Simplicity
To me the term Nirvana implies a peacefulness that I find in things that are well designed and simple. People are turned off by too many features. Please keep this in mind when evaluating new features.
For example, many power users here want nests projects,
sequential tasks, and other things. To me that pushes into a
project management tool (MS Project). It's just not how I
personally want Nirvana.
I am not saying those features are not valuable to them, maybe even show stoppers, but they would add complexity to me.
Most tools get the initial review of "good Featues but bat UI". Simplicity is a Nirvana differentiator.
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2 Posted by martin.tyler on 03 Jul, 2010 10:23 PM
There is no reason why adding features you don't want should make anything more complicated for you. An application that does that is a bad application.
GTD/Nirvana is about making life simpler - the features you mention will make life simpler for many Nirvana users - and for everyone else, if the features are implemented right, it won't affect you at all.
Support Staff 3 Posted by Elbert McLaughlin on 04 Jul, 2010 11:11 AM
@rfo - hear you loud and clear. the reason we started Nirvana was because we wanted a more streamlined and simple approach to GTD online. nothing else even came close to what we wanted... being either too simplistic, too involved, too ugly or too cumbersome.
we will always come down on the side of simplicity over complexity.
as my grandfather used to say, use the right tool for the right job. we use full on project management tools (ms project / omniplan) for managing large projects where we have to manage resource contention, time management, budgets/billing, GANTT dependencies... and would never try to manage this using Nirvana -- which is a GTD tool that each team member uses to compliment the long term project planning.
that said, we'll keep trying to find ways to make Nirvana as powerful as possible for fast-paced, small/medium size project planning. promise not to kill the golden goose in the process. :-)
4 Posted by rfo on 04 Jul, 2010 12:21 PM
Sounds good. I think 37signals (BaseCamp, BackPack) is a good model, they focus on usability and add features over time that really work with the product.
I'm not against some of the suggestions, and I would likely use them, but I fear the UI getting too busy, or worse, slow.
5 Posted by DC Clarke on 04 Jul, 2010 05:38 PM
I agree that Nirvana should remain simple and elegant and not become a project manager. But don't confuse a project manager with the term Project as we use it here. Nirvana is a list manager. Projects as we discuss here are only two or more actions required to achieve an outcome. That's all a Project is for our purposes.
Without these features, Nirvana will be nothing more than another list app among 10's if not 100's out there. The features we are suggesting can be implemented behind the scenes without diluting the simplicity and elegance of Nirvana.
It the promise that we see in Nirvana that motivates many of us (me at lease) to enthusiastically [passionately] promote them.
To use your analogy, many of these features will prevent Nirvana from being merely a great UI with bad features. (For example, check out todomo.)
6 Posted by sunni.freyer on 10 Jul, 2010 01:10 PM
@elbert --
So how do you synchronize your use of Nirvana with your use of, say, Base Camp, which I stopped using because I just didn't have time to learn something else. I think over time, I am slipping down the slope into project manager using Nirvana as I unconsciously keep opting to use just one tool. I have, for example, areas of focus that are: my full-time business, my half-time job, my adjunct lecturer job, personal. When my focus is my business, then my projects are my clients. Within my clients, I have multiple projects. It's at that level, things become mussed up because I don't have the ability to create subtasks under the projects at that level other than in a text box, which is a bit clunky.
I must be using Nirvana wrong, hmmm?
Support Staff 7 Posted by Elbert McLaughlin on 16 Jul, 2010 03:10 PM
@sunni - we used to use basecamp but found that all we needed to keep the team well-connected was http://backpackit.com (another 37signals product). each team member uses nirvana to manage their own life (home/work) and references backpackit for stuff that needs to be shared. each team member manages their own project commitments, rather than having to see the whole picture all of the time. so the only thing that goes in the project "notes" is typically the url to the backpackit page, where we do all of our collaboration / reference capture.
on the topic of reference, we are batting around the idea of integrating with http://evernote.com which is just a fabulous tool for capturing "stuff."
for more detailed project planning, where financial budgeting, (human) resource allocation and time tracking are critical, we use Merlin http://www.projectwizards.net which is similar to MS Project, but we're a Mac shop.
On the topic of Projects being your Clients, have a read over at this thread:
http://help.nirvanahq.com/discussions/suggestions/448-order-project...
8 Posted by Proximo on 16 Jul, 2010 07:26 PM
Most of you know where I stand on this.
Simplicity is key.
But I also believe that you can add features that would benefit users while maintaining a clean and simple design.
I think Elbert made it clear that they will always lean toward simplicity over complexity. This makes me feel good because it's the reason why I get so much done using Nirvana. I don't need to customize the system or hack it to do something the right way.
David McLaughlin closed this discussion on 24 Jan, 2011 05:44 AM.