dear debashree
review of user engagement of TAD (The Architect’s Desktop)
My name is Debashree, I am working on user engagement for TAD. Your inputs are extremely valuable for us at Syncspace. From your link - (planning-dissemination/13-tad) I believe you have gone through TAD and the theories and metaphors behind it. In case you have begun using TAD, your feedback would be greatly helpful. Please let me know when I can get in touch with you. Thanks.
Using an application, whose beginnings were based from hobbyist tinkering of interested languages, are difficult as it ignores most conventional intuitive requirements expected from executable software from access to final installation and mandated use to create content. A necessity of even to start, for that matter to be interested to use, requires a warranted framework mostly a comfort barrier that all things are set in place and information accessible when required. Case essentially if/ when of self-learning and possible implementation for a team if viable. To assemble a quantifiable review of engagement of an underdevelopment application is to suggest a comparison between a parallel product that shares frameworks to a degree. NodeBox is located to act as the identified measure to suggest revisions to the software in question. Case for their relation is drawn since they both began as academic projects and developed to meet idiosyncratic design concerns. TAD is in production for a mythical 25 years while the other, NodeBox should be around 8 years. The review is conducted in the context of an ongoing research in concepts of computational design and indigenous design aids produced locally directed for the architecture + construction industry in the region. Elaborating on the impending structure of the review both products are represented as accessed to and worked on simultaneously. Hence, the proposed comparison. Task is limited between locating, installing and finally using help to begin production. As both haven’t entered into workflows need to make new projects with these applications isn’t under compulsion hence interfaces will be reviewed separately over time.
http://nodebox.net/ - is extremely succinct in its product description of being “ family of tools gives you the leverage to create generative design the way you want ”. Beyond which all becomes mostly self-evident. All guidelines of and about [mostly] is covered and presented on the landing page itself.
TAD is located on - http://teamtad.com/ - or it’s assumed. This assumption is based as you are instructed to download the product from the TeamTAD website. But this site and the links associated are ramblings on ideated concepts. It makes it a point of what its not but is unable to be specific in what it does _ “Unlike conventional CAD and/or BIM that helps only in the final stage, TAD helps you design right from the conceptual stage onwards. Right from the time when all you have are space relationships and bubble diagrams. It then goes further. A lot further.”
What the product is further confused with descriptions elaborated at the hyperlink “architectural office anywhere in the world”. Diagrams and text point to elaborate plans but still there is no product you are told exists and content doesn’t direct anywhere in principle or physically.
http://ww3.teamtad.com/ - is, therefore, an incidental find with still no clear word on reaching the page where the famed TAD .exe file is located.
In comparison clarity on the NodeBox download page is the accepted conventional standard with it’s dedicated platform and iterative builds to access with ease.
Beating around links gets to documentation then to installation. TAD Designer Lite apparently the only avenue to drop down a file thus its taken as the application to be availed. Designer Lite is a definite confusion as there is a feeling of missing out on something. There isn’t any TAD Designer for that matter TAD. All in all a very confused arrival and delirious download process with a persistent contemplation if the right file is indeed accessed.
NodeBox in the meanwhile is downloaded, installed and ready to use. TAD Designer Lite though a lighter file, is therefore, possible to access earlier between the two.
Processes getting to use TAD totally make one overlook the NodeBox heavy download and install. First there is a required sign in at gravatar.com and then product logged at the second register on - http://ww3.teamtad.com/RegisterSoftware
Post dual registration is getting to tinker with the application on screen. The splash displayed apparently needs to be clicked [tech support assistance has been availed] to enter the workspace. After phasing through messages of dislocated files, the modeling plane displays.
NodeBox is distinct with its minimalist interface with all nodes accessed via search or its specific categories.
Online help arrived at from the interface is successful in summarizing, though positioning the product in its limits and the possibilities to be availed. Systemic documentation of various builds too is an enabler of getting to expand the knowledge base that which is NodeBox.
Adding to the bewildering interface of TAD Designer Lite, its help is all over the place both metaphorically and physically [you are instructed to look for it too]. An introductory file lays out the limitation of the build. On launch the help document seems to be promising but contents are definitely couldn’t find another testament of unclarity with more than 80% of the material is directed to concepts on formation of the project and select ideas which its author is biased to. And it’s incomplete.
Having examples and case-studies of projects on a particular application significantly aids its understanding which is the case here at NodeBox. The success of the product is its limited scope tightly packaged and presented with distinct constraints. This is extremely useful as dependency to other third party content is avoided and directs the tool to be aligned with a specific set of activities which can be if it’s required immediately for incorporation into an ongoing design project. At face value, there isn’t much to gruff about.
How to understand and use this software?
umm… TAD Designer Lite is simply not a conventional CAD software.
There are no line, arc, etc. commands. It emulates your site and
NOT your drawing board. So people who were expecting to get a CAD
software would get enormously disappointed. Read all documentation
wherever they exist, and in whichever form!
The quote [accessed from the Readme file on Help dropdown] to a degree encapsulates the TAD user experience. If some of the said documents are to be referred it could be noted that the author has claimed to have been disdained by the increasing complexities of running an architectural practice and to reduce the strain incurred decides a re-imagined open-source CAD application should solve his concerns and of the fraternity at-large. The time which has been invested in developing the application hardly seems to have solved the issues earmarked. In fact, it looks to have highlighted the chaotic nature of the work of the author though in a new avatar. The aspect, this comparison has tried to do, is push forward the point that access to a product needs simplification if it wants some kind of user participation. Tactic in screen grabs, is to note TAD requires exactly double the amount of area to get to where NodeBox is if, not significantly and sufficiently falling shot. Out of gratitude one may be obliging to a project but a badly executed one can defiantly not sustain any significant contribution if it’s looking at users for development. Opensource, its point of sale as highlighted, in this case, may end up costing an assignment instead of adding value. Product documentation and ideas [also indicated by the author] are all over the place. The act should be to distil and clarify the product and material representing it. Concepts, those submitted, come out as being overburdening the usage and undermining the product. Most times they don’t work and absolutely not required in the use of TAD. Help CHM is the most miserable document one can come across and in no way make it easy for the user to get around taking a stab. Source files of successful tasks to have used the application could be distributed in entirety as case-studies for emulation in desired workflow. As the author is retired from active architectural practice all projects done by his firm using the application could be archived for reference. Misery lies in the fact that very little has been invested to efficiently explain all parts of the application user interface. If the focus could have been the application instead of concepts to have lead to the application, probably we may have had a bit better product. Goal of what a product help file should achieve seems to have been misplaced. TAD Designer Lite comes off as a personal project made to solve personal problems. If it had the user in mind it may have had greater success both in terms of its adoption and therefore usability.