My Dream App - Dan Lundmark

Stay tuned for more from Blossom!

2006-10-25T09:55:01Z

Thanks to the thousands who have voted and supported Blossom through to the top 6!
While Blossom did not make the top 3, it was a good finish for this contest, and a great launch toward future development!

Stay tuned to the Blossom website at www.getBlossom.com for updates.

Blossom in the media

2006-10-24T21:41:01Z

Welcome voters! Check out the rest of the blog to learn more about Blossom.

Blossom has been getting great coverage in the media, in spite of Steve Wozniak’s hilarious freak MDA judge comment. Woz said ‘This would only be remotely entertaining if the plant was marijuana or opium and when you did certain things like actually work, you killed your crop…’

Ha! Well I think Kevin Rose actually took the time to read about Blossom and ‘get it’. He said ‘Very cool idea - although I’d simplify it a bit. I’d also love to see this applied my to-do list. The more tasks I complete, the healthier my plant.’ Done! thx!

MacBreak Weekly podcast at TWiT. Leo Laporte, Amber MacArthur, Scott Bourne, and Merlin Mann plug MDA and are all digging the Blossom app idea in this podcast.

New York Times Tech columnist David Pogue’s favorite!

apple.QJ.net “an intuitive and innovative [concept] application running on Mac OS X”

michaelmcracken.net “It needs a new name, but with the right design and art, I think it’d be a hit. ”

More: glennwolsey.com . rogis .net . vincent.van-wylick.com . del.icio.us link
“I would love to see Blossom actively developed, because this application would do dreams to my productivity, and I’m sure it would do the same for many others.”

Update: New Digg about Woz! Past digg users have been very positive. Slashdot user comments for the most part ripped on Blossom. It’s clear most of these users did not read much, with statements assuming MDA was an Apple project and thinking Blossom and Atmosphere were basically the same. However, I did find most informed reviews to be positive, like the podcast and blogs linked above.

To address some of the questions brought up:
First, Blossom leverages the psychological and emotional incentive of growing a plant. It’s similar to the psychology that drives us to finish a good game that we’ve started — the user becomes ‘invested’ in the plant, and wants to see it continue to grow.

Second, Blossom addresses the ’statelessness’ of todays windowed desktop. Turn on your computer and it generally just sits there, awaiting input. Yesterday and tomorrow have little influence on what we see. Time Machine in Leopard may help here, but it’s more for archival access rather than a self-analysis or productivity tool. Blossom will provide insight into one’s past work, and help predict what needs to be focused on for higher productivity in the future.

Third, Blossom can be turned off or on. It’s not ‘big brother’. It’s a self-motivation tool, and it facilitates, not coerces, productivity. The emotional connection with the plant will drive people to keep it on, much like the psychology that drives one to continue to play an engaging game.

And finally, Blossom ‘intellegence’ is based on each user’s workflow. Your own To Do list items feed the plant. Apps, folders, document types, or each document can be marked as healthy or not healthy for your plant. A great idea by one forum member was to create a p2p web-based database of Profiles of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ apps/doctypes, etc, based on work occupations. Eventually many catagories of specific work types would emerge. (even perhaps gamer friendly Profiles, if you work as a game tester for EA :). So it’s not just ‘Excel good, Safari bad’.

Hope that helps clarify Blossom a bit more. Thanks for any feedback, and Vote for Blossom!

Productivity... as easy as Apple PI

2006-10-23T12:39:22Z

Blossom - a friendly virtual plant that responds to your productivity. Get work done and watch your plant blossom! Beautiful plant options and reports that tell you where your time has gone, and predicts what to work on next, helping stay on task.

New to Blossom? Check out the blog posts below for UI designs, and feel free to browse the forums, the Idea, and the Judge’s Comments (above). Overview mock-up:

Click for larger image

And now for the nerdest holiday greeting, free pumpkin… I mean Apple Pi for everyone! :)

Enjoy. :)

Vote, and let your friends know about Blossom. Thanks!

Blossom learns what 'productive' means to you.

2006-10-19T17:15:24Z

A main goal of Blossom is to have a virtual plant that responds to your productivity.

