My thinking behind the TaskPaper 2.0 Toolbar Location

Posted April 30, 2008 by jesse

I spent a lot of time this week and then all this morning playing with different toolbar placements and options. I appreciate all the feedback, but I've just decided that for 2.0 the placement will stay at the bottom.

The logic here is that a clean looking UI is more important then moderatly faster access to some features when using a mouse. Here are some of my thinking points:

TaskPaper's goal from the start has been to push standard UI widgets into the background and make user content (tasks and projects) the central focus. I find the toolbar at the top to be a distraction from what I'm really interested in, my tasks and projects.
I just think it looks cleaner and better. Anytime I move the toolbar up to the top it just doesn't look right and balanced. This wasn't as much of an issue with 1.0, because it had the dark bullet ruller bar on the left to balance things, but even in 1.0 I would find myself alternating between hiding the toolbar to get the clean look, and then going back and showing it to get the functionaltiy.
For most use cases the fastest way to do something is TaskPaper is from the keybaord. So if you are really concerned about UI performance then keybaord shortcuts are the way to go.
TaskPaper is trying to be the "simple" alternative in the GTD space, with OmniFocus being the "Complete" standard solution. Anything that I can do to make TaskPaper look distinct (OmniFocus has a huge complex toolbar at window top, so TaskPaper stays competely clean) helps make that point.
I think that the functionality in TaskPaper's toolbar is used a relativly small amount of the time. When I use TaskPaper 99% of the time I'm reading or typing tasks. I think a clean top helps both of those use cases.
Except for the Add button, all the toolbar functionality is for navigation, searching. If you are frequently navigation between two projects, or doing a search, you can just save that in a separate tab (and tabs you can access from the top of the screen... I don't use tabs to much myself, again I like the clean top, but they are their and accessible if you want time).

So even if you don't fully agree, I hope you can at least understand my reasoning for keeping the toolbar at the bottom. If you have a specific use case where you feel that this decision is really slowing you down please describe it in detail to me. Thanks again for everyone's feedback on this.

ClintMacD - April 30, 2008 12:50 PM

Jesse:

The logic here is that a clean looking UI is more important then moderatly faster access to some features when using a mouse.

On the face of it that is a very user-unfriendly statement. Since I know you to be very user-friendly in every possible way, I will assume you did not mean it quite as it sounded.

I just think it looks cleaner and better.

I think this is really your bottom line on this issue. I could counter almost every one of your points with real-world use cases. However, I think that this is your bottom line: you like it at the bottom, and no one else is coding this but you. Just be aware that you are violating some very real user interface practices in putting the toolbar at the bottom, so make sure you really, really like it there.

Edit: I did not mean the unintentional “bottom line… like it at the bottom” pun! :-)

For most use cases the fastest way to do something is TaskPaper is from the keyboard.

Don’t be so hasty. I would bet that if you took a poll of your users, you would find a 50:50 split among keyboarders and mousers. Besides, if all I wanted of TaskPaper was the keyboard entry, I would be using TextEdit.

Best wishes, Clint

Nick Brawne - April 30, 2008 12:54 PM

I really like the clean top toolbar less look, and would be very happy if the bottom toolbar also disappeared. Will there be a menu command to hide it, or some other way like the oval on the top right of finder windows ?

Using the toolbar to add tasks and projects just seems like making work. The whole point of TP is that all of these things are done as text.

What would make me very happy would be permanently hide the search bar and switch cmd-shift-F > search, with cmd-F > find, and then implemented the (my favorite app) Safari drop down search field. Probably a lot of work, but in an ideal world . . . . I cant think of any other app that has search at the bottom. Top right has become pretty much the default for most apps, and lots of web sites (even HogBay).

I work with the OS X dock hidden (and use Overflow instead), but would guess that most of the people who are complaining about the bottom placement of the toolbar are very happy with using the OS X dock at the bottom of the screen to launch and switch applications.

ClintMacD - April 30, 2008 1:00 PM

I really like the clean top toolbar less look, and would be very happy if the bottom toolbar also disappeared.

In many conventional Macintosh applications (i. e., with toolbars at the top), the small grey gumdrop at the top right is used to make the toolbar disappear. Since Jesse is committed to the toolbar at the bottom, I do not know how he would resolve that.

Best wishes, Clint

Nick Brawne - April 30, 2008 1:08 PM

In many conventional Macintosh applications (i. e., with toolbars at the top), the small grey gumdrop at the top right is used to make the toolbar disappear. Since Jesse is committed to the toolbar at the bottom, I do not know how he would resolve that.

That was exactly the quandary I was seeing.

I like them at the bottom, because I don't like them at all. But placing them at the bottom means there is no conventional UI element that can be used to hide and show them.

jesse - April 30, 2008 1:13 PM

The problem with removing the toolbar completely is that TaskPaper's key navigation technique (Command-L) requires that the (P) button is visible for it to function.

Nick Brawne - April 30, 2008 2:51 PM

Again, just a matter of usage style.

I look at the project list on the left side of the page to navigate, use search, and lots of tabs. I don't think I have ever used the pulldown project and tag lists.

