WebCrate: The Future of Cataloguing the Web

[TekkadanPlays]

"Group, organize and share links from around the web with WebCrate. It's more than just a bookmarking tool."

First, I'll present the drawbacks of the current WebCrate; then I'll offer suggestions for future capabilities that might expand upon the app's capabilities and allow it to meet its own expectations.

ORGANIZING

Stay Organized
"Want to read an article later, or save a link to an useful website? No problem, WebCrate lets you organize each link into different collections called crates using intuitive drag and drop!"

Issue 1: Organization. In its current state, WebCrate offers "crates" which are single-level directories for storing bookmarks (URL's), and custom memos alongside each URL.

QUICK SEARCH

Never Lose a Link Again
"Just drop a link into your WebCrate and later search for it using quick search based on the title, description or URL."

Issue 1 (ext): Organization. Currently, WebCrate's solution to a user "losing" a Crate (or URL) within the application is a smart search bar which provides decent capabilities for searching through catalogued URL's/memos.

Issue 2: Tagging. Memos can offer the user a way to tag but shouldn't be the only way to tag a URL, or crate.

In summary, the primary issues regarding WebCrate is a lack of nested directories and tagging capabilities.

These confusions are native to bookmarking applications in general. It's tough to present raw, user-aggregated data, in a pleasant visual format that is equally user-friendly. It's like designing a web browser, or a file explorer, or a messaging application. It can easily become redundant from a development standpoint, or even from the perspective of the user's personal cataloging experience.

I will now describe the main instances in which historically the bookmarking system of my web browser or "bookmarks bar" has been used:

1. The most obvious, when saving the main URL of a web page. For instance, "http://github.com/", so the user can remember that Github exists, and they may include a memo (as offered by WebCrate), such as "The complete developer platform to build, scale, and deliver secure software." These bookmarks are often stored in the "bookmarks bar" with custom titles for quick access. I'll add more about this below.

2. The most common, when saving a specific URL, whose domain may be irrelevant to the user's bookmarking habits. For instance, a news article on a news site they don't frequent. Maybe a specific recipe they found. It could be a specific project on the Github domain. These are the bulk of our bookmarks, the "information" that we want to access later. It isn't necessarily the URL that is special, but in fact the information stored at the URL's destination.

3. The most time-sensitive: Sometimes we need to restart our PC's. Sometimes our browser needs to update. Sometimes we have too many projects open in one browser and we don't necessarily want to commit every tab to its own bookmark. Sometimes we simply want to read something at a later time. WebCrate offers "Read Later" which inherently only acts as its own crate or collection of URL's.

Now, traditionally a "bookmarks bar" that is built into a web-browser displays both parent-level bookmarks and directories that exist within the bookmarks catalogue. So, it acts as a parent-level bookmarks directory, containing all bookmarks. This is useful at first but can become a mess of "quick links" and directories. Temporarily pinned links can also muddle this situation to add even more clutter.

My suggestions come from two places- the inherent need to catalogue, tag, and share the web as a whole; and the place of trying to use WebCrate to do so.

Below are some mockups and notes I've created which offer a redesigned WebCrate experience. I have tried to stay true to WebCrate's format and design, while expanding on its native capabilties:

Sidebar notes

Currently the very top of the sidebar is non-interactive.
Regarding the top of the sidebar where it says "Bookmarks". I suggest converting this into a "Home" button.

To account for the replacement of the "custom name," regarding the very top of the sidebar (where I suggest a home button), users should be able to publish crates (or collections of crates) under any designated name at time of sharing. This information could be expanded on, such as providing descriptions or hotlinks to specific accounts associated with the published information. For example, if a user were to share a collection of crates to a popular social media website, they may want to credit themselves as the publisher of the crate by linking the same social media account it has been shared from.

Below the home button would be "Bookmarks, Read Later, Inbox" respectively.

Bookmarks: Clicking bookmarks would take you to a near-identical page to the above mockup. This would create a sort of "dual home page" situation, since "Bookmarks" and "Crates" will be catalogued and navigated identically. Beneath the sidebar hotlinks, "My Crates" would instead say "My Bookmarks" and below offer nested directories of simple bookmarks. This would tuck away quick links from the main page, which may seem a bit counter-intuitive (in terms of adding a single click), but it should make sense as to why I would offer this suggestion by the end of this post.

