pmooney.net

1 - Opinionated? Us? Never!

I don't think you are too far off the mark with the idea that the dev team may just need to scrap both interfaces and start again. As for the idea of integrating them into the OS I'm not so sure. Okay, I like the idea, but it fails to surface the features in a manner that I think would be consistent with IBM's desire to make Notes the portal into all Lotus products. After all, look at what we have with Notes 8: integrated ST, activities, etc. We are obviously on a path that will turn Notes into a Lotus product family portal, IMO.

Back in the beta days when it was still Hannover I saw some early mock-ups of Notes 8 and although the client is out, since none of those mock-ups made it into the client I'm pretty sure I am still under NDA not to discuss them, but let me just say that it was pretty clear then that they were attempting to keep a user inside Notes all day without the need to navigate out to the OS in order to launch other apps, including non-Lotus apps. I still believe that we may see some of these items emerge in the future causing your interface idea to be a step backward in their eyes because I further believe that they are attempting to make the Notes experience identical no matter the OS so that users can easily switch between OSes and their Notes experience will not change.

Okay, now that all of that is out of the way, I personally love this idea of yours! The idea of the Notes UI disappearing into the OS and being surfaced as mini-apps or modules is intriguing to me. I'll have to think more on whether this is good for the end-user or not, but it certainly is fun food for thought! As a Mac user, I very much like Mail, iCal, and Address Book. Their loose integration and relative light-weight UI's make them so easy to work with that sometimes switching between them and Notes make Notes feel like a brick.

2 - Good points Corey... what if the Open toolbar in Notes matched the OS Icons though (kept in sync)... so when you launch one, you can launch others from either in Notes or through the platform..

Again, keep the ideas coming.

3 - Maybe we should go back to this: { Link }

4 - @Corey - ack! I'm having Smartsuite flashbacks! :)

One thing to consider on the OS integration is how well it would scale to lots of dbs/apps. How many apps does a typical user have to work with in Notes currently?
Personally, I hate the start menu in Windows. But, I love the Open List because it's searchable. That's me, the user, not me, the design manager.
If you are stepping back to re-think this are, one thing that would be interesting for us to hear is how you would articulate the goals for this feature? What user problem(s) do you want to solve? We think of the workspace, for example, as a place to go to launch an app. But it also needs to be manageable. It has to scale to a large # of apps; new apps have to be discoverable by the user. What else?

I don't think users will be moving from OS to OS all the time, but having the same experience on all platforms could ease training for multi-platform shops.

This is an interesting problem, for sure - thanks for bringing it up.

Chris

5 - you can have my Notes workspace when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers

6 - Good ideas, folks.

The issue for me is that very few people really love the way their OS handles applications anyway.

How many Windows desktops do you see with multiple columns of unmanaged program groups, with the user struggling to find the application they want.

On Linux almost every distro I see has its own way of launching applications.

And even on the beloved Mac, I very rarely go to my Applications folder - the app is either on the dock, launched automatically after selecting a file in Finder, or else launched via a Quicksilver shortcut.

No, I think that Notes needs to be self contained, with launching of apps from within the client. Now you could incorporate elements of the OS models into that, but then you risk alienating users that are more used to other OSs. I would stick with what we have, bring the Workspace up to date and more iPhone/iTunes like, and provide more (many many more) keyboard shortcuts to get at them. How about a QS-style shortcut to launch a type ahead dialog that allows you to find the app you need quickly?

7 - Sorry Paul, I think you're talking out of your ass

More to the point, I don't think users really care. Most actual END-USERS access Mail, Calendar, To-Do, Address Book and what, perhaps 4 or 5 applications 90% of the time?

What I think we need is a properly extensible welcome page. For all the customers we've written that for, everyone uses it, everyone likes it. Nice, big obvious icons for applications ,policy driven and corporate styled. I just wish it was in the product, rather than something we have to code!

Remember, we aren't the customers.

8 - Warren, I AM trying to think like and end user here. They want their mail typically.. this gives them an icon to do that

The icons and applications are all available, in the OS they are used to, provisioned by the client software?
Possibly have the identical icons embedded in a version of the Open dialog aswell.
This means that the cilent software is still the master, and if you move, the icons move with you.
Im not saying its easy, or even plausible, but I kinda like the approach.

