[chandler-users] Feedback from first time user

[Philippe Bossut]

Hi,

Here under is the feedback sent to me by a first time user I introduced 
to Chandler Desktop. I suppressed his name since he preferred to send 
that to me directly. He's a Program Manager (PM) in a big company in the 
telecom industry and not a newcomer to software tools trying to improve 
on knowledge worker productivity. In that sense, he's a "Hub" and a good 
target user though, being in a big corporate environment, he's not 
really our target market.

Anyway, I thought his points are all valid and interesting.

Cheers,
- Philippe


> Sent: Thursday, November 1, 2007 1:56:16 PM
> Subject: Re: Fw: Chandler
>
>
> I took a look at the Chandler desktop and briefly played with
> it after reading the wiki info. These "points" are not organized. Its
> mental notes I took as I read and played. I hope they might be of some
> use.
>
> * The "Out of Box" experience at least on Windows for install was very
> straightforward. However, the next steps are not so obvious. It might
> be helpful for a set-up wizard to go through some of the initial set-up
> steps that would give the user a head start in using the desktop. Not
> many people read documentation unless they get stuck. The target
> audience are not developers but PMs.
>
> * I agree with the premise that work-flow and task/info management need
> better tools. As a project/program manager I find this a task that is
> ever evolving and it all may start with a simple email/IM/phone call
> that evolves to one or more subtasks that need to be scheduled,
> disseminated and tracked.
>
> * There is a statement in the documentation/FAQ that Chandler is not an
> email client (maybe in the future?). I think that for easier
> adoption/migration from a user's existing tool/platform that Chandler
> must become a single use portal for information. I personally don't
> want to have one email client and then have to use Chandler to generate
> a different type of email/calendar event and have to go to a different
> app to get more email features. I want simplification/integration of
> the tools and not a proliferation of more things I need to do.
>
> - When I use my email, I typical spend time sorting through the
> information. They typically fall into the following categories:
>
> 1. Info/request requiring a single response from me
> 2. Information that needs to be disseminated to others
> 3. Question that requires dissemination and response from others (as a
> PM, I have to get the answer from someone and then make sure of a
> timely response)
> 4. Requests to me and/or others- requiring single or multiple breakdown
> to tasks and assignments
>
> All of the above have to be filed into the appropriate project folders.
>
> * A mailbox/folder migration/import option to Chandler would be a nice
> feature (assuming that it can be used as an email client).
>
> * It would be nice if the the Triage Status heuristic would change to
> the next state depending on the message, i.e. if the current status was
> "Later", the next status would automatically be "Now" and if the
> current status is "Now" the next state that would be displayed on the
> change button would be "Done".
>
> * I can't tell you how many times I've had to cut/paste IM
> conversations and send them to myself in email so I could file it and
> "flag" priorities to any todo lists or calendars. It would be a nice
> feature if Chandler had an IM client built in that would automatically
> convert conversations into a Chandler message. I can drag drop text
> into a task in Chandler but once again, integration would be nice.
>
> That's what I have as a first pass from this morning.
>
> Best,