OpenSource Usability Labs

After Conny asked me to, I moved the introduction of Tine 2.0 Concepts into the Tine 2.0 Wiki today. When I did this I was shocked to see how old most information in the Users-section was. So additionally to adding the introduction I ended up updating some more pages in the wiki. But as time is always a little short there is still some work to do. So if you feel competent, please add some features to the description of the Tine 2.0 applications.

Today I have started an introduction on the main concepts of Tine 2.0. I hope this will be helpful to new and experienced Tine-users.

I have chosen not to post this introduction as blog-post, since I will try to keep them up-to-date. So you will have to take a look at the static articles in our blog.

So far there is:

• Tine 2.0: concepts and ideas
  • Choosing an application
  • Filtering Lists
  • Places - or how to manage visibility
  • Working with records

I am very happy about comments since I will try to keep working and improving the articles.

I have decided to provide some hints how to efficiently work with Tine. And I will do this as a series of blog posts within the next time, accompanying the upcoming spring 2009 release of Tine. Let us start with

Question #1: If Tine 2.0 is so usable, why is there a need for a tutorial?

Tine has been developed with a strong focus on usability. Usability experts and interaction designer have been integrated into the development from day 1 on. We regularly conduct usability tests to improve the product even further. Nevertheless usable does not equal simple or easy to learn. Both attributes are important aspects of a usable product - and of course we try to make Tine as simple and easy to learn as possible. But these attributes are not the foremost criteria for optimizing the user-experience of Tine.

When setting the scope for Tine we have decided that interactions and dialogues of Tine should always be

1. enjoyable - Tine is designed to be fun to use. So everyone should like to use Tine.
2. efficient - Working with Tine must always be efficient. Tine should never come into your way.

In opposite you can say Tine does not maximize the power for a first-time-user. We do not try to oversimplify the rather complex process of a groupware: different, cross-depending applications, a very detailed rights-management,…

So there is a need for some tips how to work efficiently with Tine. These will follow in later posts and hopefully help you to enjoy business collaboration with Tine even more!