task: Clean out garage for 2PM next Sunday. It's technically Later, but I'm still working on putting together a list of supplies I need to buy to prepare for the task. I could create that list as a separate task to me more precise. But why bother. I keep the item around in Now until I'm done putting together then list. Then I'm ready to defer it.
5. I have a task to "Book flights for Nepal." I just booked them so I check the task as Done. However, I want to keep the task around until I receive the confirmation email from the airline so that I can plop it into an ad-hoc collection with the task.
6. I completed a huge task: Write the history of the universe. I have to enter it into my task manager. I don't want such a puny meta-task to clutter up my task list which includes things like End world hunger and Find cure for AIDS...Update status manager feels somehow out of place. Also, when this meta-task shows up in my Dashboard view Monday morning, I really just want the original huge task to show up so I can remember what it is I'm supposed to enter into the status manager. Therefore, I mark the item as Done and I set an alarm on the item to come back into the Processing bin in a couple of days to remind me that I have to enter it in my status manager. The item is simultaneously "Done" and sort of "Later"
7. Items I receive that I want to auto-done: Mailing list messages
8. Items I receive that I want to auto-junk: SPAM

Structure

The Dashboard collection is Chandler's equivalent of the iTunes library. It is where ALL of the user's important items live. (Important as opposed to Archived, Junk, Trash).

The Dashboard collection contains ALL of the user's items. Items that have been shared to the user are NOT automatically dumped into their Dashboard collection.

The Dashboard collection is partitioned into 3 sections based on triage status: Now, Later, Done

Now is the user's collection bin. We hope that users will sit-in the Now section of the Dashboard collection, replacing the Email Inbox as the primary PIM UI.

Now is where all new items and items relevant to now live regardless of Kind or if the item is Incoming, Outgoing or for yourself.

• NaturalWorkflowDesign
• OutlookOrganizingAffordances

• Triage status
• Now
• Later
• Done

• High-level Structural Workflow
• The Dashboard view shows all content items sectioned by the above triage status
• Content items enter Chandler marked as Now
• Users can then move/mark them as Later or Done
• In a more advanced level of use, we provide auto-triage rules (see below) to mark the triage status of some items automatically
• Later items can be tickled to be put back into Now on a user-specified date

• Task status and Triage status
• To some extent all Now items in Chandler are Tasks or at the very least their presence represents to the user the meta-task: Process this item.
• However users will want to be able to distinguish between these "items with meta-tasks" and real tasks like: Clean garage.
• As a result, users will be able to mark some items as real capital-T Tasks via stamping. However, to avoid confusion, specially marked Tasks will not have a separate Task status that is orthogonal to Triage status (ie. Items cannot be Done Todos.)
• See AttributeOverload

• Later items and Setting ticklers
• Simplified approach for Kibble: Only Later items can have ticklers. Users cannot leave items in Now or mark items as Done with a tickler to re-enter Now at a later date as a born-again item. This is even true of Event items.
• [OI^?] If users set an alarm to a Now or Done item, the triage status is automatically reset to Later

• Tickler alarm date formats
• For non-calendar items and setting a Tickler on past calendar events: End of day (5PM), Tomorrow (6AM), End of tomorrow, End of week (Friday, 5PM), Next week (Monday 6AM), Next month (1st 6AM), Custom date (same as date entry widget for Calendar).
• For event items on the calendar in the future: 15 (editable) minutes , hours, days, months
• For event items on the calendar in the past or that are occurring Now, users can set the event triage status to Later and specify a custom alarm date in the future. Users cannot do this for events that are on the calendar for the future.

The table below specifies what alarm options are available in each situation. The top option is the default selection.

Triage status	Past event	Present event	Future event
Done	None= Custom date+	None= Custom date+	N/A
Now	None= Custom date+	None= Custom date+	None= x minutes before event date+
Later	None= Custom date	None= Custom date	None= x minutes before event date+

+If the user sets an alarm date, the triage status is automatically reset to *Later*
=If a previous alarm was set and already went off, None should be replaced with either:

• Alarm dismissed OR
• Alarm past

• Put into Now
  • All newly created, received items, drafts and queued messages.
  • All Later items tickled for Today
  • Events and Tasks on the calendar for OR with an alarm for Today (anytime, all-day) appear in Now at midnight
  • Events and Tasks on the calendar for OR with an alarm for Today at a certain time appear in Now at the specified time
  • Events may reappear as NOW items twice, once when the alarm goes off and then again at the date / time of the event
  • [OI^?] Events that occur in the future cannot be marked as Done
  • Events that occur in the past can be marked as Now or Later
  • Newly created events with no specified date / time
  • Messages that are drafts, queued
  • Messages that failed as a result of an errors
  • Capital "N"otifications (see NotificationsDesign)

• Auto-mark as Later
  • Calendar items with event dates in the future
  • Calendar items with event dates in the future that are marked as Done will not appear in the Now section of the Dashboard view when the event happens. Future events marked as Done cannot have reminders.

• Auto-mark as Done
  • Successfully sent messages
  • [OI^?] Past events

• Users can create filters to Auto-mark items as Archive or Junk
• Users can create filters to Auto-move to Archive, Junk or Trash

• Additional ways to Triage items from the Toolbar
• Archive: Mark as Archive (click Clean-up to remove item from Dashboard)
• Junk: Mark as Junk (click Clean-up to remove item from Dashboard)
• Trash: Click delete to move item from Dashbaord

• Archive items can be ghost members of multiple collections
• Archive items do not show up in general searches (maybe there is an option to view archive items)
• Archive items do show up in Ad-hoc collections (look different)

• Junk items can be ghost members of multiple collections
• Junk items do not show up in search
• Junk items do not show up in Ad-hoc collections

• Trash items can be ghost members of multiple collections
• Trash items do not show up in search
• Trash items do not show up in Ad-hoc collections

• Ghost members of collections cannot be seen from the perspective of the collections they are members of. However, within the Archive, Junk and Trash collections, users can use the Browser UI to browse by collection.

