ForumsNewsToodledo Redesign Plans
Toodledo Redesign Plans
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coolexplorer |
Salgud / AA, Discovered this useful feature after your comments (tap the icon glyph, with the red dot, to the left of the thread title, it does take you directly to the first unread post in each thread). Was about to suggest it otherwise. Thanks.
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Christoph Dollis |
Hi Bridget,
Can you please have a quick look at this post (and perhaps even the CSS) I made a while back? https://www.toodledo.com/forums/3/16864/0/created-simple-theme-to-better-match-ios-app-v3.html One thing that is irksome about the generally excellent Toodledo is how it uses colours willy nilly. For example, on the web app, top priority is this hard to see golden colour and on the iOS app, there is a red corner mark indicating top priority, which makes a lot more sense. In any case, the colours (styling) for priorities should be the same across all platform for each priority. That just makes sense. But isn't the case. I've suggested this to Toodledo before, but nothing has been done. However, it seems to me this whole problem could be fixed in an hour or two of CSS work, just picking consistent colours for each of the platforms. I doubt it would take even that long. As a UI expert, tell Jake this needs to be done. Welcome aboard! This message was edited Jan 18, 2015. |
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Christoph Dollis |
The iOS Outlines section is unusable without word wrap. Word wrap would make a ton of difference!
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Ken Thomas |
Hi Bridget.
I’ve read your requests detailing how you’d like Toodledo users to help you design a better Toodledo. With that in mind, I’ve initially noted the following to give you a brief picture of who I am and how I use Toodledo before detailing some things I think can help you design a better product. Cheers! About me: • I’m a 40 year old professional in the construction industry. • I’m currently a quantity surveyor / estimator who also worked as a project manager on construction sites. • I love to keep things organised – especially my time and the tasks that I need to get done. About what I do: • Professionally I work on a number of projects that span over periods (on average) of 4 to 10 months. • Personally I’m a father of 3 young children with a full-time job and an average mortgage for the family home. • Privately I have a number of hobbies, a small drafting business, and a sizable list of small projects that need to be done. How I use Toodledo: • I use it primarily for personal use to keep all of my thoughts / dates / deadlines / goals written down and organised. Not all of them are organised (have a date noted against it), but recorded so I can often come back to remind myself what I’d like to do and plan on when I can do them in the future. • I mainly use it for recording and tracking tasks. I also occasionally use ‘Lists’ for simple things such as; o Movies I’d like to see o Car maintenance checklist o Personal wish list o Itemised list of PC parts for next upgrade • I also use Outlines for the more complicated tasks that need more information and structure like an Action plan for set goals. The reason why I use it for this is because I really don’t like to use Toodledo’s ‘Add Sub-Task’ feature. • It is used equally in all aspects of my life. My folders are grouped in two main categories; o Main Category related to ‘People’ : Personal / Family / Friends / Home / Work / General o Sub-Category relates to ‘Projects’ : Home Renovation / Home Computer Network / Garden Renovation / Music Collection • I often use the following views and switch between the regularly with the following sort order (Importance / Date Due / Priority); o Main (Hotlist) : provides me a quick view of the most important tasks that are due as calculated by Toodledo. o Main (Starred) : provides me a quick summary of the tasks that I want to get done ASAP. These tasks are often short duration and due within the next day or two. o Calendar : Similar to Hotlist view but gives me the option to pick specific dates or a week when things are due. o Folder : provides me a quick view of all the tasks associated with that one specific category only. Often used to not only see what tasks I have coming up, but also a list of tasks that I’d entered previously that are important to me as a reminder of things I’d like to get done sometime in the future. Kind of keeps me focused on potential projects for goals I’ve set for myself in the past. • I use Notes, but not that often. When I do I use it for writing detailed / running thoughts relating to personal goals and to jot down ideas which I can then flesh out in OneNote. Toodledo (The Good): • Functionality. Being able to enter a large amount of personal data (tasks) and have it organised for you. • Customisation. Being able to have that data presented in a way that you prefer to have it displayed. Toodledo (The Bad): • Sub-Tasks. Toodledo is mainly a task management service and the way in which sub-tasks are used, displayed, moved about, only go one level is really quite poor. If there was really one thing in terms of developing further functionality wise, it would be to work on all things relating to Toodledo’s sub-task feature. Toodledo (The Ugly): • The user interface. It’s been said ad nausem throughout the forums and I don’t need to really add anything further Personal Suggestions (and why): • If there’s one thing Toodledo MUST do is get a better / easier to use interface that looks the goods. If Toodledo wants to get more people coming over and paying for the service, it MUST design a gorgeous interface that people will love to use! Functionally, Toodledo has it over the competition in personal task management. To get the masses flocking to use it, MUST, MUST, MUST have a beautiful user interface that is easy to use and navigate. Forget better functionality for the moment, throw everything into the interface! Please! Reviewers will love it and write about it. A beautiful user interface - that’s where the money is. • A Gantt chart. A beautifully design Gantt chart or something like it will kill two birds with one stone. It will take all of the current info people put into Toodledo (which is plain and boring) and turn it into something graphical that is easy to understand and use. It will instantly make Toodledo look great and increase functionality at the same time. It will also just slam the competition further into the ground. If done right, Toodledo will have the personal task / goal management market by the throat! • Include a column to record progress on a task and sub-tasks. Have a column that you can change as you progress through a task or sub-task i.e. drop down list of percentages e.g. 