Yearly Archives: 2012

Evaluating Windows 8

I am admittedly a much bigger fan of the Apple desktop and mobile operating systems than the Windows counterparts. However, that does not mean I don’t care at all for Windows offers, especially in the desktop space, and I actually do like Windows 7 quite a bit. That has all changed with the release of Windows 8. I honestly think that Windows 8 is the worst software released in a long time, and it is certainly the worst version of Windows I have used.

I remember playing with the beta, and after about 10 minutes I completely gave up. It was obvious that Microsoft was trying to tow the line between a touch and desktop UI, and it ultimately ending up satisfying neither audience or need. This video was shared on Twitter, and it summarizes my sentiments perfectly on Windows 8. Even though the video is a bit long (about 24 minutes), I highly suggest watching until the end.

Jakob Nielsen also posted his usability findings on Windows 8, and it is worth the read. With both the article and video you can get a sense of what went so wrong with this OS. Was this the reason Steven Sinofsky was fired? I would’ve imagined that Ballmer signed off on this mess.

There is also news that Microsoft is taking another page out of Apple’s book and moving to a yearly release cycle with their desktop operating systems. Whatever they might be doing, I hope that they manage to fix Windows 8. Everyone was in an uproar over Windows Vista back in the day, but I always thought those criticisms were overblown. But this time all criticism about Windows 8 is warranted.

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SharePoint iOS Showdown: Colligo vs harmon.ie

I was recently provided with full versions of both Colligo’s Briefcase iPad app and harmon.ie’s universal iOS app. I thought that instead of writing separate reviews for both that I would go over the good and bad from each to contrast. I think both of these are the two best options over other apps such as SharePlus and Filamente (although Filamente isn’t bad).

Before we get started I should be up front about my familiarity with each of these companies. I have used Colligo’s Contributor project for a few years now, and I admittedly love it. It continues to impress me, and I don’t hesitate to recommend it liberally. On the other hand, I have never used the harmon.ie desktop application. The reason I have not is because I hate Outlook getting slower than it already is, and I didn’t have a good experience with Colligo’s Outlook add-in (although I haven’t tried it recently). Hopefully I will use harmon.ie’s desktop product soon, but I’m just too used to Colligo’s offering. Regardless, I’m not letting those impressions shape the review below as I am judging each on their own iOS merits.

Colligo Briefcase

If you’re familiar with their contributor product, you’ll be at home with the iPad app. What they have essentially done is port the Contributor experience to the iPad. You are given an add site prompt, which then asks the user which lists/libraries they want to sync. After choosing the lists/libraries you want the items and documents are downloaded. You can open documents in other apps and re-upload to SharePoint, and you can also edit metadata with no limitations that I could find. It’s a straight document and list management iPad app for SharePoint, and it doesn’t promise anything more than that.

Here are my observations while working with the app:

I couldn’t just browse SharePoint. If you attempt to open a sub-site you have to choose what you want to sync. This was never an issue for me in Contributor because I only sync one site at a time, but on the iPad app it stinks.
The iconography is dated, and the overall aesthetic of the app leaves something to be desired.
You cannot view pages.
The whole focus of this app is document and list management, and it doesn’t attempt to include any social features like harmon.ie’s app.
The app is not universal meaning you will be looking for another option for your iPhone.

harmon.ie Mobile App

harmon.ie’s shtick for their app is more than just document management because harmon.ie focuses on bringing some of the social features of SharePoint into the app. It provides a similar prompt to download sites, and the cool addition is that it will automatically add your MySite if it detects the user has one. Unlike Colligo’s app, you can browse through an entire site collection without needing to sync. It also has colleague and update sections from the user profile service. The biggest difference between this app and Colligo’s is that harmon.ie’s app is a universal binary.

