petergcutler / guacamole

guacamole

idea

A universal homepage/start-page that supports multiple users. The main goals:

• Ad-free
• Clean, distraction-free design
• Adapts to the user's interests and goals
• Designed to help the user with those goals

concept

When we explore a large space without a goal in mind, we are susceptible to suggestion and visual cues that change our behavior. For instance, all else being equal, if we encounter two doors side by side, we're more likely to choose the one on the right.

The goal of "guacamole" is to remind you of your goals and strip away the visual cues that change your behavior. When you startup your browser, this distraction-free page will help you see your goals and act on them.

early wireframe: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0neE8Kwm_gyeTJyaG9vMnVlZEk/view?usp=sharing

early erd: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0neE8Kwm_gyejBWd2xfeG9xcms/view?usp=sharing

user stories

As a user, I want to be able to login to my private account.

As a user, I want to be able to share the data I put into my account with others.

As a user, I want to be able to create a custom homepage on tropes.io

As a user, I want tropes to apply constraints to my homepage to make it more useable

supporting details

Each homepage is a grid layout, containing between 1 and 4 cells.

• a 1x1 grid
• a 1x2 grid
• a 1x3 grid
• a 2x2 grid

Each grid may contain between 1 and 5 interests

• two columns; no column may have more than 3 interests

organization

tropes.io is based around organizational principles and usable interfaces motivated by our physiology, anatomy, and natural behaviors.

Bookmarks and lists are fine places to organize large lists of information. tropes.io is all about how to present a realistic number of choices or tropes to the user at one time.

Based on our rectangular desktop screens, we can adequately view about four panes at once. Anything more than that, and we risk a visual overload.

Based on the way we group items (into ones, twos and threes), each pane will contain no more than five items, each sub-grouped into 1, 2, or 3 units.

On desktop, we can view four panes at once (a space). On mobile, we can view one pane at a time, and swipe between panes.