9 - I tend to agree with Warren on his main point. My workspace is an awful cluttered mess. Most users don't touch every database on every server at some point in the year and have a much less cluttered workspace or bookmarks.

I'm not sure if my end users are typical, they use at most about five applications plus mail. They want the lightest (in terms of size, cpu usage and memory usage), most reliable client possible. I think they would argue that the notes client is not very intuitive. It could be stripped down and made more simple.

For my part the standard client feels a little fly by wire, where the basic client fees snappy and responsive when I'm using the Java client it feels like I'm remote controlling Notes.

10 - I like the idea of a more easily customized start page. What I'd really like to see is the feature that iNotes has which lets you toggle between the full and "lite" UI applied to the full client.

11 - I think the biggest issue is that if IBM trashed the openlist and workspace, the training costs would go up .. and open up discussions of migration away.

The open list and workspace need to by synched, the graphics touched up (where is the better icons we have been asking for since r5), and make it grow to include anything ... not just nsfs, but files and urls and more.

I just think a brand new ui scheme is out of place in a product 20+ years. Fix what is there.

12 - Paul - it may indeed be your bottom talking

For me, what's needed is to bring the workspace up to date. It's what 95% of power-users (including devs and admin) use, and a big proportion of other users are perfectly comfortable with it, although it looks pants.

Let's be able to set the background, have any graphic we want as an icon, typeahead to find things, add links to other things (files, URLs, RSS feeds, Sametime contacts, an 'Activity', whatever) from there, and have greyed out (or optionally hidden) icons (e.g. disable apps that are on servers if we're running in 'island' mode). I'm sure there are plenty of other crazy enhancements we could think of ... how about a 'zoom out' feature for power-users for instance?

While we're at it, let's have some APIs for the workspace, so we can add/remove items, create/delete tabs, access and arrange things by position e.g.
Dim ws as New NotesUIWorkspace
If ws.Tab("Apps").Icon(0,0) Is Nothing Then
- - ws.Tab("App").Icon(0,0) = New NotesUIWorkspaceIcon(dbMyApp)
Else
- - Call ws.Tab("App".Icon(0.0).Remove()
End If
... or something like that.

I see Warren's point of view on the custom welcome pages too, and we've done similar ... but they're only part of the story, and hard to manage* in all but the simplest of setups.

* Developer opinion, admins may differ

13 - Wow, Paul, two strong posts back to back here. This is a great discussion and timely, and I'm glad to see someone from the user experience team (the esteemed Mr. Reckling) already here to discuss. I will try to generate some "link love" later and see if we can get some additional views and eyes on this.

14 - I think they need to have something like the FastDial add-on for Firefox. Users can specify how many boxes they want displayed and specify what goes in each box. The majority of my users would love that. A few might require a couple of tabs like the workspace they could customize like that but I think it's an awesome idea.

15 - The idea of the post is to get the discussion going, and to see what everyone thinks.
Some great stuff here guys - keep it coming

16 - I'm with Warren. There needs to be a better start page in Notes that can accommodate this. My personal favorite is Peanuts Portal { Link } . It hasn't been updated in a while but it's still a good starting point.

In my experience things in the Start Menu might as well not exist as far as most end users are concerned. If it's not on their desktop or their Quick Launch bar they don't go looking for it.

17 - I like you ridea, for end users.
They WANT to think Notes is just a little app running email or calendar, not a huge monster of a client.
Simplicity has its drawbacks though.
IBM doesn't own Linux, MAc or Windows so they would need to recode the capabilities for EVERY change/rev/hotfix et al.
It gets messy and not sure IBM wants to handle all of that on top of stuffing Eclipse in there too.

I'd like to see self contained apps, TSR's if you will or Notes apps which run as widgets from ANYONE's machine.
IMpossible? Perhaps, but if we can stuff a client on Nomad we should be able to make a kiosk mode widget which JUST supports my specific app.

What do I know, I'm just an Admin like Paul.

18 - I think a rehash of the workspace/bookmarks needs to be done. I dont currently use 8 on a regular basis, so I cant comment too much there.