So, while Blossom will contain a database of default responses to apps, document types, and website URLs, for many users easy custom settings will be vital.

The last blog post talked about how we can set custom productivity criteria. Here are a some UI mockup snippets to illustrate.

At the first launch of an unknown app or website, Blossom provides a small panel to quickly add custom criteria. After 10 seconds of non-interaction, the panel will fade, and default rules are applied.

While the above panel is small, here is an even less intrusive alternative in the title bar. This would apply the custom rule to the currently running profile.

Day-to-day use of Blossom. An optional Apple menu status icon provides feedback and quick access to Blossom preferences.

Integrated with Mac OS X. Context menues also provide direct access to health criteria prefs for specific apps, documents, or folders.

Gotta love the shrooms! :)

And finally, more OS X integration - tracking your non-computer tasks! Blossom responds to completed To Do items from iCal (or any app using Leopard’s new system-wide To Dos) and adds this data to your plant’s health metric.

That’s it for now. Thanks for your feedback and suggestions.

Set simple good-bad rules for any app, doc, or URL

2006-10-16T10:09:10Z

Awesome, Blossom is in the MDA finals! Thanks for your votes and support getting the word out.

Blossom is simplifying. As Kevin Rose noted “Very cool idea - although I’d simplify it a bit. I’d also love to see this applied my to-do list. The more tasks I complete, the healthier my plant.”

As forum user dek pointed out, a common misunderstanding about Blossom needs to be cleared up. A lot of users (and a couple guest judges) are not getting the idea that any app, document, URL, or folder can be set with simple Custom health rule criteria.

So, from now on -
Blossom has a very simple “good” or “bad” rule setup. When first opened, any app, doc, URL, or folder can be set on a sliding scale as Good, to Neutral, to Bad for your plant.

The UI solution here is a small overlay setup panel on any app’s Title bar area seen when an app is launched for the first time. Once Blossom is trained, settings can be later adjusted in the prefs.

Update: As suggested in the comments, Blossom should read the system-wide To Do’s in Leopard (and to-do’s in Tiger’s iCal) by default. Completed tasks items will help feed the plant.

So, with Kevin’s to-do list, by default Blossom will work as desired. Further customization could be done by setting to-do task related apps/documents/URLs as Good for the plant.

Thanks again for all the feedback.

New website welcomes semi-finals voters!

2006-10-12T18:52:35Z

Blossom now has a website! www.getBlossom.com Updated!

New to Blossom? Check out the following post for UI designs and feel free to browse the other blogs, discussion, the Idea, and the Judge’s Comments.
Vote, and let your friends know about Blossom. Thanks!

Blossom - simple productivity UI candy, and prefs

2006-10-10T15:00:22Z

Thanks everyone for the feedback - here are the latest Blossom UI designs (and new logo!)

Blossom runs in the background, with the virtual plant providing an indicator of user productivity. Click the plant’s info icon (or drag a finder icon to it) for the simple desktop Head-Up-Display panel. Further options are available in the System Prefs panels.

Updated: Click UI designs below for Full-size comps. New revisions based on the comments.

An example of a selected plant. It’s alive! (time lapse, of course)

That’s it for right now. More to come. Let me know your thoughts, thanks!

More re: visualization, pitfalls, and psychology.

2006-10-06T21:52:24Z

Hi Blossom friends, a big thanks for all the votes and comments. And a welcome to all who found Blossom via Digg and other links! For new fans, some blog and forum threads to check out:
- Blossom UI - Blossom functionality discussion - Theory discussion

A few notes from Round 3 judges comments on visualization and potential pitfalls - things we’ve gotta think about!

Visualization Feature. Guest judge Daven Lanham had a great idea for something like a partial-theming interface, where the bulk of the plant is in the native theme, but the user could modify the leaf or stem design. -
“…Would also be awesome if there was some way to create a few petal, leaf, and branch styles and let the app generate the plant off of those, then the customizing junkies (like myself) would really jump on board.”
I like this idea, let the user modify leaves with their own drawing or even a logo! How about $100 bills! Hey, time is money… so much for “money doesn’t grow on trees”… :)

Thanks to guest judge Adam Betts who mentioned the plant simulation screensaver (image at right, free download)
.