Here are my observations while working with the app:

I don’t think you can download anything for offline use unlike Colligo’s app.
Viewing and editing metadata happens through the default mobile metadata view, which isn’t pretty on an iPhone more-or-less an iPad. This also doesn’t allow editing of columns such as managed metadata.
If you want list support, use Colligo’s app because this app doesn’t support them currently.
You can only use the app in portrait, and I dislike when apps force an orientation (except games).
The iconography is also dated in this app, and unlike Colligo’s, the app doesn’t look retina-ready on my new iPad.
Even though it shows colleagues, I couldn’t find any way to add a colleague.
It also puts status updates in a non-obvious spot, but when you use Newsgator it just shows blank status updates.
If you give me the ability to see social updates, please allow me to post them as well.
The app doesn’t sync views but Colligo’s does. It only allows you to filter by name and date modified.
Like Colligo, you can’t view pages.

What Both Get Wrong

There are three big frustrations for both of them. First, I can’t view pages on either of these apps. I don’t know how many modern SharePoint implementations are document-only, but at Portal Solutions we do WCM extensively in all our engagements. It’s disappointing that there is no support at all for publishing pages (or wiki pages for that matter either). Secondly, I wish both had site collection scoped search. They both support finding content within the current context, but neither support search at a more global level. I thought there was a SharePoint iOS app that did, but I forget which one it was.

The last thing is more a personal gripe. I love SharePoint, and I love my iOS gadgets, so when both come together I have high expectations particularly for the interactions and UI. Both of these apps don’t reinvent the SharePoint experience in any way for iOS. A robust platform like iOS allows you to rethink something of the mechanics of otherwise mundane tasks and make them enjoyable. Day One rejuvenated my love for journaling, Mint’s iOS app showed me budgeting can be fun, Tweetbot showed me how great Twitter can be on iOS. Both of these apps have UIs that look like they were designed by Microsoft developers, and my challenge is for them to rethink how they can utilize the iOS platform to bring a whole new experience to SharePoint.

Which One Should I Get?

It would figure that a SharePoint consultant would say, “it depends.” However, it really does in this case. If you need offline sync, go Colligo. If the social stuff is really important to your SharePoint experience (and you don’t use Newsgator), go harmon.ie. If you need both list and library support, Colligo is better for you. If you want to only spend money on one SharePoint app for both your iPhone and iPad, harmon.ie might be for you.

If I had to pick a winner right now it would be Colligo’s app. However, I think harmon.ie with some adjustments and expansion of their feature set could overtake them. Neither company can afford to be happy with where they’re at right now because it looks like the competition is just getting started.

Update: Both Colligo and harmon.ie have informed that changes are coming to address the items I’ve mentioned. Keep your eyes on each of these apps!

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What if Apple Designed SharePoint?

Before I get started on this post, I need to be honest with two important points. First, I realize that Apple would most likely never desire to create a product like SharePoint. Apple is primarily a consumer electronics company and not as concerned with the corporate world. Secondly, I’m thoroughly an Apple user, and I do enjoy all their products but am still a Microsoft man. This is common amongst many Microsoft consultants because we are consumers as well as producers.

This post contrasts the design philosophies and approaches that underpin both Apple and Microsoft. It is meant to be a conversation starter and not a way to flame either side. If it weren’t for SharePoint, I couldn’t afford all my (admittely) over-priced Apple products. Let’s now consider the question of what SharePoint might look like if Apple designed the product.

Native Apps Emphasis Over Web Apps

I think the most striking difference we would see is a fundamental shift away from the browser for SharePoint. SharePoint at it’s core is a platform wrapped in a web application. To work with SharePoint, by and large, means working in a browser. Now of course the Office products and SharePoint Workspace do interact with SharePoint as desktop products, but the primary intent of SharePoint is to function within a web UI.

Apple on the other hand creates internet services only to enhance native apps. iCloud is a great example to illustrate this philosophy. While iCloud has a minimal web UI, it is not advertised extensively and wasn’t even mentioned (from what I can remember) when Jobs unveiled it. The emphasis at the unveiling was all about how the service would enhance native applications on iOS: Photo Stream synced your photos between devices, and “documents in the cloud” was a way to enhance native the iWork applications on iOS.

Consumers First, Power Users Second

I think the thing that frustrates most “power users” or “tinkerers” with Apple’s products is that it feels dumbed down. There are settings, but it is nowhere near the expectation of a user familiar with lots of perceived flexibility. Apple presents their products for someone to get started right away with little issue. You hear stories of how grandma or a two-year-old could work an iPad, which is suppose to extol the usability of Apple products, but I’ve never heard that about a Microsoft product.

