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Monthly Archives: June 2010

Breaking down Create a Project's design

June 27 2010 - Design, Teambox - Write Comment

Teambox sign up process doesn’t end when you create your username. It also includes activation, that is, when you create your first project.

Let’s first see how the process was before, and let’s break down each little bit of its functionality.

Before the redesign

new-project-before

  1. Project limit count: This shows you how many projects you can get with your current plan. This is an upgrade reminder.
  2. Create an example project: We did this to get started quickly, but we removed it in favor of a cleaner process with less choices.
  3. Name: Includes a grayed text with tips on how to proceed.
  4. Permalink: Suggests by design to use a short permalink.
  5. Preview your permalink: Shows the URL you will get.
  6. Enable time-tracking? Explains what you’ll get if you do, and offers extra documentation to know what to expect.
  7. Microcopy: States the goal and next step.

After the redesign

By watching users over the shoulder (one of the most respected UI design methodologies), we noticed that they were confused. Should I try an example project, or should I just create one? What’s a permalink? And, when it was too short, it was frustrating to re-run the validation.

One more thing is that, after creating a project, there is nobody inside it. That’s why we needed to offer a quick way to invite people.

First thing I did was get rid of the permalink field. It would get assigned automatically, and pro users can change it from Project Settings. More:

  1. Name: We’re now offering an example.
  2. Invite users from other projects: Simply click a checkbox!
  3. Invite new users: Enter their emails and they’ll join the project.
  4. Microcopy changed: “Start collaborating”, no longer “start inviting people”

new-project-redesigned

Pablo Villalba

Teambox founder

@micho

Photo: The 3rd screen

June 22 2010 - Teambox - 24 Comments

At the office, I work normally with two screens. This makes it easier to focus on what I’m doing without switching windows.

When coding, I have a browser on one screen and a text editor on the other one.
When answering emails or managing, I leave GMail on one while I have a browser and chat on the other.

And now that I have an iPad, I set it up with Apple’s case to show Teambox activity stream. Now I can quickly know what’s going on without constantly checking a browser tab!

photo-1

photo

Pablo Villalba

Teambox founder

@micho

Welcome to the team, Jordi!

June 21 2010 - Programming - Write Comment

Today Teambox grows by one. Jordi Romero is joining the team in Barcelona as Rails coder.

With this strategic decision, our little company is mostly composed of Barça fans.

jordi romero

This is yet another proof that open-source is not only a great philosophy, but also a powerful recruiting resource for skilled and motivated coders. Not only can you see somebody’s work beforehand, but you can also have that training period before they’re hired by coding as contributors.

In this sense, I like the approach Masterbranch takes at online CVs for programmers: you are what you code.

An advice for coders: Choose an OS project you love, code for them and wait to be hired :)

Pablo Villalba

Teambox founder

@micho

Featured user: Lulu Kitololo

June 20 2010 - Cases - Write Comment

Lulu Kitololo describes herself as “a storyteller and ideamonger”. Storytelling not in the traditional sense, but using art and design for expression. She’s an african designer living in Manchester.

I’ve worked with a wide range of clients including NGOs, multinational corporations, SMEs and individuals. I really enjoy working with start-ups and individuals – it’s so rewarding to help give shape to somebody’s vision and express their passion for their product, service or talent. I worked with a sustainability communications agency, Futerra, for several years and since then, I work on projects that promote positive change.

Workspace1

“It’s great to have one place to store all my projects, ideas, plans and schedules.

I use Teambox’s conversations, pages and task lists to ensure that all my notes, thoughts, questions, ideas etc. are catalogued so my memory is under less pressure!”

Latest works include Crowning Glory, a series of collage pieces that illustrate interesting relationships people have with the hair, and To Mama With Love. The latter was a non-profit project that raised over $16.000 for Mama Lucy in Tanzania, who’s building an orphanage for kids in her village.

Q: How do you fit Teambox in your workflow?

“I started properly using Teambox a few weeks ago and I seriously feel like my focus and productivity has been totally transformed for the better. It’s great to have one place to store all my projects, ideas, plans and schedules.

