Category Archives: Usability

Posts related to product design, user experience and usability.

Signing up directly with Kerika

January 21, 2016Kerika, Technology, UsabilityAccount, Box, UsabilityKerika

Our very first version of Kerika, introduced back in 2011, had just one option for people to sign up: you had to use your Google ID.

In 2014 we added Box as an alternative to Google: you could sign up using your Box ID, or your Google ID.

This gave our users more choices in terms of how they signed up for Kerika, and which cloud service they used to store their project files, but we continued to resist offering a direct sign up mechanism:

We remained convinced that third-party signup and login, using OAuth, would dominate user preferences — under the theory that no one really wanted to remember yet another password for yet another web service.

Our technical architecture also restricted us from offering a direct sign up choice because we had tied together the issues of authentication and file storage: it was how our original integration with Google had been done, and we had simply duplicated that model when we added Kerika+Box.

This changed in 2015, when Box announced the Box Platform as a new service — although originally it was called the “Box Developer Edition” when it was unveiled at the BoxDev conference in April 2015.

Kerika was probably the first task management app to sign up to use the Box Platform; in fact, we were in the very first batch of beta users for the service.

This new integration with Box allowed us to finally offer a direct sign up mechanism for new users:

Sjgning up directly with Kerika — Signing up directly with Kerika

Now, you can sign up with any email address: it could be a company email, a Yahoo email, a Microsoft Live email… even a Gmail address.

When you sign up directly with Kerika, we use the Box Platform to securely store your project files:

We create an account at Box that’s dedicated to storing your Kerika files.
We do this automatically and behind the scenes: you might never know that your files are actually being stored at Box, rather than on a Kerika-operated server.

While this seamless integration is great from a user experience perspective, it doesn’t mean that we want to hide our Box links: in fact, we would actually like to boast about our use of the Box platform because Box is so well regarded for the robustness, security and privacy of their cloud storage service.

So, now you know where your files are stored when you sign up directly as a Kerika user: inside the Box Platform!

You can now Copy and Paste Lines

January 11, 2016Technology, UsabilityUsability, WhiteboardKerika

In a recent update, we added a minor new feature: you can now copy and paste lines even if they are not used to connect any other objects on a Kerika Whiteboard.

We always let you copy and paste lines that were used to connect other objects, like in this scenario:

But now you can also copy and paste freestanding lines (i.e. lines that are not anchored at either end on anything else), like this:

The fact that copying/pasting freestanding lines was not possible before was actually a conscious design decision on our part, but looking back we can’t figure out why it seemed like a good idea at the time :-/

Ctl-Enter: a faster way to send chat

December 21, 2015UsabilityChat, UsabilityKerika

We have added a keyboard shortcut to make it a little faster to send chat messages — on cards, canvases or the board itself.

After typing in your chat message, use the Ctl-Enter (or Ctl-Return) key combination to send the chat immediately. It will save you having to reach for the mouse to click on the Send button…

(And thanks, as usual, to our users for urging us to add this new feature!)

When you add an existing Google or Box file, we copy it into your Kerika folders

September 25, 2015Technology, UsabilityBox, Google AppsKerika

If you use the “file picker” that’s built into Kerika to add an existing Google Drive or Box file to a card, canvas or board — for a Task Board, Scrum Board or Whiteboard — you will see a message that says the file is being copied.

This is the file picker:

Clicking on the File Picker button brings up the File Picker dialog:

And this is the “copying…” message that’s shown.

So, what’s happening?

Well, Kerika stores all your Kerika-related files in a set of special folders within your Google Drive or Box account, if you are using Kerika+Google or Kerika+Box, and these are organized neatly into folders corresponding to each of your boards.

Here’s what the folders in your Box account look like (you can learn more by reading about how Kerika integrates with Box):

It’s a similar structure if you are using Kerika with Google:

Keeping all the Kerika files together in a set of related folders makes things cleaner for you: when you look at your Google Drive or Box Account, you know exactly what’s being used by Kerika, and what’s other stuff.

And this is why we make a copy of your existing Google Drive or Box file when you use the File Picker: it enables us to put a copy into your Kerika-specific folders, where it is easier to share with the rest of your project team.

Leaving chat, and then returning

September 24, 2015Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Technology, UsabilityChat, Kanban, Scrum, Usability, WhiteboardKerika

When you are writing a chat message, on a card or canvas on any Kerika Task Board, Scrum Board or Whiteboard, what happens if you need to leave that message in the middle and go look at something else in Kerika?

For example, suppose you are in the middle of writing a chat message, but in order to complete it, you need to go off and look at another card’s details, or maybe a file attached somewhere else on the board?

You can leave aside a chat in mid-stream, go somewhere else in Kerika, return to the chat, and pick up where you left off!

That’s because Kerika uses your browser’s local cache storage to keep your unsent message: it means your changes aren’t lost while you go look at something else in Kerika.

