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Task Management Interfaces: Outlines, "Contexts", Tags, and Areas
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Posted by Randall Shinn
Jan 23, 2009 at 03:54 PM
Playing around with OmniFocus, Things, and The Hit List has made me consider in general several aspects of designing the interface for a task manager.
Single tasks don?t seem to be as difficult to sort out as projects. For projects, outlines seem natural. On page 220 of GTD David Allen suggests that most project planning can be handled by a simple hierarchical outline. His example is shown in Microsoft Word, and almost any outliner software could do this. OmniFocus and THL have the ability to outline project tasks built in. This is helpful for planning, and it is one of the most requested features for Things on their forum.
Contexts, tags and/or areas? Allen?s concept of ?contexts? is interesting, but in essence a context such as @home is just a type of tag. OmniFocus has stuck with ?contexts,? but Things has moved to tags and smart folders for ?areas? (of responsibility, or location, or type of work—whatever you want). The smart folders collect whatever items include the searched for tags (or you can drag items there). THL allows you to type in either tags or concepts, and the smart folders search for them in the same way.
There is a crucial difference in the way that these interfaces are set up. Both Things and THL assume that you may want to assign multiple tags to an item, and make it easy both to do this and to see all the tags that have been assigned right in the area you are working. Thus you might assign a task to ?work? ?finance?, and another to ?home? ?finance?, and another to ?vacation? ?finance? ?errand? ?30m? to remind yourself to pick up Euros before your trip to Italy (might as well imagine something fun).
Things perhaps has the multiple tag display implemented the best, but if I were planning an Italian vacation, I would love to do that in an hierarchical outline (which I can’t yet do in Things). OmniFocus would let me do the outline, but unless I?m missing something, it wouldn?t be really easy to assign multiple tags. The Hit List would allow me to outline the vacation tasks, assign multiple tags, and estimate times on a single line. But THL is still in beta, lacks recurring tasks, lacks synching, and has no iPod/iPhone application.
So for the moment I?m playing around with all three, and waiting to see what happens over the next year with each program. I have read Allen?s books, but after working with these programs I feel that the ?context? label is a confusing term when used for interface design. It is not as ?neutral? as ?tag.? If I need to make a call, I don?t hesitate to put in the tag ?call?, but is the ?context? the phone that I will use to make the call or the call itself? Is my collaborator?s name the context, or is the project we?re working on the context, or perhaps the place we?re meeting? Putting in multiple tags solves all these questions, so for me that needs to be easy and visible on the same page I am working in.
Randall
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 23, 2009 at 08:13 PM
The power for any of application of this type is providing flexibility in viewing its contents. Outline view is great in many ways, but it is restrictive, as well. Tags/contexts can allow smart folders to filter for specific items, but is also, by design, restrictive. What I would like to see is an outliner with columns, which can have a “flat view”—that is, the hierarchy revmoved—and then be able to sort and sub sort on the various columns. So, for instance, you can build your task list in the outline, with the headers being higher level projects, then you can assign due dates in one column, priority in another, and—if you’re into GTD—context in another. Then you can flatten the list, and sort on context and priority. This type of functionality could be useful in many ways, I believe. And I don’t think there is any application out there that does offer this functionality… am I wrong? The key is having sortable columnar metadata, and the ability to switch back and forth from hierarchy to flat view.
Steve Z.
Posted by Pierre Paul Landry
Jan 23, 2009 at 08:44 PM
Hi Steve,
This feature is at the very core of InfoQube. I wrote this on donationcoder recently:
Quote from: http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=16678.25
Hierarchies can be used to help you get organized. The problem is that they can also hide your valuable information.
Being able to view the same information in hierarchy view and in flat view is essential to truly benefit from hierarchies.
Also, items must be able to belong to multiple hierarchies. Being limited to a single simple tree is very limiting
And also this:
Yes, IQ hierarchy display is optional. All items exist independent of the existence of parents, children, etc. (think of items as if they are people, you and me)
You can group people by various hierarchies (work related, family related, etc) and you can also view them in flat view, i.e. no hierarchy. This flat view makes it easier to find information (at times) and also to sort it. In general, sorting is another problem with hierarchy views (try sorting files from 2 different folders…). IQ also has a hierarchy view that sorts correctly.
Tags are basically a “smart” category field (type=text). IQ has category fields. Fields can be Text, Number, Date, Yes/No. All these (i.e. not just tags) can be used for filtering purposes.
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>The power for any of application of this type is providing flexibility in viewing its
>contents. Outline view is great in many ways, but it is restrictive, as well.
>Tags/contexts can allow smart folders to filter for specific items, but is also, by
>design, restrictive. What I would like to see is an outliner with columns, which can
>have a “flat view”—that is, the hierarchy revmoved—and then be able to sort and sub
>sort on the various columns. So, for instance, you can build your task list in the
>outline, with the headers being higher level projects, then you can assign due dates
>in one column, priority in another, and—if you’re into GTD—context in another.
>Then you can flatten the list, and sort on context and priority. This type of
>functionality could be useful in many ways, I believe. And I don’t think there is any
>application out there that does offer this functionality… am I wrong? The key is
>having sortable columnar metadata, and the ability to switch back and forth from
>hierarchy to flat view.
>
>Steve Z.
Posted by Chris Murtland
Jan 23, 2009 at 09:02 PM
I haven’t used it in a while, so I could be imagining this, but I think ListPro allows flattening the hierarchy. I don’t know how sorting then affects the hierarchy, though.
Chris
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jan 23, 2009 at 09:23 PM
Yes, except for IQ, ListPro has this flatten/sort functionality which I consider essential for project/task management. You can sort on any column, including custom ones. It has been a while since I used it as well, as its portable version is Windows Mobile and I work on Symbian. Thus I have chosen Projekt which is a very powerful portable outliner.
To me, the flat view can be confusing to the point of uselessness if it is not coupled with some kind of filtering, e.g. on priority. ListPro can also do this, as can InfoQube and Projekt.
There are other ways to provide such functionality; UltraRecall can’t flatten the outline but its powerful search can show the same information. One can search for tasks, for example, and then sort the search results on whatever column they wish. Similarly, Notecase Pro has a ‘list’ view which can be populated through search results.
Alexander