Jordan Sherer - May 3, 2008 9:37 PM

In my opinion, the best solution here would be:

Keep the toolbar at the top, with the option to be hidden
and, add an "unhide" function to show the toolbar if a user uses the Command+L shortcut.

Is there something limiting this type of functionality?

jesse - May 4, 2008 1:39 PM

Is there something limiting this type of functionality?

The longer I stay with the just bottom toolbar decision the more I like it. Of course there are lots of other possibilities, but to me the toolbar at the bottom is the best fit for the competing goals of minimal interface, but visible functionality. Solutions like automatically showing sometimes could work, but it just doesn't seem a like a mac way of doing things.

MarkN - April 30, 2008 8:18 PM

As I am also evaluating Things at the moment, I agree that a toolbar at the bottom can increase focus. But in Things, it is easier for me to use the toolbar without too much effort.

I think this is simply because the icons are bigger. They provide me with a bigger clicking target. With the current development version of Taskpaper (and my bad eyesight) I have to concentrate to find the right buttons.

Chris Summers - May 2, 2008 2:40 PM

Most Mac apps have the toolbar at the top. Having it there lends itself to Mac design.

The big thing for me is being able to hide the toolbar, as I prefer to use the keyboard and keep the interface clean and minimal.

If I could hide the toolbar and or choose via preference to set it top/bottom it would be a winner.

To be frank, this sort of thing is a real deal breaker for me, as I'm used to the way it was (hidden)

I keep TaskPaper with the original fonts and preferences (which was a hidden toolbar) the first beta had. I like it that way.

Please don't force me to have a toolbar showing all the time at the bottom :(

TaskPaper 1.0.3 Forever!

:)

jesse - May 2, 2008 2:48 PM

Well TaskPaper 1.0.3 should stay working... but I think if you give it just a little time you can get used to the toolbar at the bottom, especially if before you were using no toolbar, and especially if you use keyboard shortcuts. Three small points on how toolbar at bottom might even help you.

First, your preferred option is toolbar not showing... at least toolbar at bottom makes it pretty easy to ignore, much easier then toolbar at top.
Second, my favorite keyboard shortcut (Command-L) requires that the toolbar is visible. If you are into keyboard shortcuts I think that's the first one you should learn because it makes it so easy to jump between projects... so maybe this is a good opportunity to learn it... and after that you'll always want the toolbar showing.
Last, toolbar at bottom gives you an additional drag location that you can use to move the TaskPaper window with.

pascalv - May 3, 2008 8:30 PM

I would support your concept Jesse, keeping TP interface as "clean" and clutter-free as possible.

Learning how to use the keyboard for most actions is worse a bit of self-training, because you want to spend your precious time acting on, not reading your ToDo list like your "memoire".

The placement of the toolbar at the bottom, with the search entry on the right side, make sense if we consider our reading and writing direction (for western culture). In the case of GTD based apps, content is more important. So it's important to keep the content area visually easy to read at a glance.

Keep the good work Jesse, including listening to users' point of view.

jmck - May 4, 2008 7:00 PM

For me, the first reason the toolbar should be at the top is because the actions you can take from the toolbar frequently serve to "filter" what you see in the main pane. Conceptually, this means they happen "first." Since I read top to bottom, "top" means "first."

The second reason is because, since most other apps have them at the top, it has come to be an expectation. To make you feel better about it Jesse, this means that the same 32px added to the top of the interface doesn't seem as big as 32px added to the bottom... ;)

Andrew Coyne - May 5, 2008 5:43 PM

For goodness sake, why not just make it an option: hide/show, top/bottom, at the user's discretion?

Chris Summers - May 6, 2008 5:12 AM

Here here!

Jesse, would this be difficult to do?

jesse - May 6, 2008 6:57 AM

I'll revisit this decision after 2.0... but my feeling right now is that the toolbar will just stay at the bottom for the reasons listed earlier in this thread.

James - May 8, 2008 4:11 AM

Hi Jessie,

My observation is that this may prove to be an unpopular change. The company I work for has an excellent human factors department, however we have found the best usability does not always result in the best user experience. You might want to make a usability tradeoff (show the most important content first) and instead show the toolbar at the top to make existing users happy.

You are the person coding this software, however I suggest you gather your "market data" first. Maybe a quick poll? Since your company is a user(customer)-powered company, check to see what would best serve your paying users.

Finally, I am not taking a side here (although I do have an opinion!) I feel the loudest customers should not always drive the outcome, so I will leave it to you to collect a good sample to make your decision.

nbert - May 6, 2008 5:59 AM

You have converted me to a toolbar bottom fan. I appreciate the well thought out rationale behind your UI decisions.

Chris Summers - May 8, 2008 5:08 PM

Hi Jesse,

Is there just flat out no way to hide the toolbar at all now? is that it?

Not even a preference? (top / bottom / hide / show)

jesse - May 8, 2008 5:17 PM

Right. I'll think about it again after 2.0.

Chris Summers - May 9, 2008 12:33 AM

Awesome Jesse,

Thank you. You know it's really great that you open yourself up like this to hear what your users have to say (all of them).

Looking forward to the next releases.

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