The Workspace is nice for crudely organizing your apps, however I enjoy using the Bookmarks bar in "workspace mode" because they are organized in a folder structure, and it doesnt list every app i've touched on the page(a la workspace).

Maybe some type of combination of a portal/launch idea for those basic (5 application) users and then the workspace/bookmark rehash for those who are more serious users(more applications). I would be happy just be ing able to assign tag metadata to dbs, then those tags could be used as titles for workspace pages. Just a thought.

19 - I'm blue skying this one and may be taking it a bit outside the original topic of the post, but what about more than just re-working the UI? What if Notes were more like the Yahoo Widget Engine or Adobe Air? A run-time environment with all the proper hooks into the OS and Notes frameworks to create mail, calendar, to do, contacts, sametime, activites, etc. and custom apps/widgets? We've seen what Adobe has been able to do with Air on Windows, Linux and OS X. All the apps look and act the same (mostly) but run as individual apps on the OS. Include a launch bar ala Yahoo Widgets and you can group/surface the different apps onto a small, slide-away sidebar.

20 - I am an workplace addict. It always worked for me. It still works better than for example windows icons that for example get messed if I change my screen resolution. Yes, if I am in user mode I do strange things. Yes, it looks ugly as do the database icons but the concept still is good. I did not have a single complaint from a user about the workspace for at least 2 years.
True I use bookmarks in many other applications but only because I have to not because I think this is a great concept.
The windows desktop is so messed that I sometimes just do a Start -> Run and type what I want to start.

21 - I remember a meeting in DC 17+ years ago with the then product manager for Notes, John Bartlett and his side-kick Peter Gilbert. They presented a mock up of a workplace that contained not just notes databases, but all of your other applications and documents organized in tabs and "chicklets". The idea then was that the Notes workplace would replace the OS interface. It was billed as the "future direction of Notes" and everyone thought it was an intriguing idea (Win3.1 era). I don't have any idea if this was a serious idea at the time or just a wild test balloon, but I’m sure that there have been hundreds of ideas and a lot of research on improving the interface in the intervening years. It would be enlightening to hear what some of these approaches were and why they were rejected..

22 - The users that I hear from complain about things such as the failure of a notes shortcut that is copied to the desktop of their OS to show something simple (and useful) such as the subject line of an email. Their comment, "Outlook does that." What does Notes do? It gives a nifty short cut name "Document Shortcut" Oh, you wanted the TITLE??? Well, rename it. Not gonna happen. So.... why not address this before whitewashing the workspace.

23 - I love the workspace, of course as a mostly admin I would, but also think it should be overhauled and freed so it can be customized.

Why not enhance it in a way that reminds you of both a wonderful app and a wonderful device? Someone mentioned a zoom mode and that made me think of something. I have discovered an app a little while ago, called cooliris (used to be piclens, but I like the new name better..maybe IBM Lotus could purchase cooliris). It has wonderful navigation of pictures - try it if you haven't yet.

It is also similar to what iPhone and iPod touch do - combine that, especially add the function for zoom and drag and drop, so it also works on a touch screen and you could even win many new people over to the 4G workspace!

24 - Very interesting. My idea of an ideal Notes Client would have been, scrap the OS. Ok, that is not going to happen. We have to give options to people, how they organise themselfs. I for example use the Start button of windows and the taskbar, but almost never the icons on the desktop. But I use the workspace and can't get used to the open list in Notes. Not consistent.
I imagine a merged welcome page and workspace. Something like a mashup with a list of links and some apps - notes or external - allready open in tabs. They should be able to float, or open in a very basic view directly in the workspace. Imagine NotesBuddy for a quickreference somewhere in corner or we could use just the sidebar for it.
One feature is just perfect for me, when I close the Notes client, it just keeps the actual state of my work and I can continue later. The OS does not do this. That would be for me the main reason to rather enhance the Notes client and minimize the OS.

25 - Personally, I'd prefer to see the Notes client become a series of "gadgets" which run in a web browser.

I'd like to be able to organise my workspace and views in the same way that I organise my facebook and igoogle pages.

I'm in the corporate address book a bit, so I'll drag and resize an open window to a close spot on my browser. The same would go for my mail - heck, I could have it side-by-side with my gmail.

