Inside Lotus

Inside Lotus Thoughts on Lotus software and collaborative applications, design, and Designer, by Chris Reckling. http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/ en-us Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:17:03 -0400 Views of Boston Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:17:03 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/views-of-boston boston Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/views-of-boston?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/views-of-boston Admin or Developer 2008? Welcome to Boston! I was out for a walk on Saturday, a nice "crisp" day - i.e. a bit cold - at the Arnold Arboretum, which is within walking distance of my house.

Here's the view of Boston from the top of Peters Hill. That building on the left is the Prudential Center, near where the conference will be held. It's probably about 5 miles as the crow flies. The glass one to the right of it is the Hancock building.

The trees are in bloom, which are spectacular. The first one is a peach tree and the second is a cherry tree.
peach tree in bloom

Hope to see some of you there!

Chris ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/views-of-boston http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/views-of-boston?opendocument&comments Dilbert Mashups Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:04:24 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/dilbert-mashups mashups Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/dilbert-mashups?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/dilbert-mashups dilbert.com. In this new world, why not have your audience contribute? :0 It might actually be fun. He's also added ratings to the mix, which is always fun and a good way to know what works or doesn't work.

Chris ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/dilbert-mashups http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/dilbert-mashups?opendocument&comments Challenge: Describe Notes in one slide Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:01:49 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/challenge-describe-notes-in-one-slide notes8 Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/challenge-describe-notes-in-one-slide?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/challenge-describe-notes-in-one-slide Lotus Notes is for an audience who might not know what it is and probably has no experience with it. How would you do it? Remember, you have one slide to do it (kind of like the elevator pitch version).

I remember having to do this at trade shows back when we used to do those, circa 1999. After a while you figured out what to say in one sentence, but it wasn't easy. Sometimes the person would say something like, "oh, I'm looking for such and such" and you'd want to say - "it does that too!".

I have a version of my slide, but what say you?

Chris Reckling ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/challenge-describe-notes-in-one-slide http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/challenge-describe-notes-in-one-slide?opendocument&comments Samtime Unyte Video Tips Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:57:16 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/video-tips-for-samtime-unyte unyte Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/video-tips-for-samtime-unyte?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/video-tips-for-samtime-unyte Sametime Unyte.

A Guide to Hosting your Meetings.

Chris Reckling
]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/video-tips-for-samtime-unyte http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/video-tips-for-samtime-unyte?opendocument&comments Congrats on the first Redwiki - Domino Web Dev Best Practices Tue, 8 Apr 2008 10:12:40 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/congrats-on-the-first-redwiki-domino-web-dev-best-practices2 designer Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/congrats-on-the-first-redwiki-domino-web-dev-best-practices2?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/congrats-on-the-first-redwiki-domino-web-dev-best-practices2 developerWorks, part of our Info 2.0 effort. Congratulations to all the authors and project managers for a successful run at a new way to create content. There are a couple of interesting things about this process:

1. The team was completely virtual. Unlike Redbook residencies, where the authors would come on site and work feverishly for 4 weeks or so, everyone could stay home and lead their normal lives. This also meant that more authors could participate. I think the last one that I was in on there were 3 authors on site; this redwiki has 10 involved! Read their bios - the experience that these authors bring to the topic is nothing short of amazing!!
2. The team published a PDF version of the wiki at a certain point in time. That way, you can download and print out the whole thing just like could before with a Redbook. (How many people actually got a real book, anyway?)
3. The content is now available for the community to update and contribute to. Corrections can be made online in an instant. New knowledge can be added as it becomes available.

I hope you join us in making this a success story for Domino, for wikis, and for the community of developers thirsting for information.

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software
]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/congrats-on-the-first-redwiki-domino-web-dev-best-practices2 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/congrats-on-the-first-redwiki-domino-web-dev-best-practices2?opendocument&comments Apropos of Nothing Fri, 4 Apr 2008 22:28:32 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/apropos-of-nothing misc Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/apropos-of-nothing?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/apropos-of-nothing
40 years ago today Martin Luther King was assassinated at age 39. Wow! Local angle - The Night James Brown Saved Boston on VH1.