Read Later: Again, currently this feature doesn't fundamentally exist in WebCrate, and natively there is a "Quick Search" button. I suggest in the above mockup that the "Quick Search" bar would become integrated with the home page. Instead we should have a "Read Later" page which would store links quickly for later browsing or cataloguing. There's two situations in which a "Read Later" function can be useful- for quickly storing a URL for the straightforward act of "reading it later"; and also in instances when we restart our browser etc. Not all browsers offer a "restore" function- but aside from that, sometimes users simply want to save "sessions" of open instances. This functionality is slowly creeping into relevancy but I believe WebCrate should offer it. This could be implemented into the FireFox extension to quickly generate a list of all open URL's (within the open window) and allow the user to decide how to group and store these URL's.

As with the bookmarks change, I want to suggest a full nested directory in the sidebar for "Read Later". In place of "My Crates" or "My Bookmarks" it should say "Read Later" and offer directories of URL's. This allows the user to not just "read them later" but also slowly read through collections and catalogue accordingly. It may seem redundant at first, but I believe in practice this would allow a temporary workspace for users within WebCrate.

Inbox: At this point leaving the Inbox may seem redundant as well, but I don't think so! Currently WebCrate does attempt at "quickly bookmarking a URL" and I think this should remain a top priority. So, not much changes to this. Inbox would contain incomplete "crates" or orphaned URL's. The Inbox will again act as a temporary workspace, allowing the user to compile their crates and bookmarks before directing them to their proper home. The Inbox would not need directories, and the sidebar could merely display "My Crates".

External Crates: I suggest changing "External Crates" to "Shared Crates" for a more native social feel.

Home Page Notes

Search Bar: Search bar would be integrated into the home page, allowing quick access.

New Bookmark or New Crate: This dual button format would allow quick creation from the home page of either Bookmarks or Crates. Clicking either would direct the user immediately toward the "bookmark creation" or "crate creation" page, where they could include relevant information and appropriate tags.

Pinned links: Here I would suggest being able to pin Bookmarks for the most convenient access. Not all bookmarks are accessed frequently, but some are, so they should have presence here.

Pinned crates: Here the user could pin frequently accessed crates, which would be especially convenient for "works in progress," such as those found in the Inbox. In my mind, crates would be a unique collection, and I would be eager to share them once completed, so for the user's most frequently shared crates, they would probably like to be pinned for convenience too.

Below is a mockup of how directories would be displayed within WebCrate. "My Crates" would instead display the name of the directory currently being accessed. Below it would only display contained directories.

At this point you may be confused, "Why offer a separate Bookmarks experience if we are still using Crates?"

Well, a crate is just a directory of URL's. Let's redefine a crate.

A crate should actually be able to contain an infinite(?) amount of URL's. It should also allow individual memos for each URL. In addition to URL's and memos, the user should be able to tag each individual submission. This was sort of redundant, because crates technically do that already. But giving us the ability to nest and tag crates would allow us to also visualize and manage our crates more aptly. See the example below.

Below is a mockup of the potentially improved browser extension.

Summary

Users should be able to save bookmarks within nested directories and apply tags to them. They should also be able to create crates containing infinite(?) URL's, memos, and tags applicable to each submission. Crates should also be catalogued within nested directories. Crates should be shareable, while bookmarks can simply offer a "copy URL" button (it can look the same as a share button for uniformity). Directories of crates should also be shareable. This would allow categorical freedom within shared crates.

When viewing a directory (of crates), the user should be displayed each submitted URL/memo/tag/embedded media in a list format.

In future releases, users could then share collections of crates organized in directories. These could contain a wealth of information or knowledge, summarized or amended by memos, and ideally with embedded media elements. Each link within a crate should offer a "copy link" button somewhere underneath each submission.

The user should be able to share crates (individual, or collections) with others via a generated link. In theory this should allow people to create crates for a variety of purposes, here are two examples:

1. When browsing an article, a user want to summarize it and only include a couple of relative photographs. So with this update to WebCrate, they could include the article's URL and memos about the article (including notations and edits!).

2. A crate containing a collection of URL's specific to the user's (or recipient's) needs. For instance, a shopping list containing products from a variety of websites. Or, a collection of recipes or articles. Etc.

I believe these changes would allow users to catalogue and share the web in a new way, that a traditional bookmarks bar doesn't deliver.

Additional Comments

Offer a "back" button to the left of the current directory name in the sidebar, or a "return to parent directory" button to the right. (Added to mockup)

Memos within a crate should include standard editing tools, such as text positioning, formatting, weighting and size, etc, for a more personalized crating experience. This would allow users to quote original articles, make amends, or compile various bits of information from across the web into a single formatted, shareable collection. (Added to mockup)

I may [continue to] add to this post but I wanted to start the discussion and allow other people to chime in with suggestions.