I used to jot notes to myself down in various notebooks, on my phone and on random loose bits of paper. Not a very good system when you’re trying to consolidate everything.

I use the conversations, pages and task lists to ensure that all my notes, thoughts, questions, ideas etc. are catalogued so my memory is under less pressure!

I recently joined a creative agency, Asilia, as Partner and Creative Director and we’re working on developing the business. Teambox has been a perfect tool for us, especially as we live in different cities. It’s allowed us to collate our ideas and tasks and allowed our email inboxes a bit more breathing space.

Q: What’s your favorite Teambox feature?

I’m admittedly a bit of a control-freak so my favourite feature is the task lists. It gives me peace to see a complete list of what needs to be done, by whom and by when, all in one place. The calendar and gantt chart features are just the icing on the cake.

Show a Mama you love her this Mother_s Day. Change the world. #ToMamaWithLove

Thanks, Lulu! Visit her website for more.

Pablo Villalba

Teambox founder

@micho

Linus about communication and culture

June 11 2010 - Startups - Write Comment

Linus Torvalds, head of the Linux kernel and git, speaks about the importance of cultural conventions on a community.

In the [Linux] kernel, we have roughly a thousand people being 
attributed for each and every kernel release (at about three months apart). (…) The biggest issue that I end up worrying about is not even the code, but the “flow” of code and development.

For example, I personally don’t even write much code any
more, and haven’t for years. (…) A large portion of what I do is telling people “No, I won’t take this, because of xyz”. Even if rejection ends up being the rare case, it’s actually the main reason for me existing. Anybody can say
 “yes”. Somebody needs to say “no”).

And the best way to make things work is to not need 
to communicate at all. (…) Any communication inevitably is the main bottleneck.

And the best way to avoid communication is to have some “culture” – which is just another way to say “collection of rules that don’t even need to be written down/spoken, since people are aware of it”.

Sure, we obviously have a lot of documentation about how things are supposed to be done, but exactly as with any regular human culture, documentation is kind of secondary.

The original post from Linus has very interesting points.

This kind of conventions and culture is what makes members from communities like Ruby fall in one of two ends: users absolutely confused by the conventions, and very skilled and productive coders who are experienced with them.

It’s both harder to enter the community, but it pays off to learn the way things work.

This is one of the positive effects of a strong corporate culture: Being able to decide as one, and react quickly without communicating.

Pablo Villalba

Teambox founder

@micho

Pros and cons about a subdomain for your app

June 3 2010 - Programming - 3 Comments

We’ve been running Teambox over the last months as a two-server app. On one side, there was www.teambox.com with the public web, and on the other side there was app.teambox.com with the actual application.

This was good because it kept everything separate: The public side could run a CMS and be editable by different members. The private side could point to a different server to handle the traffic.

However, there’s a number of reasons why we are now serving all traffic from teambox.com:

  • Session handling. If you are logged in and you visit www.teambox.com, you should be redirected to the application.
  • Mobile access. We now can tell if you are asking for a mobile page, and serve an optimized version from the server.
  • Localized versions. To redirect the user according to the language he’s using, it’s also better to do it in the server side.
  • Analytics and tracking is easier if everything happens in the same domain.

Of course, there are a number of cons: No easy ay to use an independent CMS, both systems become coupled and it’s somehow harder to isolate app from public part.

So, from now on you can simply type teambox.com to access the app, we’ll handle the rest.

Pablo Villalba

Teambox founder

@micho

Design experiments: Compacting signup

June 1 2010 - Design, Teambox - 3 Comments

We’re experimenting redesigning some parts of Teambox.

One of the most important pages for an app is its signup page. If 20% of your users don’t complete the signup, that means 20% less clients, 20% less revenue; it means your business is 20% smaller.

So we’ll be pushing changes, step by step, to make it easier to sign up. First one, and most obvious: Compacting and aligning the page.

In the image below, you can see before (right) and after (left).
signup page abridged

We’ll be measuring results for each step!

Pablo Villalba

Teambox founder

@micho