I love the idea of
mindbloom. And the implementation is really cool. I like how it sends you an email every day as a reminder. But, you'll notice my tree is all brown and dead looking. The problem I find is that when I get a little behind, I become kind of ashamed, and it makes me not want to face up to my failure, which makes me want to stay away more. I'm told mindbloom works better if you have friends, so maybe I'm not the demographic. Check it out, though -- there is a lot of promise here.
Well, I think you are right. Friends or not, I think that shame doesn't work out too well! Especially with digital life forms. I'd have a similar reaction once I had no time for nintendogs, and it probably is even worse with a work related productivity tool. I'd get all worked up over the pseudo-guilt, which isn't exactly what I'd think to be the goal in ux design. why not rather work with positive reinforcement? (ok, everyone is doing that)
ReplyDeletegotta try out mindbloom for myself though. thanks for sharing!
I found the guilt-to-ignore thing happened to me with a great goal-setting app I used to use. I'll give this thing a whirl, though.
ReplyDeleteI can't seem to search for friends who are already on there, just invite new ones. Sneaksy?
Yeah, you can't search for friends, because mindbloom respects your privacy, sadly to its detriment, I think. I'll be your mindbloom buddy!
ReplyDeleteI just discovered this while watching Jesse's speech on FORA.tv (hi Jesse!). Except for the annoying freemium model thing which makes you struggle for each and every seedling I think its pretty cool. I like the way its designed to feel like a chilled out and 'open' place where you can just hang out in.
ReplyDeleteThere must be some clever way to get around the 'shame' factor. I for one avoided going to go back to Animal Crossing after months of neglect, avoiding the inevitable trauma of having to witness spiders and cobwebs everywhere :(
http://www.heartx5.com/