I'm not in other databases much at all, so they'll become bookmarks. I could put the bookmarks in the browser, in google toolbar's bookmarks or drag them to the desktop or my start menu.

Lets face it - if the browser could do everything the client does now - without the need for massive code changes, then we'd all be ditching the client for our browsers.

26 - Workspace icons that can have > 16 colours would be as good a start as any. All this other stuff is just pie in the sky you crazy fools!

Of course, I jest... interesting discussion.

27 - Paul said... "They want their mail typically.. this gives them an icon to do that"

Agreed. they want their Mail. The users are lazy. They don't want to click an icon to open their mail. They want to start Notes and use it, not open another icon to start working.

I would have thought that a better thought would be to have a kind of Mini Workspace app/plugin where you can add icons, folders or what not and embed it inside other apps (or welcome pages) kind of like the Launch Pad in the normal bookmarks app... but with greater flexibility.

28 - I have yet to see a proposal that could effectively replace the workspace. I'm with Ben, changing icons from 16 to 32 colors would be a start .

Whatever is done, please do not make me use a mouse unless I want to drag & drop something.
And don't give me or my users start buttons and program menus like the one shown by Paul. Start button on my XP machine is long gone.

Get creative, please!

29 - I use Notes on a daily basis, and rely on it as a core application. But I would never introduce it to a client unless they have an internal trainer who would go on Notes training courses, and even then, I would expect problems.

There is just too much in the interface. I'm not saying that there is anything redundant in the interface - Notes is powerful and flexible, and at some point undoubtedly someone will need that feature. But after 10 years I still have trouble remembering where things are on Notes. That's fine - that's my problem. I want all those options. But for non-devs, non-admins, non-power users (ie. most users), I believe the UI is too complicated.

I remember when a pretty savvy Notes user called support because something weird had happened, and on viewing his screen the support team didn't know what had happened. I went to have a look. He'd accidentally opened the properties infobox of a database, didn't know how to close it, and in trying to do so, had minimized it to a bar. This was in an organization with a trained Notes trainer yet staff and support were still finding problems, and Notes had been in use there for years before I arrived. (They no longer use Notes.)

I have said for a long time that there need to be ways to customize the UI to disable certain functions and make it simpler. There could be certain fixed modes (off the top of my head): office, out of office; mail-only, mail & apps; beginner, intermediate, advanced. Depending on the mode certain features would not be available. Of course, if this was badly implemented it would cause even more confusion.

The workspace is not a bad idea (I still use it), but I think one thing that might be would be a way to view it where applications could be listed by 'date last used'. Then most frequently apps are to the front. If I needed something and remembered I last used it 6 months ago I would slide to that time-slot and see the 10 databases last used either side of 6 months ago. Equally I could go to the least used databases and remove them if they were truly redundant.

30 - Good points guys.
@28 - think like an end user... not an engineer

31 - "think like an end user... not an engineer"...

Thankfully we now have a usability team which does take account of what end-users need and how they work.

We need to consider what the workspace does (and has always done)... the visual indicator created by the database icon is essential (it'll be subliminal to many users to get to their most-used apps on sight without reading the name). The name is important, and by that I mean the title of the application, not the file name. People also use the workspace to easily switch replicas, and I've no doubt there's a huge debate attached to that about whether users should be exposed to technical details like replicas.

However, I would put money on the fact that many long-term Notes users do use the Open bar and search using type-ahead. I use that 20 times a day. So what ever solution we go for I'd hate to see type-ahead for the application name disappear.

Personally I liked the version 7 approach where we had bookmarks that could be unfolded to look like a workspace. Best of both worlds.

32 - How about a combination?

A radically updated workspace, that syncs tabs with program groups in the OS, with Icons for mail/PIM in the OS. An update to the ndyconfig.exe could interoperate with the platform?

If the shortcuts are there, they could be manipulated in the OS by network administrators?

Im not saying this is easy, but would this help Notes for end users?

33 - Good discussion. I like the idea of being able to link to a Notes application with a single OS icon.

I have one situation where the client doesn't use Notes for mail. It would be great to be able to just have a windows icon open the application db directly, with no Notes client visible, and when the user closes the db Notes would close also (ie. user doesn't have to close the Notes client as well).