Microsoft, by and large from my perception, has power users in mind and scale back for more casual users. If you’ve worked with the control panel in Windows as well as the settings in OS X, you see an immediate contrast. SharePoint is no different. Working with the settings for the library in the ribbon or settings page immediately clue in to the complexity of the product. I’ve been working with SharePoint for several years, and I still don’t feel like I understand every setting just in a document library!

One of my favorite UX principles is the delicate balance between usability and functionality. Ideally, they meet in the middle and provide a good balance. Apple favors simplicity over extensive amounts of functionality, and Microsoft does the opposite. In truth, they both use with a little more balanced position, but I’m not here to criticize either in this post.

A Very Different Third-Party Ecosystem

I think another big area of difference is how the third-party ecosystems are handled. Apple is notorious for a rigorous review process which they want to handle both in the mobile and desktop space. Microsoft on the other hand recognizes third-party vendors (and sometimes buy them) but doesn’t distribute applications themselves. Right now, Microsoft leaves the vetting of these products to the individual organization. If I were a betting man, I’d venture to say this will in some way change in “SharePoint 15″ largely in part to the success of companies like Apple.

The SharePoint ecosystem is massive, and it makes for an extremely attractive feature to an already massive product. However, the quality of these products also varies considerably. I’ve seen products that are absolutely amazing and others that should never have been sold publicly. Unlike Apple, Microsoft doesn’t publish any HCI guidelines, and this has a huge impact. I often said, “This app doesn’t feel like a Mac/iOS app,” but I’ve never said, “This SharePoint add-on doesn’t feel like a SharePoint tool.”

Marketing People Not Technology

As I’ve watched Apple over the last few years, I’ve realized how much certain marketing tactics can actually shape the way you feel emotionally about a product. They are well known for their marketing prowess and for good reason. Almost every Apple ad or other marketing endeavor focuses on the result of technology, which ultimately highlights people, and not the product itself. Ads for the iPhone 4 showed a dad on a business trip doing a Facetime call with his newborn child, and recent iPad apps show kids learning math on the device.

In contrast, Microsoft ads by and large talk about the technology itself and not a means to an end. This isn’t always true, and I think Microsoft and other companies are shifting away from it due to the influence of companies like Apple; but it is still very prevelant. Microsoft has had some odd marketing choices recently from using Jerry Seinfeld to their absolutely worthless Office “vision” videos. Anything on SharePoint from Microsoft has always focused on the technology. Granted, SharePoint and an iPad have different markets, but I would much rather see an engaging ad on SharePoint that talked about how people were improved not some sterile business process.

A Unified Approach to a Family of Products

The last thing I’d like to mention is how I think Apple would handle differently the creation of a “family” of server products. By this I mean SharePoint, Lync, Exchange, O365. If there is one thing Microsoft understand much better than Apple is integration. I am sometimes amazed at how Exchange, Lync, and SharePoint can work together; but when you work with each one of the products it is apparent that individual teams with individual leaders are designing their own experiences with the product (i.e. Why don’t Lync and Exchange online use a ribbon?). I feel like I’m postulating here quite a bit, but I feel like if Apple approached the experience design between all these products it would be more similiar.

I don’t think the lack of end-user experience is only between these server products. There are times in SharePoint that I wonder how the experience can be so different even inside the product (I even started a blog pointing all these things out). Apple is fortunate that they had a Jobs who could almost singlehandedly touch every part of the company, but I feel like Microsoft could gain from a single person designing and coördinating the experiences across all of their server products. I sometimes feel like Microsoft creates by outlining features (instead of designing an overarching UX) and then creating the product by diving out tasks to disparate developers (which is how most consultants work).

Conclusion

SharePoint is a great product with a lot of potential, and it’s quite apparent that there’s nothing but limitless excitement right now for the product. I think Microsoft is getting the clue from the success of other companies like Apple and are changing their approach drastically, and that should excite anyone involved with the Microsoft family of products.