• When we have composite views
• Users can glimps into the future and see what their Dashboard Now section is going to look like for any day in the future alongside their calendar, so they can get a complete picture of their activities for any given day

• Triage_Workflow.gif:
  

Workflow

• First pass
• You have 30 seconds to look at your Dashboard view to see if there's anything you need to deal with NOW before you run off to another meeting.
• Scan and look for:
  • Unread messages
  • Queued messages that failed and display an error icon
  • Review items marked as Important
  • Imminent calendar events and scheduled tasks
• Gloss over:
  • Items auto-marked as Junk
  • Items auto-marked for Archive
  • Items auto-marked as FYI (CC, BCC, items sent to more than 10 people)

• Second pass
• You have 5 minutes to deal with your life
• You might notice items marked as Needs reply and write up any replies that take less than 30 seconds
• You might glance over some Archive items and see if there are any mailing list messages you might want mark as Need to read for later
• Quick triage. Defer items you're not ready to deal with to come back into Processing in a day
• You might mark up some items (ie. Lightweight stamping, mark as Needs reply, Need to read or Need to file)
• You might Purge Processing of Archive and Junk items

• Third pass
• You have 15-30 minutes
• You might work on some Drafts
• Schedule some tasks on the Calendar
• Take an item that has been stamped as a Task and write in specific sub-tasks
• Relate items to each other in clusters

• Subsequent passes
• Deferred items return for another pass

1. Scan auto-marked items
2. Mark-up and put off until Later
3. Schedule and annotate
4. Purge
5. Later items return. Repeat until item is fully digested and Done!

• Triage_Passes.gif:
  

Interaction design: Widgets for the Dashboard view

• Toolbar interaction
• Select or multi-select items and Mark as Now, Later or Done
• Select or multi-select and Click Archive to mark / move items to Archive
• Select or multi-select and Click Junk to mark / move items to Junk
• Select or multi-select and Click Trash to move items to Trash
• Archive and Junk buttons toggle with Do not Archive and Not Junk buttons
• Select items auto-marked as Archive or Junk and click Do not Archive or Not Junk to unmark as Archive or Junk
• Click Clean-up button to process items out of Now OR
• Items automatically file themselves in the appropriate sections / collections when the user clicks away from the item
• Feedback: Flash to show that items are entering a particular section or collection. Item count would be ideal.

• Sections
• Open and close sections
• More than one section can be opened at a time
• Menu item to hide and show sections
• DnD feedback when items are added to a section with item count
• DnD Done items to the Done section
• DnD Deferred items to the Later section
• DnD items to Archive, Junk and Trash collections to remove them from Dashboard

• Mark-up affordances in the Summary Table and Detail views
• General principle: Have multiple columns in the Summary Table view to allow people to quickly mark-up their items in the following ways
• Mark as a Task, Unmark as a Task
• Put on calendar as confirmed, tentative, FYI, Take off calendar
• Mark as Now, Later, Done
• Mark as Archive and Junk with Toolbar buttons
• [OI^?] Mark as Needs reply (Are we still doing this?)
• [OI^?] In-line editing of Who and What columns
• Multi-line display governed by What column
• Extra user-defined column for: Collection
• Possibility: IM style emoticons in place of urgency flags
• Possibility: Staleness column (show how old an item is)

• Summ_Table_20041208.gif:
  

• Summ_Table_Lines.gif:
  

• Ways to simplify Kibble Dashboard (continuing list)
• No sections
• No clean-up button workflow

Comments

1 MimiYin 30 Dec 2004 Reversal in thinking about the relationship between triage status and alarms

I thought it would be easier to make it so that all items with alarms would HAVE to be Later items. However, after talking to Chao, it seems like it might be easier for the engineers to treat the triage status and alarm attributes as decoupled, orthogonal attributes.

This incidentally creates a more flexible user experience...so I've been reworking the triage status semantics to see if it's coherent.

Here goes...

On the mark-up bar, there is an "activate the alarm" button. Users can activate the alarm irrespective of the triage status.

As a result, a calendar event could have an alarm set for 15 minutes before, but still live in the Now or Done sections. Basically, this means to the user: I am done with this item until 15 minutes before the event occurs. I don't want to see it in my Later section, because I really can't do anything more to this item until it's time for the meeting.

On one level, this idea of setting reminders on Now or Done items seems counterintuitive and impure. But I think it's actually closer to the way users think.

For users, they're notion of Done-ness or Later-ness has more to do with the meta-task of "processing and managing the item" rather than the item itself. In other words, an event invitation can be "Done" once it's been put on the calendar, even if the even hasn't yet taken place.

Chao, I think we've talked about this before, and I think you were right when you said that the Dashboard view triage sections should really be about the status of the item itself as opposed to the status of the thing the item represents (ie. the invitation v. the event).

However, I still think we need some automation. For example, all event items should have the alarm activated automatically. All Later items should have the alarm activated automatically to prompt users to use the tickling feature.

The converse wouldn't need to be true though. If a user activates alarms on Now or Done items, the triage status does NOT automatically change to Later.