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and so on. • Have the Due Date colour coded. Green for more than a week before a task is due. Orange if it’s within a week of being due. Red if it’s due in a day or two. Red and flashing / pulsing if it is overdue. Something like that. Colour is an easy way to indicate quickly to the user if something is urgent or not. • Ability to customise the ‘Status’ column so people can use their own terms to indicate what the status is of a task is. That’s all I have for the moment. I hope I haven’t taken up too much space. More importantly, I hope that the above is somewhat useful. This message was edited Jan 22, 2015. |
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Bridget K |
Posted by Ken Thomas:
I’ve read your requests detailing how you’d like Toodledo users to help you design a better Toodledo. With that in mind, I’ve initially noted the following to give you a brief picture of who I am and how I use Toodledo before detailing some things I think can help you design a better product. Ken that is a gold mine of information, I couldn't ask for a better post. Thankyou so much for taking the time to write this. :) BK |
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Pascal Zweipfenning |
What I'm mainly looking for is something called 'Area' (or whatever other name you want to use). I use GTD apps for private tasks and work related tasks. I work as an SAP consultant on different projects for different customers. When I;m at a specific customer I want top be able to have an overall filter which enables me to show only ther tasks/project related to this customer. The 'Area' would then represent the customer. There is a fairly new app called GTDNext (GTDNext.com) which has this type of feature. When you select a specific area any task/project that is shown, no matter which other (lower level) filter you apply, belongs to this area (or customer in my case). I have been looking at experimenting with GTDNext for a while now and it looks like it is coming close to the perfect GTD app. Specially the unlimmited number of levels you can have in the project/task hierarchy.
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coolexplorer |
I am currently struggling with how to sequence tasks in planned order of doing and use non-excluding variables together.
Some time and resources devoted to improving the "tags" system would make Toodledo very customizable and flexible. One could enter any number of multiple variable at once and let "Search Views" sort and display tasks as per ones desired work-flow process. Eg. One could add numbers so that tasks can be sorted as per the planned sequence of doing them; U&I, U but not I, Imp not Urgent; Names of Delegated to, and any other variables. For it to work however the tags should : 1. quick entry 2. remain until deleted from index 3. predictive display when first letter is typed 4. customizable sort & display options (a) only those tasks which have specific tag (b) in combo with other tags A strong tag system (like Evernote) can substitute for many other fixed variables. Just for your consideration and others views. This message was edited Jan 25, 2015. |
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Christoph Dollis |
So, no interest at all in making the colours for priorities the same across platforms?
I'm the only one who can see the benefit in this? |
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
We plan to make the color the same across our apps.
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cantorbuckner |
Hi Bridget,
I have a Gold Subscription and have been using Toodledo for several years. The one thing I would like to see in Toodledo is a better way to organize Projects which now are kept track of in the folder section. If you look at some of the other GTD friendly apps out there (Doit.IM and Nozbe for instance) they have projects in a navigation section on the left side of the screen and make it very easy to load a project, view its tasks and add tasks to it. one can also take a task and convert it into a project, quickly add tasks and it makes doing a weekly review so much easier. Using the folders in Toodledo for project names is burdensome and not user friendly. I love many things about Toodledo, especially how reliable and fast it is on all formats. I use it in a web browser on a desktop computer and on iPad and iPhone. I trust Toodledo to keep everything in sync and I have never been disappointed in that. Its one of the main things that keeps me as a customer. Reliable sync is the most important thing of all. NEVER let that functionality slip. I also love the Notes section and the new sections you have added such as Outlines and Habits. BUT, if there is one thing that frustrates me its the lack of easy Project list management. Its a real must for GTDers. Also for GTD - One other thing that is nice about some other list managers is an Inbox to quickly add things to that one can go back to later for processing. Thanks for being so open to suggestions from users. Scott |
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Christoph Dollis |
Posted by Jake:
We plan to make the color the same across our apps. Thank you for the reply (and thank goodness!). |
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Martys To Do |
Another vote for what Scott states above -- it is awkward to try to run a project in TD.
I am also a user of TD for many years and appreciate its reliability and customization. |
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Ken Thomas |
Yes! I'll also vote for what Scott has noted above.