This would reduce training requirements to just the app itself, and you would then have a Notes application which was just an application, and not an application plus a Notes environment.

Otherwise, in an environment where Notes mail plus other db's are used I think (an enhanced) workspace has a part to play, and I also like Warren's idea of common apps available from the Welcome page.

34 - @32 "A radically updated workspace, that syncs . . ."

I think that's the key. However one of the first thing to sync with is the bookmarks. While the bookmarks and workspace are not sync'ed then it will cause confusion.

For complete usability if I add a db to the workspace it should also appear in the bookmarks under the same hierarchy. The same with a new bookmark (it should appear on the workspace).

As a user I don't understand why these don't show the same information (and as a user I wouldn't care what the tech explanation was).

35 - @28 Paul - I am speaking for my users not just me.

36 - In common with some of the other responses, I don't like the idea of using the Windows start menu for launching Notes applications. It seems to me most users shy away from the Windows start menu, instead they tend to use the Windows desktop, having memorised the location of the icons they use the most. Having said that, on most users' machines the Windows desktop is a cluttered mess so it's not an option to use that for *our* purposes either. Personally I quite like the Notes 8 "open" menu but then I'm a techie (and, heretical as it sounds, I prefer bookmarks to the workspace).

In my experience (and in spite of my personal preference) most users prefer the workspace to bookmarks. As mentioned by several others already, the average user only has a handful of icons on their workspace. The icons are big and easy to find. Other than the unfortunate 16 colours the workspace does the job well.

Where the workspace falls down is when there are many icons on it. Hands up all of you who, even though you may have sensibly grouped your workspace icons into tabs, resort to File->database->open because you just can't find that one icon among the many on each tab. The workspace has several shortcomings, not least the inability to search the icons or sort them.

From an admin point of view bookmarks make more sense. They can be centrally managed through policies whereas the workspace can't. The problem is that users prefer the workspace...

To sum up, the workspace is too well liked to be removed from the Notes client so, in order to drag it into the 21st century it needs to be updated. In my opinion the following points would make it a winner:
- The ability to view the workspace in different ways, for example: thumbnails (as the default so it looks familiar to users) or details (a view with sortable columns - title, size, filename)
- 256 colour icons.
- Central management through policies (like bookmarks today).
- To be able to add other links such as applications, files and web pages.

37 - Most of my customers do not live inside Notes (as Edd Brill does). They just need to use other apps as well and those apps usually are MS based

I think mr. Mooneys original idea is extremely good and would really help to sell the Notes product along with my product. When can we have it??

Kind regards,
Wiebe van Bruggen, The Netherlands

38 - I've often thought that most developers probably like the workspace, while most administrators prefer the bookmark/open bar.
What I've seen from users is that many of them rely on having Workspace icons in a particular place, and when they are gone - the world stops because things are "different".
I love my workspace icons, but I do think they need a modern update.
I'd like to see sorting options (last modified, title, last used by ME), and also a wizard similar to the MS Desktop Cleanup Wizard (Remove all icons not used in the last x days).

39 - Three suggestions:
- Intuitive welcome page, easy to adjust (have a look at iGoogle. Or two )
- Look and feel of a browser with the actual OS. Tabbed Browsing in Notes Apps should work the same way, managing bookmarks also. There are way less people having problems with browsers than with Notes.
- Powerful, working and performant search like Spotlight at MacOS: Let a user don't worry about servers, path or whether they have access. Just show them results they can access as easily as they can with spotlight.

I've worked with Notes now for more than 7 years - and I still don't understand why they have to reinvent the wheel again and again for themselves instead of using existent methods... (OS style, usability of browsers) Maybe they'll lern within the next 7 years.

40 - @38 - that got me thinking... how about the workspace with an iPod playlist feel - grouping the lists smartly, including favourites, most accessed, grouped apps.... And if possible, link that into the OS.

Hmmmm....
This is great guys - keep em coming

41 - Interesting conversation, given that I had a user ask me just the other day if he could have an icon on the desktop that opens his application (a large custom written Notes app/database), instead of opening it in Notes. He doesn't want to run Notes just to run his application (again, the app is written in Notes). Turns out, several of my users have asked for this. It was funny to me, this misunderstanding of how the application is written, but why should they care?

