[SDDA]

Enjoying the new OF2 interface on iOS 7. Great job guys. A few little issues:

I have a custom perspective that shows tasks grouped by context. A lot of times when I enter this perspective, the separators between each context (which shows the context name) has an extremely light background which makes it almost indistinguishable from the tasks themselves. So it's hard to see where each context starts. At the same time this happens, the Sync/Search bar you get when you pull down on the screen is missing. I haven't been able to pin down when this happens. Sometimes I can go into the view and the separators have a darker colour and the pull-down bar is there. But I can then go back to the home screen, reselect the same perspective, and the problems are there.

On the desktop, ipad and old iphone apps, if you don't enter a project when adding a task it defaults to the single action list "project". That doesn't happen in the new version, and I miss it.

Similarly, when you pick a start (defer) date, then go on to pick a due date, it used to default to the same as the start date. Doesn't do that anymore, and I miss it.

I'd love some sort of indication that a note exists on a task. Even when you go into the details for a task, you have to specifically tap on the Note tab to see if there's anything there.

The home screen looks very nice, but I think the default selections (Inbox, Flagged, Projects, Nearby and Contexts) take up unnecessary space. It would be nice if their boxes were compressed to leave more room on the home screen for our favourite perspectives without having to scroll too much.

This problem has always been there. If you start to edit a task, there's no Cancel button if you change your mind. Been burnt a few times by this.

Thanks for listening!

[wilsonng]

I also prefer OF1 for iPad's use of separation to distinguish separate groupings. I'm hoping that we'll get this back in OF2 for iPhone and Mac.

Originally Posted by wilsonng

I also prefer OF1 for iPad's use of separation to distinguish separate groupings. I'm hoping that we'll get this back in OF2 for iPhone and Mac.

Middle ground is probably the most fertile - the current iPad version does reveal the groupings, but uses such heavy contrasts to do so that it can look more like a piano keyboard than a schedule of work. This iPhone version has gone, for the moment, to the other extreme, and requires us to do the cognitive work of identifying the groupings ourselves.

There's clearly scope now for restoring just enough contrast to reveal the grouping patterns without foregrounding the UI itself. Tufte's minimum effective difference formulation is, as always, useful here, as is the whole chapter on Layering and Separation in Envisioning information.

The initial clearing of the decks has been very useful though - a way of stripping back to the basics before bringing back just enough contrast to reveal more of the data structure.

Not easy to make a transition from a decorative framework (catching up with the latest look) to optimising the information design - maximising what is revealed, and minimising the noise and distractions.

The formulations in the blog which announces this release:

http://www.omnigroup.com/blog/iOS-7-...new-whats-cool

suggest that that transition (from decoration to cognitive optimisation) is still underway. It foregrounds the decorative concepts of 'design aesthetic' and looking 'gorgeous', rather than Apple's new and deeper design principles, which are pushed into the background (far end) of the opening paragraph, and labelled as 'suggestions', which the new design 'represents' rather than implementing, or being built around.

Nonetheless, over-prominent Tokyo Metro fruitloops and weakened visibility of groupings apart, still a real step forward, I think.

--

[DrJJWMac]

Originally Posted by RobTrew

...
The formulations in the blog which announces this release:

http://www.omnigroup.com/blog/iOS-7-...new-whats-cool

suggest that that transition (from decoration to cognitive optimisation) is still underway. ...
--

Seems a bit like the process was ...

* catalog the features we have
* rank the list in utility
* throw it all out
* bring in the new design paradigm
* write a new code base to that design paradigm
* bring back the features in order of utility

The devil right now is in re-addressing a) the choices made to fit the app to the new design paradigm and b) the rankings used to bring back and add in new features in order by (presumed) utility.

I'm not ready to accept the upgrade to OF2 primarily because the execution of the new design paradigm still seems like a beta test version and the current feature set, including the new features, still excludes some of my most important needs to be most productive.

And anything with Tokyo or Metro + Fruitloops would make a great name for a band. :-)

[spwalker]

Originally Posted by SDDA

I'd love some sort of indication that a note exists on a task. Even when you go into the details for a task, you have to specifically tap on the Note tab to see if there's anything there.

The home screen looks very nice, but I think the default selections (Inbox, Flagged, Projects, Nearby and Contexts) take up unnecessary space. It would be nice if their boxes were compressed to leave more room on the home screen for our favourite perspectives without having to scroll too much.

I agree on both of these comments. In general, the new UI does a terrible job of presenting a task's meta data graphically (the circle colors that are supposed to indicate a task's flagged/due soon/due status are another example of this), and the design of the Home screen doesn't make sense. Why does the Inbox need to take up so much space, especially compared with Contexts which are accessed more frequently? Also, why can't we reorder every element on the home screen, much as we could with OF1?