Twitter is a very interesting way to keep up with friends, colleagues, partners, and customers. You really do get to know people. Like what they had for breakfast and stuff - you don't even get that kind of info at Lotusphere!

I've seen the future of television viewing. We're finally caught up on Lost Season 3 DVDs from Christmas and needed to move on to Season 4 - what to do? Download from iTunes at $1.99/episode - easy enough....got the cable to hook to TV - works! Better? Watch for free streaming from abc.com! Got that cable too for the MBP - works great! It turns out that all the media companies are getting in on this and have figured out how to monetize the opportunity instead of ignoring it (see music industry). I'm sure they are even sniffing our ip address and targeting ads based on your location; and if they aren't, they probably should be.

Speaking of TV - just finished up In Treatment, another excellent HBO offering that we watched "on demand", since we could never seem to get it together to watch every night at 9:30 or whenever it was on. Anyway, I hope there is another season! Right up there with Six Feet Under and Sopranos. I also like Deadwood and Carnivale, but those never made it back after relatively short runs.

The RIT Innovation Lab co-ops are doing some great work. We had a review recently and after some churn, they are getting it together and are on track. Hopefully, I can talk more about the individual projects later - I'm not sure what is public and what isn't so I'll err on the safe side. My assumption is that we'll figure out a way to release some of this stuff, esp. for Symphony. We're planning and recruiting for the next round of students already.

Bruins - don't care. Red Sox - still too cold. Celtics - yes! I hope I can get playoff tix.

Logged on to the bleedyellow.com Sametime Advanced installation. Good stuff, Lotus911 - I can definitely see the usefulness of those persistent chats. As Carl said in a tweet, twitter is kind of like a persistent chat that's public. I'm thinking of ways that we can use ST Adv. in our daily work routine, like for project teams or maybe a 'secret managers chatroom' etc.

Speaking of communities, our team (with my pointy-haired encouragement) has started an internal to IBM Lotus UX Community in order to increase our effectiveness as a design team working in multiple locations. We're using Connections, of course, and also have a group blog. First post was on Simplicity. This will be a good test in a number of ways since we're just starting up the process. Everyone is busy, so it'll be one more thing to do. However, I truly believe that the benefits individually and organizationally will be worth it.

I finally gave up and we're going to see an accountant on Monday!

Our team did some excellent heuristic evaluations recently (not on Notes, another product) that were quite well done and served to rally all the stakeholders around a common set of problems to solve. We used a combination of Neilsen's heuristics and Gutwin, et al, applied to a set of tasks. Good stuff by Eileen, Sandra, and Velda in user research.

Picked up an iPod Touch for my wife. What she really wants is a PDA for her calendar and contacts, plus an iPod music player update. Now, I have to figure out how to have it synch to her Macbook Pro for calendar and contacts and get music from our other Mac desktop where all the music is. Any clues? I'm just going to try doing a manual synch somehow (or just copy to the iPod disk). Hope it works, or I'm in trouble!

That's it for tonight - enjoy the weekend and the week ahead.

Chris ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/apropos-of-nothing http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/apropos-of-nothing?opendocument&comments IBM Beats Microsoft in Brand Power Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:02:54 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/ibm-beats-microsoft-in-brand-power ibm Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/ibm-beats-microsoft-in-brand-power?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/ibm-beats-microsoft-in-brand-power Microsoft is Losing Credibility, Study Says, seems like it's picking on Microsoft, but I guess that gets the headline. Would it be better to say "IBM Beats MS in Brand Power"? Nah...although that point is buried in the article:

"Among its peers in the category of Computers, Peripherals and Computer Software, Microsoft is second to IBM in brand power, with Toshiba a close third, Gregory said. If Microsoft's downward trend continues, Toshiba could pass it in brand power next year, he said."

My point is not to bash MS, but to merely point out that despite the great marketing machine that they have, perceptions of the brand are not necessarily following. Maybe those IBM commercials where they don't show any products are actually working??

Update: I just listened to this blurb on Fox Business News where the CEO discusses the same information. He said that MS was #1 in 1996 but has been declining. Coca-Cola Company is #1 now - Note: this is not Coca-Cola Enterprises that MS made a big deal about switching to their collaboration suite. That is a different company, that handles distribution.

