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11
Dec

off-topic : Tee-shirt design

by Tal Zubalsky on 4:37 pm 12 Comments

This is a bit off-topic, but I just submitted my t shirt design to threadless, and I’ll be glad if you check it out.
If by any chance you’re a registered threadless user – VOTE (and help get it printed)

Here’s my design : “The Texas Gardener”
The Texas Gardener

Thanks!
Tal.

Categories: Graphical Design — Tags: , —
09
Dec

Keeping it simple: Structure and logic (3/5)

by Tal Zubalsky on 1:59 pm 2 Comments

From the start of Octabox’s development we always knew we want to create a platform that answers information management needs in a simple way, and we made some mistakes trying to figure out how to make it work. The biggest mistake of all was not putting ourselves in our users shoes – not learning their specific needs.

We did what anyone else would do – look at the competition, learn from their successes and mistakes, and come up with differentiating features for our platform.
While what we came up with looked somewhat simple, it was in fact problematic – it had too many layers of data and the relationship and hierarchy between those layers wasn’t clear and intuitive for the user to understand.

For a quite a long time we struggled with how we’re going to nail this one: how can we answer the different / diverse / complex needs of our potential audience, without limiting their options for organizing data. Is there a simple solution?

We created several user-stories, from a wide range of freelancer and small business types and tried to analyze similar patterns in their “information-habits” – What tools they use and how they categorize and organize their information.

The conclusion was, well, simple: there is no common-ground.

The only thing in common for our users was the tools they use and not how they use them to manage information. Almost everyone needs a task list, but one user will use it as a simple shopping-for-the-office checklist and the other will use a set of task lists as a project management tool.

Similarly, there are multiple approaches to categorizing information – one user may be a freelancer working with one big client about many projects (project-based approach) while the other works with many clients one project each (client-based approach).

The answer that we found answers those custom needs and lets the users use the same tools but in different ways. As the diagram explains – the hierarchy of data is custom-created by the user. He can create contexts based on his way of managing his work and information, and then nest the relevant tools and data inside those contexts.

Here is how the two different types of users I talked about earlier would use Octabox:


Projects Based

Clients Based


Those two approaches can also be mixed to create an ideal flow for a particular user.

We feel the user-based (personal) versus tool-based (functional) approach is much more appropriate for freelancers and small business. Those kind of users need to flexibility in managing their data, and mix-and-match several approaches to create their ideal workflow.

Categories: Business, Information Management — Tags: , , —
04
Dec

Using your Octabox account to work with non-users

by Eran Galperin on 5:10 pm 0 Comments

One of the problems of information management solutions such as Octabox is handling collaboration with people who are not necessarily users. For example, you use Octabox to manage one of your projects and would like to collaborate with your clients on it yet they are not Octabox users. How can you (and we) make it as easy as possible for them to participate?

Approaches to information sharing

Other applications have tried various approaches - basecamp allows you to register additional users (depending on your subscription plan), so you can add your colleagues and clients without forcing them to go through the registration process. This approach delegates the process to an active user, based on the assumption he has the most incentive to do so.

Google applications such as Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Reader all share the same user credentials - meaning that if you already have an account on one of those, you can access all the others just the same. This approach works well for Google, whose some of its apps have a massive user-base.

Sharing information in Octabox

Getting back to Octabox, we too have our own take on the subject. Data in Octabox is mostly grouped by pages of different types (such as a task list, a contact group, a whiteboard and more), and those in turn are grouped by contexts (read more on the Features page on our site). Contexts are personal and are relevant only to the user who created them, but pages can be shared with other people.

Sharing to other Octabox users is easy - they receive the shared page into their Dispatch (a container for outside information streaming into an Octabox account), and after assigning it to one of their contexts, they use it as like any other page they have (while sharing the information between all the users shared to the page). But what about non-Octabox users? how can they participate in the activity on one of those pages?

Our approach is to allow non-Octabox users their own interface with which they can access pages shared to them. They receive a URL address which uniquely identifies the page they were shared on, and they can interact with it right away. Basically, they become limited users without registering or signing in, and they receive a slimmed down version of Octabox that is focused only on whats relevant to them (the shared page in question).

Non-Octabox users can be invited to collaborate on pages simply by inserting their Email address in the sharing interaction (or selecting them from the contact list). If the sharing user requires greater information security, he can provide a page-specific password which will be used by all non-Octabox users.

Everybody wins

So what’s our incentive to allow use of Octabox’s services for free by any non-Octabox user? there are a few actually:

  1. Increase the value of the platform for our users. The more value it has for them, the higher their inclination to become subscribed users. A happy customer is a returning customer :)
  2. Expose potential-users to the platform. We believe in our product and that if we just let people experience it they might decide it is useful for them.
  3. Allow solitary users who are not a part of a user group (for example: freelancers!) to experience the collaboration aspect of Octabox, which so far we believe is its strongest suite.

We see it as a win-win situation - we hope this feature helps reduce the barriers of collaboration through Octabox, increasing its value and possibly attracting additional users. It is still under development but will be released into production soon, so all you beta testers are in for a treat :)

(By the way, if you wish to join our private - and soon public - beta test, head over here to register).

Categories: Features — Tags: , , , —