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Octablog readers

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.