Category Archives: Usability

Posts related to product design, user experience and usability.

Why the files in your Kerika+Box folder have random characters appended to their names

September 8, 2016Technology, UsabilityBoxKerika

If you are using Kerika+Box, we store your Kerika files in your Box account: you can always go to Box.com, login using your Box ID, and see for yourself.

(But, please, don’t move them around!)

What you might notice is that the filenames in Box have some random characters appended to them. For example, a file that you might see listed inside Kerika as “Alternative Home Page” actually shows up with some random characters appended, like this:

The reason we do this with files we store in Box — and not for files we store in Google Drive, for our Kerika+Google users, is that Box doesn’t allow for several files within a single folder to have the same name.

(Google does, which is why we don’t need to append any random characters to the files we store in Google Drive.)

It’s very common for our users to have several files within the same board that have the same name: for example, our developers always attach an analysis document to each card that describes exactly what they are doing. (Yes, we are fairly fanatical about documenting our software!)

These documents are often the same for many cards: Analysis.docx or Results.xlsx or Mockup.png might show up hundreds of times within a single board.

Since all the files related to a single Kerika board are stored in the same folder in your Box account, this presents a problem: Box won’t allow for more than one file called Analysis.docx within a folder.

We get around this limitation by appending these random characters, so that effectively every Analysis.docx file has a unique name.

But, we also try to avoid confusing our users, so when we show a list of files attached to a card, we strip out the random characters:

And the same goes for downloading files: we strip out the random characters and give you a clean-looking file.

Bug, fixed: handling situations where drag-and-drop of content won’t work

September 5, 2016Technology, UsabilityBug, WhiteboardKerika

The easiest way to attach files to a Kerika card, canvas or board is to simply drag and drop it onto Kerika, like this:

This works with nearly all kinds of files, but we sometimes hit a limitation, like we discovered when a user tried dragging and dropping an email directly from his Outlook onto Kerika.

This operation used to fail, but in a confusing way: Kerika made it look like it was possible to drop the email onto a card, but the email never showed up.

We have fixed this by checking the kind of content that someone is trying to drop onto Kerika, and if the content isn’t something that can be directly dropped, we don’t show the “drop zone”: the yellow area in the image above that encourages you to drop something onto a card.

And, by the way, if you need to attach an email to a Kerika file, here’s a good workaround: first drag and drop the file onto your computer’s desktop. That will create a regular file out of the email, which you can then drop onto Kerika.

Kerika+Google users can decide whether to use Google Docs, or stay with Microsoft Office

August 30, 2016Technology, UsabilityGoogle Apps, Preferences, WhiteboardKerika

If you are a Kerika+Google user — you signed up for Kerika using your Google ID (like a Gmail address) — your Kerika files will be stored in your own Google Drive.

Most Kerika+Google users prefer to have their files converted to the Google Docs format when they upload them their Kerika cards, canvases or boards: this makes it easy for them to edit these files from inside a browser.

A small minority of our Kerika+Google users, however, prefer to keep their files in their original Microsoft Office format.

(The most common reason for this is if you are working with complex spreadsheets: Microsoft Excel is still far better than Google’s Spreadsheets!)

If you are a Kerika+Google user, you have a choice of using Google Docs or not: just go https://kerika.com/preferences and select this option:

Either way your files will still be stored in your Google Drive; the only difference is whether they are stored in the Google Docs format or kept in their original Microsoft Office format.

Better looking emails

August 29, 2016Technology, UsabilityUsabilityKerika

The emails you get from Kerika, e.g. when someone assigns you to a card on a Task Board or Scrum Board, have gotten better:

The formatting is better: neater, cleaner, and there’s less verbose junk.
They are all sent from the same Sender Email — notifications@kerikamail.com — so your mail clients (like Gmail) do a better job of clustering them in your Inbox.
They all have better footers, explaining why you are getting the email, and how to contact us. (In other words, they are better at conforming to the CAN-SPAM Act.)
They look better on mobile devices: the subject headers are easier to scan, so if the email is something you expected, it is easier to delete it unread.
We eliminated the use of our logo, which saves (every so slightly) on bandwidth, especially on mobile devices.