Potential Pitfalls. Developer Judge John Casasanta had this to say - “If it wins it’ll either be a big hit or a big flop. A lot depends on the execution of course, but comparing this with something like Cookbook, it’s not the kind of app that you can immediately “get”…”.

My thoughts - producing a hit requires spot-on execution, but perhaps more so it requires simple and easy-to-understand marketing. I know from personal experience — there is a productivity problem with people who are online during work - checking the news, slashdot, MDA, or playing a game, and later feeling upset that work is not done. Blossom execution and marketing must address that need in a simple and fun way.

And Piotr Gajos of Inventive had a helpful critique - “…First of all buttons - there are four styles of them in the mockup. This doesn’t improve either consistency nor looks. I would limit them to maximum two styles.” He also can’t stand the logo at all. :)

Thanks, Piotr, no rebuttal here - I’m taking your advice - look out for some new designs soon.
.

Psychology. Forum member corta noted behavioral psychology, positive reinforcement, and the need for randomness in the plant growth. This really is a ‘brain-based’ application - it strives to subliminally motivate by making productivity fun! Thanks corta, for that link.

Next steps: Simplify the UI and the functionality even more, and tell the story in the simplest way possible. What should the marketing emphasis be? Tracking apps/docs/folders? Beautiful visualization as a plant? What will tell the story in the best way?

Promote Blossom on Digg! and Reddit

2006-10-05T19:05:03Z

Round 3 is underway - help promote Blossom, let’s get the word out!

You can Digg! Blossom
Boost our link on Reddit
Our story at Netscape.com

I noticed both Atmosphere and Ground Control were on the Digg home page - this has totally changed the dynamics of the MyDreamApp competition. Let’s get Blossom up there! It’s time to get the word out and build support for Blossom.

(I’ll soon be adding link graphics and banners you can use to promote Blossom on your blog, mySpace, forum sig, etcetera.) Tell your friends, and vote for Blossom!

New to Blossom? Check out the blog post below for the latest Blossom UI designs, the Judges Comments, and all the recent posts.

Thanks for all your comments, suggestions, and votes!

Ever wonder where all those hours went?

2006-10-04T13:00:04Z

Blossom shows what apps, documents, and folders you’ve been using, encouraging you to spend time on the ones you need to. Meet your goals and watch your virtual plant Blossom!

Vote for Blossom! New to blossom? Read the blog and Judges Comments to learn more.

Here is the latest Blossom UI, with 1-Step custom setup of any app or document. Drag-and-drop setup. Also, check out the simple report. (more on all this below).

Click above for full size UI design.

Simple reports - like the one above, easily accessible by clicking on the plant itself.

More in-depth reports can be generated via the Reports icon - to export to Excel for expense accounting, or to print directly to a printer. Thoughts?

Custom settings for apps and documents. If you’re a web developer or work in a browser a lot, set each web page or domain with the time ratio you would like to spend on it. The same can be done with specific project apps, documents, or even a folder.

In the example above, the user drags a Flash 8 file onto Blossom window, and the Instant setup grid pops up. Moving around the grid selects the custom time ratio X/Y. Drop on the desired ratio, and that app/file/folder is set! Now Blossom will watch for those settings.

While defaults may work for most users, some will want to customize further. In the example above, Blossom can also be set to encourage the user to “Stay Under” the selected time criteria - it’s like telling Blossom “for this Flash file, I want to stay under 30 minutes per hour”. “Stay over” or greater-than, and “Hit it” or equal-to are also options.

For lack of a better terms, “Consequences” can be set to “Lazy” “Medium” or “Strict”. This would influence how immediately or directly productivity criteria for this specific document will affect the plant.

If you’ve got some ideas on better terms to use here, let me know. Regarding the “Instant setup” grid, I wanted a “one drag” way to add custom setup info to Blossom, without going into another dialog box with to many settings per document. Hopefully this is a good solution. Thoughts?

Thanks again — your comments and suggestions have shaped this dream app in many ways, and it’s not done yet!