Corebrand (I didn't want to register to get the full report; I'm assuming that IBM ranks higher in general, not only in the Computer Software category! I'm sure one of our enterprising bloggers will let me know.)

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/ibm-beats-microsoft-in-brand-power http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/ibm-beats-microsoft-in-brand-power?opendocument&comments Congratulations to the Sametime Team Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:30:21 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/congratulations-to-the-sametime-team sametime Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/congratulations-to-the-sametime-team?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/congratulations-to-the-sametime-team elsewhere, Sametime Advanced became available today. Congrats to folks on my team who worked on it - Joe (design), Carrie (visual), Michelle (admin), Michelle (usability), Lucille(project mgmt), and Kathryn(manager)! One of the interesting things about the Sametime Design team is that we are very distributed from Westford, New Hampshire, Denver, New York, and Mississippi! So, they really live this whole online collaboration thing everyday. The engineering team is equally spread out, in different places yet!

Joe put together a nice demo, that shows some of the features of ST 8, also pointed out by Adam. Maybe he'll do one for ST Adv. too. (hint, hint)

I'm definitely going to use the chat rooms feature kind of like a Twitter for inside the firewall, with our design community. Should be fun.
Persistent chat in ST Advanced

I'm pretty sure you can experience ST Advanced on Lotus Greenhouse now.

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/congratulations-to-the-sametime-team http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/congratulations-to-the-sametime-team?opendocument&comments Design @ IBM Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:33:21 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/design-ibm design Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/design-ibm?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/design-ibm
Another thing you can do is provide us with feedback through surveys posted there or register to be a volunteer for future usability tests and surveys.

There's some good content about design topics on the Design page, too - here's a sampling, to whet your appetite or click directly to these topics from here.

What is user experience design?  The foundation Human-Computer Interaction provides for User Experience Design.
What is a user interface?  A definition and explanation of the term user interface.
Interacting with computers - UI evolution
Design principles  Principles that form the foundation of good design.
User rights  The bill of rights for computer users, and changes that must take place in the computer industry.
The three models  Models used in designing for ease of use.
Introduction - User - Designer - Implementor

Design @ IBM

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/design-ibm http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/design-ibm?opendocument&comments Cooper: An Insurgency of Quality Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:00:00 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/cooper-insurgency-of-quality design Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/cooper-insurgency-of-quality?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/cooper-insurgency-of-quality IxDA 08 Conference that I thought was quite interesting. It's the keynote address by Alan Cooper called An Insurgency of Quality.

One of the big ideas is that he compares programmers to pre-industrial craftsman, whose primary concern is the quality of the product they are producing....think "old world craftsmanship". However, most businesses are still in a post-industrial mindset, where the goal is to decrease the cost of production while increasing the amount you can produce...think...assembly line manufacturing - good enough quality at a reasonable price. (Compare a hand-made guitar to a factory-produced one and let me know which you'd rather have.)

If you follow this logic far enough, then you really want to separate out the craft (the coding) from the designing. You want to design first, which tells you what the product will do, followed by design engineering, which tells you how it will do it. These first 2 steps are iterative and collaborative in nature. The last step is about efficiency - that's where you do the "real programming".

Link: An Insurgency of Quality (41min)

Check it out and let me know what you think. I thought it was insightful and somewhat radical.

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/cooper-insurgency-of-quality http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/cooper-insurgency-of-quality?opendocument&comments Pat Metheny Concert Last Night Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:50:39 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/pat-metheny-concert-last-night music Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/pat-metheny-concert-last-night?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/pat-metheny-concert-last-night Pat Metheny trio last night at the Somerville (MA) Theatre. What an incredible concert! If you get a chance to go and you like jazz/guitar, then go! He must tour 300 days a year (I don't know how, but he's always on the road, from Phoenix to New York just in March!) They were filming the concert, so who knows, maybe we'll see it again someday.

