Triage

Status Documentation re-org

Use 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 Processing 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 Processing as if it's a "new" item.
4. I've scheduled the task: Clean out garage for 2PM next Sunday. It's technically deferred, 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 Processing 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 "Deferred"
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

• NaturalWorkflowDesign
• OutlookOrganizingAffordances

• Triage status
• Processing
• Done
• Deferred

• Task status and Triage status
• To some extent all Processing 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 Tasks via stamping. However, to avoid confusion, specially marked Tasks will not have a separate Task status orthogonal to Triage status (ie. Items cannot be Done Todos.)
• See AttributeOverload

• Deferred until and Setting alarms
• Simplified approach for .5: Only Deferred items can have ticklers. Users cannot leave items in Processing or mark items as Done with a tickler to re-enter Processing at a later date as a born-again item.
• Complex approach if .5 isn't enough: Users can set alarms on items independent of Triage status.
  • Users can tickle Processing items to re-enter Processing as new items
  • Users can tickle Done items to re-enter Processing as new items

• Auto-triage
• Put into Processing
  • Items leftover from Yesterday
  • Events and Tasks scheduled for Today, This Week, This Month
  • Item's Deferred until...Now
  • New items
  • New messages
  • Capital "N"otifications (see NotificationsDesign)
  • Message drafts
  • Message drafts
  • Queued messages
• Auto-mark as Done
  • Successfully sent messages
  • Passed events (not scheduled Tasks)
  • [OI^?] Read messages
• Auto-mark as Deferred until...Someday maybe
  • Events and Tasks scheduled for the future

• Users can set up filters in the Dashboard collection to auto-mark items based on attribute values (see RuleBuilder)
• If an item is an event or task scheduled for the future and a user marks the item as Done, they are effectively removing it from the calendar

• Additional ways to Triage items from the Toolbar
• Archive
• Junk
• Trash

• 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.

Workflow

• Mark as Done or Deferred until
• Select or multi-select and Click Archive to mark as Archive
• Select or multi-select and Click Junk to mark as Junk
• Select or multi-select and Click Trash to mark as Trash
• Click Purge button to process items out of Processing

Interaction design

• 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
• Triage status: Mark as Processing (default), Done, Deferred, Archive, Junk, Trash
• Stamping: Pull-down with multi-select option: Send as Message, Put on Taskpad, Put on Calendar, Mark as Resource
• Mark as Needs reply
• Mark as Need to read
• Mark as Need to file
• Mark as Important, Normal, FYI
• In-line editing of Who and What columns
• Extra user-defined column for Collection
• Possibility: IM style emoticons in place of urgency flags
• Possibility: Staleness column (show how old an item is)

-- MimiYin - 10 Aug 2004