See, my users have a set of tools that allow them to do their job. They tend to build their own mental maps of where to go and how to access these tools. Since our organization switched to Outlook/Exchange for email, my users have completely forgotten about Notes even though they use it every day. They remember Notes as their old email program. It's a tool they don't use anymore.

BTW - We wrote a small vbscript that creates a desktop shortcut linking directly to the custom Notes application. The users love it. One-click access directly to the tool they want to use. Not all that different from what Paul's suggesting here.

42 - I catch grief about this from my co-workers, but I like the workspace, and I find it very efficient for an 'app-oriented' Notes installation. If you look at the big browsers, with their tabbed interfaces, it's eerily similar to the workspace. I have a habit of 'click-counting' when I go through systems, trying to figure out how to make the user experience as efficient as possible. It's very hard to beat the workspace. In two, I can get to just about anything that I've ever opened in the past. I'm not a fan of navigating hidden tree-based structures to try to find the option I want. It works fine in a hierarchical file system, but not so much in domino.

I give IBM kudos for keeping the workspace around, which makes integration/upgrades much smoother, as users have a choice, and IT leaders aren't burdened with a huge training cost. If you like 8, and like the workspace from 4.6, fantastic...it's still there.

I'm a bit leery of muddying the waters and IBM devoting resources to another UI overhaul. About the only thing I can think of that would be a good bang/buck would be the ability to drag a database/application icon from the workspace to the desktop. That would be rather slick, and I can't imagine it would be difficult to have the Notes.exe accept an XML file via command line that says 'if notes.exe already running, open this app, else launch notes with this app in the foreground'.

And SWEET JESUS, PLEASE GIVE ME MORE THAN A 16-COLOR ICON! That sounds trivial, but users see that 80's era icon and have a huge pre-conception of how my apps look and function.

43 - @42 - NDL files can do that already, but not with drag and drop capacity to the desktop

44 - Having had a chance to think about it for a day and read all of these excellent suggestions it seems like these items would be the next logical step.

1. Sync Workspace and Bookmarks
2. Allow 32colors in the db icon.
3. Allow dragging a workspace icon to the desktop to run the application(in a lite mode perhaps?). Even though that can basically be accomplished by creating a desktop shortcut to the db with notes:/ instead of http:/.
4.Allow for different view options. IE... List, Detail, Most Used, Last Used, etc...
5. Some update on the colors(or allowing users to pick colors for background) and styling (rounded corners maybe?).

I think these would go a long way and as long as you had a default workspace that looked very similar to the one the users are used to, you wouldn't have any issues with backward compatibility.

Best Notes discussion in a while, thanks for posting it Paul.

45 - About the icons and 16 color - maybe those interactive (flash like?) icons could be programmable, make to switch between the title/server name and scroll of a (full color/colour) picture etc etc...

46 - Just ask people if they'd like to create a desktop icon the first time they open a database.

47 - Paul - I don't like the idea of using the OS as the launch pad for applications, either in Windows or OS X, let along the plethora of Linux distros and GUIs out there, which all do it a little bit differently.

For some background, I've used Solaris and AIX for about 7 and 2 years respectively on the desktop (DOD), Windows of all variations for about 10 years, Linux for 1 year, and OS X for 2.5 years. So, I've had first hand experience with a lot of different solutions to this problem - good and bad.

First of all, the reason why I don't think this idea will work is that most people don't like using the Start menu in Windows for launching applications, let along for components of applications. That's why most Windows users have an overly crowded desktop with shortcuts, etc. As for OS X users, most like to use the Dock, but only for initially launching the applications. Using a Stack to launch the other components - I don't think it would be popular.

That said, what I do believe could work is the following:

1. Change the "Open" dialog options from a select list to a slide-out menu in the left hand side of Notes with the specific options for that application that are normally now found there available when the menu "slides" down. Yes, this is similar to Outlook, but it is also similar to the Sidebar in Notes 8, and it works. If something works, don't avoid it because the competition use it, just do it better. I would make the default the options in this slide menu to Mail, Calendar, Contacts, To-Do's, and Applications, but allow users to customize it to add a select number of options such as Symphony or Favorite Applications similar to the way users can customize the sidebar.

