OpenSource Usability Labs

We planned it for the Linux-Tag, but then there wasn’t a good Internet connection -

So we ask you now: Which are the best icons for Tine?

Please take part in this very short test where we would like to find out which icon fits best for some of the Tine parts like “Ressources” or “Today”.

To help us make Tine 2.0 even more user friendly, please click here and choose you preferred language:

http://tiny.cc/icontest

Plus: Calendar testers needed!

We still need testers for our Usability test in two weeks. If you live in Berlin, or happen to be there in two weeks, please give me a shout at: tine.calendar@gmail.com

We are looking for Tine-experienced people but newbies are also great.

The test itself will take place in Kreuzberg for about an hour and your effort will be rewarded, of course.

Thank you very much!

Thank you for taking the time answer our survey!
We had a great outcome with a total of 365 successfully completed surveys and 106 partially finished ones.

A few things that came out that you might find interesting:

• Overall, 346 people took the survey in German, 68 in English
• 30% were women, 70% were men
• on average, people were 31 years old
• 85% come from Germany, 10% from the Rest of Europe, the remaining 5% are from other parts of the world including China and South Africa (!)
• Professional appointments: women mostly use papercalendars (65%) and locally installed calendar applications (44%), men mostly use locally installed calendar applications (54%) and Smartphone calendars (46%)
• Private appointments: women mostly use paper calendars (83%) and locally installed calendar applications (24%), men mostly use Smartphone calendars (49%) and locally installed calendar applications (45%)
• The calendar application used the most is Microsoft Outlook (45%) followed by others (25%) and eGroupware (23%)
• 43% of all people asked use a smartphone, the biggest smartphone brand being Nokia (30%) followed by Apple iPhone/iPod touch (27%)
• 1/3 of smartphone users synchronize daily between phone and computer
• Per week, 3/4 of all respondents make one or no all day appointment, 2-10 appointments shorter than one day, none with international partners and 1-5 recurring appointments
• Half of all people who answered don’t make any multi-day appointments per week
• Nearly half of all people (45%) don’t make any public appointments, while 2/3 of them make 2-5 private appointments per week
• Nearly two thirds (65%) of the people asked find it very important or important to include tasks and milestones into their calendar
• Slightly more than two thirds of all respondents find it very important or important to make appointments distinguishable by colour
• But there no noticeable tendency when it comes to accessing other calendars to coordinate appointments: 39% say, that this is absolutely not important or not important to them, while 34% say the opposite. 20% are inbetween, though.
• An clear majority of everyone (86%) who answered wants to have a “quick save possibility”, with start (98%), name (92%), place (67%) and end (58%) being the most important information for creating an appointment.
• As for the calendar view, people considered the week view to be the most important one followed by the day view.
• Also, Pop-Up seems to be the most favourite way of all the respondents to be reminded of an appointment, 2/3 (67%) voted for that, followed by sound signal (48%).
• And for the last question: As you can see in the picture below, synchronization is what people miss most in their current calendar, followed by reminders and groupware functionality:

If you have any questions regarding the survey, please ask!

Based on your great responses to the survey I have been busy building a calendar prototype in Axure.

If you want, you can take a look at it. (German version only.)

Comments appreciated!

We need your answers!

Please take 10 minutes to answer a few questions about how you use calendars.

All answers will be used to make the new Tine calendar fit everbody’s needs perfectly!

The survey is in two languages:

English version: http://tiny.cc/calendarsurvey_en

German version: http://tiny.cc/calendarsurvey_de

We really appreciate your contribution.

I am very happy that Anne decided to join the Tine 2.0 Team. Anne studies international media informatics at the FHTW Berlin. She is doing her bachelor work on the Tine 2.0 calendar. In this scope she will analyse personas and use-cases for the calendar as well as other existing calendars. She will develop the interaction- and interface-design and do some surveys and usability-tests. Of course she will regularly blog about her work.

Welcome, Anne!

Seeing the upcoming surveys: if you haven’t registered for participating in these tests yet, you shouldn’t wait any longer. This is your chance to feedback on the Tine 2.0 calendar and other Tine 2.0 development! Also feel invited to discuss any issue on the calendar in our forum!