This raises a serious question... can Toodledo be a basic Project Management program / application as well as being a Personal Task Management program / application?? Now that would be something! |
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Pascal Zweipfenning |
Some of my thoughts in random order:
Better suited for managing projects Open attachments without downloading Click on project in task opens project folder Clone projects Notes on projects Context, tags on projects context, tag, Inheritance from folders to tasks Show number of tasks in search menu (refresh in back ground) Next Action automatic setting Manual sorting of al tasks (not only subtasks) Color coding tags, folders, contexts etc. More levels in task hierarchy and projects Implementation of 'area' which is a higher level on top of projects/subprojects and could (in my case) represent a customer, Outlook integration (Outlook add-on) Cleaner interface Left menu scrollable Ability to paste pictures in task notes Ability to paste pictures in notes section Outline view like GTDNext and Myliveorganized |
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Vicfrances |
Toodledo (The Bad):
• Sub-Tasks. Toodledo is mainly a task management service and the way in which sub-tasks are used, displayed, moved about, only go one level is really quite poor. If there was really one thing in terms of developing further functionality wise, it would be to work on all things relating to Toodledo’s sub-task feature. Toodledo (The Ugly): • The user interface. It’s been said ad nausem throughout the forums and I don’t need to really add anything further Personal Suggestions (and why): • If there’s one thing Toodledo MUST do is get a better / easier to use interface that looks the goods. If Toodledo wants to get more people coming over and paying for the service, it MUST design a gorgeous interface that people will love to use! Functionally, Toodledo has it over the competition in personal task management. To get the masses flocking to use it, MUST, MUST, MUST have a beautiful user interface that is easy to use and navigate. Forget better functionality for the moment, throw everything into the interface! Please! Reviewers will love it and write about it. A beautiful user interface - that’s where the money is. • A Gantt chart. A beautifully design Gantt chart or something like it will kill two birds with one stone. It will take all of the current info people put into Toodledo (which is plain and boring) and turn it into something graphical that is easy to understand and use. It will instantly make Toodledo look great and increase functionality at the same time. It will also just slam the competition further into the ground. If done right, Toodledo will have the personal task / goal management market by the throat! • Include a column to record progress on a task and sub-tasks. Have a column that you can change as you progress through a task or sub-task i.e. drop down list of percentages e.g. 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and so on. • Have the Due Date colour coded. Green for more than a week before a task is due. Orange if it’s within a week of being due. Red if it’s due in a day or two. Red and flashing / pulsing if it is overdue. Something like that. Colour is an easy way to indicate quickly to the user if something is urgent or not. • Ability to customise the ‘Status’ column so people can use their own terms to indicate what the status is of a task is. That’s all I have for the moment. I hope I haven’t taken up too much space. More importantly, I hope that the above is somewhat useful.[/quote] Totally agree with Ken! |
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AA |
Can't say I'd "totally agree" with Ken. Focusing on a "beautiful interface" at the expense of functionality? Definitly not... Not from a user's point of view, that is. Ken may be "totally right" in terms of marketing or Toodledo's reach to new customers. As an existing user, though, those aren't my primary concerns. So, your priorities may depend on how you look at Toodledo – as a Toodledo user, or as an employee of Toodledo's marketing department. ;-)
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coolexplorer |
The products / services that are at the top in their category have both top Functionality and a great Interface. Surely it is not a zero sum game. I think Jake is well aware of this and is making strides towards it (with the new UI designer). The issue is whether the resources deployed are adequate to the spreading demands (Outlines, Lists, Habits, Project Mgmt, etc).
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Rui Simoes |
My subscription has to be renewed soon. Searched by the identical applications to Toodledo found some that I'm testing now.
The first my conclusions are: -The Toodledo is offering more features and the most flexible. -The Toodledo has the one of worst interface (is changing, do not know if it's enough, but ....) Projects, subtasks and order of execution of sub-tasks / subtasks dependencies must to be redesigned, there are good and better solutions in the competition. My point of view Toodledo need a better interface, projects(some kind of Toodledo outlines creating tasks??? just a thought) and and translation in more languages. Keep up the good work and thanks to the staff Toodledo for making my life easier This message was edited Jan 30, 2015. |
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Ken Thomas |
Idea for Toodledo
Here’s an idea that might be of some use… (just throwing something I quite like the sound of out there for others to think about and of course comment on :)) Toodledo is predominantly a To-Do / Task Management application based on the GTD type philosophy with the addition on a few other minor functions included such as Lists, Outlines, Notes, Habits to aid in the process. What if Toodledo developed itself into a one stop shop for all your personal organisation needs by developing the application into four major sectors that include the following; 1. Task Management – for all your personal tasks and reminders (predominantly use Tasks for this). 2. Project Management – for all your personal projects big and small (predominantly use Tasks / Outlines for this. Need a good graphical user interface for this to work properly i.e. Gantt Chart). 3. Ideas Management – for all your personal ideas for organising a brainstorming session (predominantly use Notes, Lists, Outlines for this. Also, needs a good graphical user interface for this too to work properly i.e. Sticky Notes / EverNote type interface). 4. Goal Management – for all your personal goals and ambitions (predominantly use Tasks, Notes, Habits for this). Goal Management could also tie in data from the Task Management and Project Management sectors. Imagine if you could have this type of functionality all tied together! That would be one powerful GTD based application!! |
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coolexplorer |
Heavens forbid TD becomes Jack of all and Master of None. Drawing a diverse customer base and not meeting all their expectations could be .....
I support your idea of tight integration of all features rather than having discrete silos (without interconnection) that one has to jump in and out off. This message was edited Feb 06, 2015. |
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