Per usual, he started out playing solo acoustic guitar (I think it was the baritone guitar to start with...the bass was quite "rich". Then the nylon string, followed by the 27 string whatever you call it - the Picasso guitar. see here for youtube video. ) This led to the electric stuff with the band - a couple of pieces from the new "album", Day Trip. He also through in a few oldies, like Bright Size Life, written a few miles from Somerville 20 years ago. The amazing thing is that this band has been together for several years now and it shows - they don't just do the standard jazz thing - play the head, solo, trade fours with drummer, play head again. There are arrangements and dynamics and everything! :) Hey, that's the way it's supposed to work!! There was a good mix of straight ahead jazz (it's not like they played rhythm changes or anything, but they did sneak in a blues, even though that wasn't exactly straight ahead either), latin-inspired, ballads, blistering speed-chops-busters, screaming guitar solos, and killer group sound. They went for 2+ hours without a break, 5 - 7:15 pm and had to play another concert at 8! I think they were just warming up.

Pat Metheny Trio Picture

Okay, enough gushing about Metheny....back to Monday. I have something else to post that is more on technology topic.

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software
]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/pat-metheny-concert-last-night http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/pat-metheny-concert-last-night?opendocument&comments RIT and IBM Innovation and Collaboration Lab Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:09:20 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/rit-and-ibm-innovation-and-collaboration-lab Connections Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/rit-and-ibm-innovation-and-collaboration-lab?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/rit-and-ibm-innovation-and-collaboration-lab Ed Brill (how does he always get to this stuff first!! :) ) Rochester Institute of Technology and IBM have teamed to create the first (for IBM) lab on campus. Carl Kriger, Caleb Barlow, and I did the recruiting on campus about a month ago. Caleb is really the brains behind the operation and an RIT alum, but now Carl and I have folks acting as project mentors to the RIT lab. We're very excited about this program for a number of reasons, but one of the great benefits for us is to be able to tap into the ideas of the next generation right away. We also think that the students will gain alot of real world experience working closely with the teams in Westford. In addition to computer science majors, we were also able to connect with the design side of the house and recruit 2 top-notch designers to the program.

Here are a couple of more clips about the program if you are interested in learning more. There were a bunch of TV stations and reporters on site today for the first day. Tomorrow we get down to business and start getting folks up to speed on the products, technology, and process and figure out what the actual projects will be that they work on for the next few months. I'm looking forward to working with the team there.

Rnew Video - click on the Watch Video link to see the news report.

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software
]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/rit-and-ibm-innovation-and-collaboration-lab http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/rit-and-ibm-innovation-and-collaboration-lab?opendocument&comments Boston Globe: Irish Pubs... Mon, 3 Mar 2008 21:53:37 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/boston-globe-irish-pubs... Domino Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/boston-globe-irish-pubs...?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/boston-globe-irish-pubs... article in the Boston Globe yesterday about Irish pubs recommended by Irish bartenders in Boston. Not that I have been to alot of the pubs in Boston (or Ireland), but one of my favorites here is Doyle's in Jamaica Plain. When I first moved to Boston, I stayed right down the street from it on Williams St. I also had my bachelor's party there with my Dad, brothers, and best friend (a small one), now that I think about it. The elevated train used to run right by it until they moved it over a block. Ah, the boiled beef and guiness....

Anyhow, if you happen to be going to ILUG, or if you happen to be from Ireland - what do you think of these choices by the Globe?

Chris ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/boston-globe-irish-pubs... http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/boston-globe-irish-pubs...?opendocument&comments Sidebar in Notes 8.0.1 Tip Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:21:05 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/sidebar-in-notes-8.0.1-tip Notes Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/sidebar-in-notes-8.0.1-tip?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/sidebar-in-notes-8.0.1-tip Mary Beth has described how to get the documentation now and Alan has posted a bunch of demo links. It's really easy to hook up a Notes view, but did you know that you can use ANY Notes url as a sidebar application?

Basically, you have to get into the View component wizard and type in your own Notes url and it will show up in the sidebar. For example, I used this url: Notes:///sidebar.nsf/myActions?OpenForm in order to have a handy set off actions show up in my sidebar, as in the picture below.

You could have all sorts of things show there - pages, views, forms - like I said, whatever is addressable by a Notes url. I'm sure with this example, you can come up with some pretty clever ideas yourself. Let us know what you come up with.