This is a handy usability fix we have always had in Kerika, but it may be one that folks didn’t realize existed…

Well, now you know 🙂

From Projects to Boards: a clarification

September 19, 2015Agile & Scrum, UsabilityKanban, Kerika, Scrum, Task Board, Usability, WhiteboardKerika

We used to refer to “Projects” and “Boards” somewhat interchangeably on our website, our blog and in the Kerika app itself.

There was no special reason for this: in our mind, a Project was clearly a Board, and vice-versa, and it never occurred to us that this might prove a source of confusion to anyone.

Well, we were wrong about that.

In the real world, people are very cautious about “starting a new project”, because this might involve getting formal administrative approval, budget allocation, staff changes, etc.

In other words, in the real world a “project” is a big deal.

But, in Kerika, starting a new Task Board, Scrum Board or Whiteboard is not a big deal — and that is very much by design.

Unlike so many other collaboration tools that make it difficult for you to create as many boards as you like, Kerika was always designed to make it very easy for you to redesign your work as needed: start new boards, move cards or canvases from one board to another (using Cut, Copy and Paste), and to move ideas and content from one context to another.

Many of our competitors don’t offer this kind of flexibility: either the software makes it hard, or their billing model actively discourages you from creating multiple boards.

That will never be the case with Kerika: we will always support flexibility in how you organize and manage your boards.

Still, our interchangeable use of “projects” and “boards” was definitely causing some confusion, which we have fixed with our latest release by using the term “Board” consistently and avoiding use of the term “Project”.

So, if you were a Project Leader previously, you are now a Board Admin on that board. Your rights and privileges remain the same, it’s just your title that changed.

When you start a new board, what used to be called “New Project” is now labeled “New Board” to make it clear what you are doing:

We hope this makes for better usability: let us know what you think.

How you can tell if your Project Team has changed

September 10, 2015Team Collaboration, UsabilityNotifications, Scrum, Task Board, Usability, WhiteboardKerika

If you are the only Project Leader on a Task Board, Scrum Board or Whiteboard, you will know when someone joins a board — after all, you would have approved their invitation in the first place.

But, if there are several Project Leaders for a board, it might be one of the others who added somebody to your board, and they might not have discussed this with you…

So, Kerika makes sure you know whenever the project team on any board has changed in any way:

If someone has joined,
If someone’s role has changed,
If someone has left.

(After all, someone could have left the team on their own, without telling you!)

Whenever there is a change in the project team, the Board Settings button on the top-right of the board will appear in orange.

Click on the Board Settings button, and you will see the Team tab is highlighted: this is Kerika’s way of drawing your attention to this particular tab within the Board Settings display.

When you go over to the Team tab, you will see that the new person’s name is highlighted in orange, for a few seconds. It’s a discrete yet very effective notification from Kerika, drawing your attention to the presence of someone new on the team.

The same kind of notification is used when someone’s role on the team is changed, e.g. from Team Member to Visitor.

Kerika also tries to let you know when someone has left the team, by highlighting the Project Settings button in orange, and the Team tab within the Project Settings in orange as well.

Smart notifications, from Kerika — the only work management system that’s designed specially for distributed Lean and Agile teams 🙂

Attaching content to the board itself, not just to cards

September 8, 2015Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Technology, UsabilityDocument Management, Kanban, Our Users, Scrum, Task Board, Teams, Usability, Whiteboard, WorkflowKerika

We have added a new feature that should prove handy for a lot of folks: you can now add content — files from your laptop, images from your mobile or tablet, Web links from your Intranet or the Internet, or canvases — to a Task Board or Scrum Board itself.

If this sounds like something that was always there, maybe we need to say that differently: you used to have the ability to add content to a card, now you can add it to the board itself.

There are many situations we have encountered where we want to share content or a canvas with a team, but there wasn’t any obvious place to still it — no single card on the board that seemed like the right place to attach that content.

And that’s because the content we wanted to add was applicable across the entire board, not just relevant to a single card.

This was getting frustrating, so we decided to scratch our itch: a new button on the top-right area of your Kerika app will let you add files, Web links and canvases to the board itself:

This should make some of you as happy as it has made us!

How to draw Curved Lines and Arrows on Kerika’s Canvases and Whiteboards

September 7, 2015Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Technology, UsabilityKanban, Kerika, Scrum, Usability, Whiteboard, WorkflowKerika

A new tutorial video on how you can easily draw curved lines and arrows on Kerika’s canvases and Whiteboards:

Adding a Twitter feed to your Kerika canvas

September 4, 2015UsabilityUsability, WhiteboardKerika

Did you know that you can embed a Twitter feed on your Kerika Whiteboards? It’s simple: just click on the “Add Web Content” button, and then enter the Twitter handle:

Kerika automatically figures out the “@” refers to a Twitter ID, and then finds and embeds the Twitter feed right on your canvas:

Get more done, with Kerika

Task Management for Remote Teams