IBM Drops an 'e', Goes Web 2.0 with Lotus Quickr

Quickr isn't available on general release until tomorrow (Friday 6/29/07), so most end users or IT departments won't have seen it yet. We're lucky enough at Simplified Tech to be an IBM Advance Business Partner and have a working Quickr server up and running right now (gold release). All I can say is wow. This product will fix file share hell in organizations of any size.

Add to that the Blog, Wiki and Team templates that generate site automatically (a project template is due any day, among others for free) and you have a top to bottom solution.

The connectors are amazing. Check in and out documents via Word or Windows Explorer seamlessly. Versioning, etc. All there.

While I don't normally like the hype of 2.0 anything, Quickr (and Lotus Connections too) should be labeled Two point Wow.

If your organization would like an online demo, send an email to info@simplified-tech.com and we'll schedule something for you. It is worth seeing.

I've been playing with Quickr wiki since yesterday and I am ALMOST impressed. Though this looks like a good start, it has some major interface issues which will certainly impact user adoption.

Like Lotus Notes, its powerful feature set is hampered by simple but critically important interface design problems which will make staff training unnecessarily difficult. Training on any product must include and element of salesmanship. The trainer must 'sell' the user on the product's benefits - otherwise why bother learning how to use it? Let me just say that Quickr (wiki) could be a tough sell in its current incarnation.

Example1: Creating a new wiki page

To create a new wiki page, you click on the Create button which brings up the editing screen. OK, So far so good. After entering your text you have 4 options - sort of; Create, Create with Options, Save as Working Draft and Cancel.

Hmmm, I thought I already"created" the page. Instead of a Create button, I would have expected to see a Save or Publish or Submit button. The Create button actually does Save the new or edited page. However, if you hover you pointer over the Create button, it says, "Publish this content so others can see it." Then why don't they call the button "Publish"?! So, when you instruct your users to create a new page by clicking the "Create" button under "New Wiki Page" menu, enter your text, then click the Create button . . . . . make sure there's a nearby table to crawl under for cover!

I won't even go into the "Create with options" button.

Example 2: Deleting a Place.

I created a new "Place" for testing. Later I wanted to delete that place since it was full of test entries. Hmm . . . How do I delete a place? Should be simple, right? After looking for the obvious Delete Place button and not finding it, I checked out the Help feature. I searched for "delete" and "delete place" and whatever else. Maybe the answer is buried in there somewhere but if I can't find the answer to simple question like this in less than 2 minutes, then the Help isn't very helpful. So, off exploring I go through the programs other menus.

Days later . . . OK, maybe it was only 10 minutes . . . I've found it!

Pay close attention, make sure you've got plenty water and bread crumbs to drop along the way or just bring your GPS device.

To delete a Place, first open the Place you wish to delete. On each page you have a collection of tabs labeled Home, Discussion, Library, Tasks, Index, Customize and Members. They are like file folder tabs which, I guess, is why Lotus calls them FOLDERS! But they are TABS for crying out loud!

If you want to change the properties of those ta... I mean folders, you must click on the Folder Options which is under the CREATE menu button. Oh just shoot me now! Please!

To delete a place,

Click on the Customize folder (remember it looks like a tab?)
That's right, we're going to "customize" it to smithereens!
The next screen has a column of BIG icons to chose from.
Click on the Basics icon.
On the next screen, scroll ALL the way DOWN to the bottom where you'll find the "Delete Place" button!

Gasp! You've made it. Remember to delete a place, customize it!

Example3: When creating or editing a blog page, how does one easily explain the existence of 2 text editing screens? You already have one screen but then you can click on "More..." and get a second! Why stop at 2 screens? Why not give us 10 or 100 screens? Forget that! Use ONE and only one! What happened to Keep It Simple Stupid!? I still have people who can't cut and paste text. Oh the humanity!

Phew. . . . . . .!

I could go on, but I think you get the gist of the problem.
In reality, the one feature that I would have expected to see is a side-by-side comparison screen for viewing previous versions of webpages. There is a "History" tab (or folder) that will let you view one old version at a time. But other products like SocialText and DominoWiki use the side-by-side method which clearly show the differences between 2 versions of a page.

I would really like to see this product succeed (since our organization has paid for it in a package deal!). But this is crazy-making design for a product that has a lot of juice under the hood. My fear now is that I'll have to 'sell' the use of this product to my office of 80+ people, many of whom will point the finger at me as they encounter the confusing interface.

IBM . . . please call me and let me help you clean this thing up!

Scott