Bug, fixed: handling references to websites that redirect to HTTPS

August 24, 2016Bug Fixes, Technology, UsabilityBug, WhiteboardKerika

Some sites like Kerika.com use HTTPS all the time: every URL reference, whether to our website, within our application, or even to any article on this blog is automatically converted to a secure HTTPS session.

(We are not the only ones doing this: type in “facebook.com” in your browser’s address bar, for example, and you will be automatically redirected to “https://www.facebook.com/” even though you didn’t type in “https”.)

Always using HTTPS is good security practice, but it can sometimes lead to problems for users: unless you are very familiar with a particular site, and also the type of person who plays close attention to these things, you might not understand this process.

And even if you did, you would still find it convenient to make short references to “kerika.com” (or “facebook.com”) instead of typing out “https://kerika.com”.

When you include a URL in any part of a Kerika board’s contents, e.g. in a card’s details, it’s chat or its attachments (and the same goes for canvases), Kerika tries to get the title of that Web page so the URL reference is easier to read.

We found and fixed a bug related to this: in situations where the URL, as typed by the user, actually resulted in a redirect from the referenced website (typically a “301 permanent redirect” rather than a “302 temporary redirect”), Kerika wasn’t properly showing the Web site’s page title.

All fixed now.

If you are thinking of using PayPal for invoicing…

August 19, 2016UsabilityAccountKerika

Don’t. The system is massively buggy and the company is completely unresponsive to complaints.

The web UI looks like it everything is nice and automated, but in reality you will end up doing a bunch of stuff by hand. Examples of bugs and/or dumb design that have already driven us crazy:

If you have a bunch of outstanding invoices that you want to cancel, the bulk select/action doesn’t work. No error or anything: it just doesn’t do anything, silently.|

They use lazy loading to show just a dozen or so invoices at a time, with the rest showing only after you scroll down (like Facebook, Twitter, etc.) If you try to do a search or filter, that works only on the invoices that are currently being displayed, not the full set: presumably resulting from a design decision to make the filter work within the client rather than the server.

Thanks to a flaky implementation of lazy loading itself, some invoices will appear as duplicates.

It’s pretty clear that Elon Musk has left the building.

Apologies for the long absence…

August 17, 2016Kerika, UsabilityKerika, UsabilityKerika

Sorry for not having posted in a while; we have been swamped with a new UI design that has consumed all of our time.

The new UI, by the way, is all about making Kerika more accessible, particularly to people who are new to visual collaboration.

Our user feedback had revealed a couple of uncomfortable truths that we needed to address:

Very few users were aware of all the functionality that already exists in Kerika. Which means that we didn’t need to focus so much on building new functions as we did on making sure people understand what Kerika can already do.

Our new users aren’t just new to Kerika; in most cases, they are new to visual collaboration altogether. Even though there has been a proliferation in recent months of all sorts of companies trying to recast old, tired products as exciting new visual collaboration (hello, Smartsheet!), our new users aren’t converting away from our competitors as much as converting away from paper, email, and SharePoint.

This, then, is the goal of our new UI: to make it easier for people to adapt from paper and email to visual collaboration, and to make it easier for all users to exploit all the great functionality that we have already built.

We will have more on this in the coming months, as we get closer to releasing our new user interface, but in the meantime we have queued up a bunch of blog posts to make sure you know about all the other great stuff we have been working.

Yeah, our biggest problem is we don’t tell people what we have already done…

Automatic version tracking

April 23, 2016Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Team Collaboration, Technology, UsabilityBox, Direct Sign Up, Document Management, Google Apps, Kanban, Kerika, Scrum, Task Board, WhiteboardKerika

Another great new feature: if you upload a file on any card, canvas or board with the same name as a file that’s already attached to that particular card, canvas or board, Kerika will automatically keep track of these as being different versions of the same file. This makes it even easier to organize all your Kerika project files.

