[Design] Who are tasks assigned to in Chandler?

[Mimi Yin]

Hi Jeffrey,

I would flip this question around...

I think people are already using email to assign tasks to each other,  
just not in an explicit way. I agree that there's lots to do with the  
UI to make Stamping-to-Address an item something that users will  
understand as a way to assign tasks and I too have been thinking in  
terms of having flavors of 'to-ness'.

https://bugzilla.osafoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10931 A way to  
specify what attribute you see in the Who and Date columns

For items that start out as emails, we could automatically change the  
To: field to become 'Assigned to:'  when users stamp those emails as  
Tasks.

I think these 2 features would help users 'discover' addressing as a  
way of assigning tasks. A way to show/hide the cc and bcc fields  
would help too. They scream email to users and help to squash any  
inkling that the addressing fields could be used for anything other  
than addressing communications.

In the mean time, I think we can continue to encourage users to  
explore using the addressing fields in creative ways. Chandler  
addressing fields are very different from normal email addressing  
fields and I imagine it will take a while for people to find uses for  
them beyond addressing messages.

So in short, yes, in agreement with your larger point. But not sure  
that we need to fix it in the short-term to get people to experiment  
with the Addressing stamp as a way to assign tasks.

Mimi

On Oct 9, 2007, at 10:51 AM, Jeffrey Harris wrote:

> Hi Folks,
>
> Recently on the design list Mimi mentioned that we'd like to encourage
> users to use the message stamp To field as task-assigned-to.  I've  
> been
> trying to sell this to people.  After discussing it with folks who  
> split
> up tasks in small work groups constantly and want to track who a  
> task is
> assigned to, I'm beginning to question if the message-stamp is  
> adequate
> for assigning tasks.
>
> First, I don't think it's immediately obvious that a mailed task's To:
> field is intended to convey that someone has taken responsibility  
> for a
> task, it might help to just render the To: field's label as
> "Assigned-to" instead of as "To" for message-tasks.
>
> Second, what about items that started out as emails?  For instance,
> suppose a small group of people are jointly coordinating responses to
> emails.  If email could be marked as tasks and contacts could be added
> to a separate assigned-to attribute, I think this would be quite  
> doable,
> as it is now, changing the To: seems really confusing.
>
> Sincerely,
> Jeffrey
>
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