2. Modify the workspace so that it is strictly a launching pad for applications, as in things other than mail, calendar, contacts, and to-do's. Yes those are applications, but most end users view those things as Notes itself, so calling them applications just confuses them and makes them say "it's too complicated..."

3. Update the workspace so that it looks modern and more like the iPhone interface to launch applications.

4. Make the right-click menu more useful by removing some of the redundancies. There are currently multiple ways to do the same thing in Notes (e.g., menu buttons, right click menu, menu bar, keyboard shortcuts) and this again confuses a lot of users and makes them think Notes is just too complicated for how most of them use it (e.g., Mail, Calendar, Contacts, To-Dos, maybe a couple of apps). Perhaps the right-click menu could be used primarily for accessing advanced functions (in context of what the user is doing) similar to many Unix systems.

5. I would consider doing away with the homepage. My experience is that less than 5% of Notes users actually use it. I myself almost never do. I use the Open dialog, the sidebar, and the workspace in that order of frequency when I am working with Notes.

48 - Hi Paul:

As I posted previously on Twitter, I appreciate the topic. Know that OS-level integration adds significant design complexity. The testing permutations alone would become staggering. E.g. coding linkages for each window manager on the supported Windows variants, plus Mac, plus three Linux flavors--for each Notes version, with backward compatibility going forward. Ouch.

Recall that many enterprise applications use multiple icons, some with over 10 or 20--but it's one or two applications to the users. So icon organization can get tricky, fast. Factor-in power users and it is overwhelming.

Tight OS integration creates additional upgrade barriers, to either the desktop or Notes. Core "change" in behavior causes companies to look to leave as it's cheaper -- akin to John Head's point earlier.

Have one similar environment across window managers, thus empowering the end-users to use whatever desktop their firm allows and have the same application experience. Building the GUI on-top of Eclipse provides this (mostly), while introducing portability.

{Recall, IBM went to Eclipse for multi-OS clients (one reason).}

@38 "MS Desktop Cleanup Wizard (Remove all icons not used in the last x days)." Notes has definitive reasons for using icons--whether a user needs to know they are there. Along this line though, a clean-up utility that checks for dead icons (either removed app or server name) and purges those would be great.

Summary:
* Increase icon colors
* Improve searching
* Improve organization options
* Suggest 'playlists' for icon groupings
* Right-click option to send (db icon) to desktop or dock
* Perhaps have a preference for OS folder creation with shortcuts, off the Desktop--would be easier across systems
* Know that Windows' Program Manager is a good example of bad GUI-design; avoid exploiting it
* Clear dead workspace icons/bookmark links utility
* Improve what you have and you'll keep users happy.

Ciao.

49 - I think there's a great opportunity for play here. In the same way that the Eclipse client allows us to integrate everything, I feel like it equally might allow us to decouple things.

If one were to re-envision those awful SmartSuite drawers into a 8.x style sideshelf that boots as a service (if you want it to of course), then you could have the accordian style vertical adjustments, and even the tab style selector that is at the top of that Peanuts Portal example. Allow us to tuck it away, and you have a nice multi-dimensional array of databases in a mini-Notes sidebar that you can tuck away.

And of course, if you want to stretch out and put your feet up, then you can load the full client. The sidebar could effectively be the same interface used in a full-on iPhone/BlackBerry Storm/one of a bajillion other multitouch mobile devices client.

I think that might be worth a go, as the interface is reusable in multiple contexts and offers another way to interact with Domino databases and Lotus services/widgets.

My $.02

50 - ...that 2nd tuck away should read "minimize." Damn my over-editing.

51 - I've got lots of bookmarks in Firefox but at some point -- without it being a concious decision -- I started just using the Google search bar to go to most sites.

As an engineer that's not something I would have designed. However, as a user, apparently that method appeals to me.

I'm always a very methodical person, so it's weird that this wasn't a choice I made after careful thought and experiment.

Just sharing my real-world experience... Maybe I'm the only one who has migrated from the bookmark-centric method of launching content.

Does the Notes client still have a search catalog thingy? I never understood that before, but maybe it could be more like a Google search and somehow always get me to the right link.