Here’s how it works:

Kerika lets you add files to any cards, boards or canvases, on any of your Kerika Task Boards, Scrum Boards or Whiteboards.

There’s no limit to the number of files you add, nor any limit on the size of these files.

When you add a file, to a card, board or canvas, Kerika automatically uploads that file and shares that with everyone who is part of your board’s team. You don’t have to do anything: Kerika makes sure that all the Team Members have read+write permission, and all the Visitors have read-only permission.

These files are stored in your Google Drive, if you are using Kerika+Google, or in your Box account, if you are using Kerika+Box, or with Kerika if you have signed up directly with an email address.

That’s how Kerika has always worked; what we have added is an automatic versioning feature that checks when you add a new file to see if has the same name, and type, as a file that’s already attached to that particular card, canvas or board.

If the file name and file type match something that you have already added, Kerika automatically treats that new file as a new version of the old file, rather than as a completely different file. This makes it really easy to manage your Kerika project files.

Here’s an example: this card has a file attached to it called “Foo.docx”.

If a Team Member adds another file to this same card, also called “Foo.docx”, Kerika will treat that new file as a different version of the same Foo.docx, rather than as a completely different file:

Accessing these older versions is easy: if your Kerika files are in being stored in your Google Drive, you can get the older versions using the Google Docs File menu:

If your files are being stored in your Box account, you can access the older versions from the menu on the right side of Box’s preview window:

If you signed up directly with Kerika, you can access the older versions from within Kerika’s file preview:

Clicking on the Older versions of this file link on the top right of this preview will give you a list of all the old versions of this file that Kerika has:

So, that’s it: simple, easy, automatic tracking of multiple versions of your project files! Brought to you by Kerika, of course.

Calendar syncing

April 23, 2016Technology, UsabilityCalendar, PreferencesKerika

We quietly released a new feature a couple of weeks ago that we now want to announce to the world: you can have all your Kerika due dates appear automatically on your Mac, Outlook or Google Calendar!

All you have to do is go to https://kerika.com/preferences (or click on the Preferences link that shows up under your photo in the top-right of the Kerika app), and then click on the Start Syncing button on that page:

You can sync to your Apple/Mac calendar, your Microsoft Outlook calendar, or your Google Calendar.

Pick your preference, and Kerika will show you detailed instructions on how to start syncing.

Here, for example, are the instructions for syncing to your Apple/Mac calendar:

Apple Mac Calendar synching instructions — Apple Mac Calendar syncing instructions

And here are the instructions for syncing to your Microsoft Outlook calendar:

Microsoft Outlook synching instructions — Microsoft Outlook syncing instructions

And, finally, here are the instructions for syncing to your Google calendar:

Google Calendar synching instructions — Google Calendar syncing instructions

You will notice that we have deliberately obfuscated the actual calendar URL for this particular user, in all three images above.

That’s important: your calendar URL is unique and precious — don’t share it with anyone!

As your cards on your Kerika Task Boards and Scrum Boards get new due dates, Kerika will automatically feed these updates to your personal calendar: you don’t need to do anything.

Kerika due dates always appear as “all day” events.

Please note that it’s up to Apple/Microsoft/Google to determine how quickly these updates show up on your calendar.

On your Mac Calendar, for example, you can set the frequency with which these updates appear by doing a right-click with your mouse on the calendar and selecting Get Info:

And then setting the “Refresh time” for that particular calendar. (On Macs, the fastest that iCloud allows is every 5 minutes.)

Making it easier to download files from “Done” cards

February 15, 2016UsabilityScrum, Task Board, UsabilityKerika

Thanks to Steven Thompson, a consultant working with some of our users at the City of Kent, for pointing this out to us:

If a card is moved to Done, it preserves all its attachments, of course, but it is a little inconvenient to download these attachments directly from within Kerika itself: you would have to open that file in preview mode, and then download it.

We have simplified that process: now, if you hover over an attachment for a card that’s in Done, a “download” button will appear that will make it easier to download the attachment, without having to preview it first:

Get more done, with Kerika

Task Management for Remote Teams