Round 2 Judges comment on Blossom

2006-09-29T09:25:22Z

Thanks to the Round 2 Judges for their comments. I’ll post a few key quotes:

“…I would finally be able to see how much time I spend in various apps everyday. It’s a truly original idea with a phenomenal featureset and has never been done before.”
– Paul Stamatiou PaulStamatiou.com

“…A very original idea. Is there anything like scientific research that this could be based upon?”
– Oliver Breidenbach O’Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog

Great question, Oliver. Forum member dek pointed out this blog post by Cabel on how gaming motivates users to achieve goals (multiplayer related as well). As far as relevant academic or scientific studies, does anyone know? I’ll look into this too.

John Gruber of DaringFireball.net had such great advice I had to bold some key thoughts:

“This is the best idea in the whole batch: it’s feasible, it would be useful, it might be fun, and people might actually buy it. I can’t say those things about any other idea.
You really need to concentrate on making it as easy, quick, and obvious as possible to configure goals and rules. …
The whole point is to get you to concentrate on the things you want to be concentrating on; Blossom needs to be a motivator, not a distraction in and of itself. Make it as simple as you possibly can. …”

I agree, simple is best. The next round of UI designs will be mindful of this advice - perhaps coming back simpler rather than more ‘feature packed’. Blossom will hide a lot of the magic, detecting opened apps and docs in a smart way - once it’s set up, all you see is a (potentially)healthy plant, and get deeper reports when you want.

Check out this earlier blog post for a lot more UI and functionality discussion.

Blossom - productivity is now fun.

2006-09-28T08:49:55Z

Thanks to everyone for your votes, comments, and suggestions! If you like Blossom, let your friends know, we need your support. With Blossom, plant a seed and watch your productivity grow!

If you’re new to Blossom, feel free to check out the Idea, the Judges Comments, and explore the blog posts here as the idea has progressed.

Check out the blog post below for updated UI concepts, UI discussion, and some (technical) discussion about plant data visualization ideas, features, and more.

Blossom UI, algorithm-based plant growth

2006-09-26T20:43:12Z

Blossom UI concept. Updated! Thanks for all your feedback.

To compare: old ‘drawer’ Blossom UI (thanks dak for the idea of keeping old comps here):
.

I’m getting really excited about data visualization as related to rendering the plant. The other day in the Blossom blog and forum comments ghutchis shared plant simulation links, where people are algorithmically “evolving” plants using L-systems and other methods.

“L-systems also make it easy to “evolve” the plant, since you can have mutants, and go forward/backward generations.” - ghutchis

Forum member dek pointed to sketchTree, an interactive plant with a sketch aesthetic. It’s very cool - I imagine Blossom operating a bit more subtle and slow, but do like the sketch look and feel. I imagine many render options, perhaps like the FX in Photo Booth affecting your plant display:
.

Additional algorithmically generated 3D plants. Every plant can be unique:

From the comments - dek had more great ideas regarding plant behaviour:
“Some examples:
- If you set a lot of different applications, the plant will branch more often.
- If you handle a lot of files, the plant will grow lots of leaves/buds.
- If you concentrate on one application, the plant will bloom big flowers.
- If you are a nervous app-switcher, lots of small flowers/fruits grow.
- Petal colors could be inspired by the applications icon you’ve initially defined in the seed.”

In addition, lots of ideas coming up regarding Bonjour integration and sharing among coworkers for some friendly plant health competition, integration with Leopard’s systemwide Todo’s framework.

Below are more feature details influenced by all the great feedback. Big thanks to shadownight, dek, ghutchis, Pixel Sage, Jason Harris, cobrabyte, Stephen, CajunLuke, wph, Query, Cameron, aaike, Krock Camen, sveskemus, Brian Carter, pottedmeat, verbena, arcticmac, Wynlyndd, Ruahine, Mickey Wember, Jason, rolo_flex, Harald Echmuller, flonejek, Nathan Douglas, and all the others who’ve been supporting Blossom’s feature development.

Blossom feature details:

* Visualize productivity data by quickly glancing at a friendly lifeform (plant), providing an effective and immediate indicator of progress.

