It's all about the editor!

dmccall@gene.com — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:00:48 GMT

Let me start off by saying that I think Clearspace is truly unique in the Enterprise Software market. The tightly integrated components and the Recommendation/Recognition engines are outstanding. The User Interface is beautiful and the search works great!

That being said, here is my story:

So, as I'm sure most you of you have done as well, I tried to explain the benefits of Clearspace to my wife the other day during one of those "How was work?" conversations...

I told her:

You can easily publish content without knowing HTML
You can find content and people with ease
You can subscribe to spaces and people that interest you
You can collaborate easier on content with an easy to use editor...

And she said "Show me how easy it is to edit" and I leapt at the chance to enlighten her so I grabbed my laptop, opened up Clearspace and hit the edit button. (Note: this is not a critique of the known issues with the editor, but of the of the editor's capabilities)

Well, needless to say, she was not impressed because "easy" to her means "exactly like what she is used to". "Easy" to her means "Microsoft Word".

Microsoft Word Editor

Now, it is important to note that my wife is very adept at technology and is by no means a laggard. She just expects her editing features to be similar. The Clearspace editor was not similar enough especially when it came to tables.

Clearspace Editor

Clearspace Editor (In Safari browser)

So I showed her the new Google Docs editor and the Zoho Editor and she felt much more at home.

Google Editor - http://docs.google.com

Zoho Editor - http://writer.zoho.com/

I even showed here the Buzzword editor, but she said it was too diffult although pretty.

Buzzword Editor - http://www.buzzword.com/

Now, I've come to grips with the fact that I am not your "average user" and now highly value the input of non-technical users. They often bring stinging clarity to usability issues. So when I asked her if she would use Clearspace if it was offered to her in a business setting she said she "wouldn't use Clearspace if it was offered to her because of the editor". The barrier to entry for her was too great. So I asked her if she felt the same way about the Google Docs and Zoho editors and she replied that those looked "fine" and that she would consider using them.

The moral of the story for me was that that Clearspace has a ton of great features and the benefits far outweigh the cons, but the editor needs to be totally revamped. Take a cue from Google and make a toolbar that looks much more like MS Word. I know that you guys have eliminated a lot of the bugs in the editor in version 2, but I don't think that is gonna cut it for the non-technical users of the world.

I've been impressed so far with Jive's ability to accept constructive feedback and turn it into quick action and I'm hoping they can continue that trend here.