Have fun!

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software
(Gone skiing for a few days!) ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/sidebar-in-notes-8.0.1-tip http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/sidebar-in-notes-8.0.1-tip?opendocument&comments Redbook Residency on Domino Web App Development Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:00:50 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/redbook-residency-on-domino-web-app-development IBM Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/redbook-residency-on-domino-web-app-development?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/redbook-residency-on-domino-web-app-development

Do you have experience with building Web applications for Domino? Do you have tips and techniques that you want to share for developing Domino Web applications? Would you like to contribute your knowledge to a new wiki deliverable project? If so, we want you to join our virtual team. As a participant in this remote residency, you will gain proficiency with developing a best practices guide for developing Domino 8 Web applications.

The ITSO in conjunction with Lotus is conducting this remote residency to create a new deliverable that uses wiki technology. Wikis are a relatively new Web browser-based technology that allows remote collaboration to create a new form of on-line document. You can be a part of this leading-edge pilot for a new way of delivering quality technical documentation. Getting involved in this project will give you an opportunity to learn new collaboration tools and techniques, to learn more about developing Domino applications for the Web, and as with other ITSO residencies, to pass your knowledge to other IBM employees, business partners, and customers. Working alongside and exchanging knowledge with other highly skilled residents and some of the top experts in the IBM Lotus community, you will develop a competitive edge that will serve you well in successful deployment of creating and deploying Domino Web applications. In addition, you will get recognition for being an author of this wiki!

Best Practices for Building Web Applications for Domino 8, LO-8001-R01

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/redbook-residency-on-domino-web-app-development http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/redbook-residency-on-domino-web-app-development?opendocument&comments A Suggestion for Writing Ideajam Ideas Tue, 5 Feb 2008 10:20:22 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/a-suggestion-for-writing-ideajam-ideas design Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/a-suggestion-for-writing-ideajam-ideas?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/a-suggestion-for-writing-ideajam-ideas IdeaJam, the fantastic web site run by Bruce Elgort, is that often the users put in ideas that are purely "feature-based". By that, I mean, they have jumped to the answer, "Put a frazzle-thingy on the foobar dialog box." without an explanation of what goal they would like to accomplish. A feature without context does not provide enough information to make a decision one way or the other. Perhaps my years in product management have conditioned me to describe a problem in terms of a customer need. That, plus the years of resistance from development to the feature-based style of product management. :) Believe me, we have lists of features a mile long already.

Developers like to solve problems. If you give them the answer, they aren't as interested in the problem. That doesn't mean that there are not good ideas out there - after all, that's the point of IdeaJam, I believe - to discover solutions using the wisdom of the community. However, I propose that when you enter in an idea, start with the customer need first, even if you are the customer. If it were me, I'd do it like this (for example):

Customer Problem: Many users are confused by the Quota Warning dialog box and don't know what to do next.
User: Samantha (or Ted, Betty, Raj, Michaela, Ida, Fred, ISVs, Partners, LotusScript Developers, etc. The more specific, the better.)
Impact: My users complain about about their mail quotas all the time and create a lot of help desk calls and lost productivity.
My Suggestion/Idea/Solution: Simplify the language and offer a solution to their woes, such as....etc, etc.

If you look at the example above, the suggestion I gave may or may not be the best solution, easiest to implement, or most feasible. However, if you read more into the problem, it's really about the user being able to manage their mail quota effectively. We could fix that in a number of ways, including by making the message clearer and shorter. Or we could add a quota indicator and suggestions on reducing your mail file usage. Or we could provide admin tools that do things automatically. The point is that you or I don't know what the best solution is, given the platform and competing priorities.

There are many excellent ideas out there. I hope you will take my suggestions and write up many more good requirements and solutions.

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/a-suggestion-for-writing-ideajam-ideas http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/a-suggestion-for-writing-ideajam-ideas?opendocument&comments Designer screenshots Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:12:00 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/designer-screenshots Lotusphere2008 Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/designer-screenshots?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/designer-screenshots A few thousand words...but I won't be. She posted some screenshots off of her computer of the work in progress Designer, running inside Eclipse with the new script editors and xpage design element. Check it out. Personally, I find it to be a leap forward in Domino development capabilities. Many people who have done web development just want a good editor to work in that exposes the server functionality easily. Sometimes you will work in 'design mode' and sometimes in 'source mode'. I find myself much more in the markup when doing HTML work because it is more direct and precise just to type it in. What about you?