* Set specific apps and documents with health criteria to be worked on (or to avoid). Track usage stats of these documents/apps. Use default settings, or set optimal use of app or document per min/hour/day, influencing intensity of food/water or neglect (how quickly the plant grows or wilts based on criteria). Set to a specific User Time Profile, such at “Work 9-5pm”.

* Visual options for your plant - select type of plant from a library of ferns, vines, flowers, trees, etc. Select a planter or ‘ground area’ like rocks, grass, or mulch, Or, set plant type to AUTO and allow Blossom to choose a plant based on your productivity. Choose to display on the desktop (Large 3D, Medium, or Small corner), or reduced as an animated Dock icon.

* Generate tracking reports, tracking history of plant growth/health and associated document and application use data, and be able to ‘roll back’ history to see how plant growth has progressed over time.

Advanced features:

* Multiple plant instances — run additional plants on your desktop with different health settings. For example, one plant can visualize personal productivity, while another represents work productivity.

* Web update — Get new software updates, themes/plants, and productivity default profiles.

* Plug-in lifeform Themes framework — user community can create add-ons — 3D plants, Tamagotchi/Nintendogs-style pets, building of a bridge/city/other animated lifeform responding to health criteria.

Thanks for the helpful comments in this thread.

Blossom in 4th and moving up!

2006-09-25T08:13:18Z

WOW - Blossom is a top favorite, thanks to your Round 1 votes!

To all Blossom voters: Let me know of features you would like to see in Blossom. I’ll review them from this and past comments in the next post. And, please get the word out to your friends for the next round of voting. Let’s move into the top three and see this Dream App get built!

Blossom was also a favorite of Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica:

“Personally, the Atmosphere app and Blossom already kinda’ have me hot & bothered. What can I say, I’m a sucker for stuff on my desktop.”

Wow. Thanks Jacqui!

And check out these quotes from the Blossom Judge’s Comments:

Cabel Sasser - “I’m always thinking about clever ways to solve the problem of work procrastination. I’m one of these guys who will accomplish a task on my to-do list, then immediately take a reward of ten minutes of stupid web browsing, like a mouse eating a piece of e-cheese. Thus, I think this idea is really quite clever — if I know I’m going to be killing a beautiful flower on my desktop by arguing about video games on the internets for twenty minutes, I honestly (honestly!) might think twice about it and go back to work. It’s a great way to try to exercise on-task self-control in a fun way…”

Gus Mueller - “Wow, I really like this idea, and I can’t think of anything else out there like it. Nothing is cooler than an untapped area for programmers to explore.
Where I think Blossom would take root (haha) would be in the UI obviously. There’s so much room for neat ways to get the point across that you’re not living up to your own standards.”

And I can’t leave out David Watanabe’s comment:

“Weird enough to be great. That’s all I can say.” Word.

Thanks to all the Judges for your comments. If you’ve not had a chance to read them all, have a look here. Thanks again to everyone. Look for UI concepts and your favorite features listed in the next post.

Blossom - a smart, fun way to get more work done.

2006-09-23T07:24:52Z

A BIG thanks to everyone for your votes, comments, and suggestions! Thanks to the judges for their comments also! I’m really blown away by the positive response. Awesome!

If you’re new to Blossom, feel free to check out the full description below in the first post, and explore later posts as the ideas have progressed.

Blossom complements the existing programs you use — it’s a simple way to measure your productivity with all the apps and documents on your computer.

Run with the defaults, or customize how much time you need to work in each app. When you’re getting things done, your plant grows. Wasting time? Your plant starts to wilt.

I’m sure there is much more we can and will do visually with CoreAnimation and 3D, but here is a start for ideas:

3D plant images and an animation I found and modified a bit from http://www.vterrain.org/. Note the animated stages of yellow and blue blossoms.

3D Orange flowers and a cherry blossom tree against platinum white.

thanks DaveTbear for this ancient Bristlecone Pine tree image.

Blossom is different than other productivity apps - rather than ‘tracking and recording’ data, it’s making decisions about your activities based on your criteria, determining the health of your plant (and your productivity). Need more productivity details? Click the plant for full stats on your app and document progress.

Blossom works with any apps/documents on your Mac and responds to productivity, providing real-time visual feedback on your progress.