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/designer-screenshots http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/designer-screenshots?opendocument&comments TAOSRI closing session and not a gift? Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:17:40 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/closing-session---not-a-gift Lotusphere2008 Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/closing-session---not-a-gift?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/closing-session---not-a-gift I'm Just Here for the Food for Christmas.

The crowd seemed to enjoy his talk and he encouraged and got feedback. We even got him to make fun about replicating - he had no idea what it meant in the Lotus sense, but that didn't stop him from making the typical jokes about the geeks being able to "replicate", especially if they eat well, etc. etc. (I don't exactly remember the context for someone yelling out "replicate" - I think he was trying to make a techie joke and someone shouted it out (must have been Australian, right?).

Anyway, the first part of the talk went over a humorous survey put together by his 8 year old daughter about TAOSRI, or Technically Advanced Otherwise Socially Retarded Individuals (corrected based on Nathan's response, for the record). Here's one picture from that series:

Then he put together a few composite applications, food-wise, that is. A ramen/tuna-in-a-bag dish, vacuum packed and heated to 135 degrees in hot water, a Red Bull sorbet made with liquid nitrogen (apparently they use Notes, too, someone shouted from the floor), and a healthier cheese whiz which shot all over himself and the camera man due to the double ntrous oxide cartridges. He calls his recipes "applications" because they apply different knowledge and techniques to the food preparation task.

Alton answered questions from the audience for the last part. He's very quick on his feet and it was kind of a free-form improv Q$A. Afterwards, he stuck around for awhile to sign autographs and pose for pics. There were a lot of people there (at least 50, I'm guessing) and I did the same thing. He seemed to crack a joke or chitchat with each person and patiently waited for the camera phones to take their shots.

I told him that I needed to bring my wife back a gift and this was going to be it - an autograph from Alton Brown. And this is what he wrote to her:

I framed it, at least, and it was a big hit on the home front. My kids were jealous, too.

That's it for now....I have some interesting items about widgets in the Notes client, but I need sleep, need sleep, need sleep.....

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/closing-session---not-a-gift http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/closing-session---not-a-gift?opendocument&comments UX Lab - Friendly Staff Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:38:43 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/ux-lab---friendly-staff Lotusphere2008 Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/ux-lab---friendly-staff?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/ux-lab---friendly-staff IDC blog. She captured the spirit of the lab quite well:

Some attendees come in on a mission, determined to see a particular product or offer feedback on a particular product feature. Others wander in, just curious about what's happening in here. Just about everyone leaves feeling they have had a really valuable experience.

The UX team worked extremely hard putting together their tests and surveys and activities. It's paid off. The location of the lab this year in Asia 4 was better than in the past and this being our third year at it has built the audience. Many designers were constantly busy, I don't know how they did it and kept their voice - oh, wait, I know....we let you do the talking! Secret UX trick to saving the voice at Lotusphere. :)

The welcome committee in the UX Lab at Lotusphere kept things flowing and people busy throughout the week. Congrats to Merry Morse (lab captain) and everyone on the UX team who put in the time and effort to make it a success this year. Here's a picture of Julie, Rob, and Carrie at the welcome table.

Chris Reckling
Program Director, UX MA Design Studio, Lotus Software ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/ux-lab---friendly-staff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/ux-lab---friendly-staff?opendocument&comments Wikis available - Domino, Connections, Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:57:25 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/wikis-available---domino-connections- Lotusphere2008 Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/wikis-available---domino-connections-?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/wikis-available---domino-connections- Find them all at this URL: developerWorks wikis. There are sites for Domino, Comp Apps, Sametime, Portal, Quickr and a few others.

Go check it out and add to the knowledge base!

Chris ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dxcomments/wikis-available---domino-connections- http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/dx/wikis-available---domino-connections-?opendocument&comments