How to use Xale

In-app guide: help when it's useful, not when you're busy

How to use Xale, shown inside Xale: a Guide in the header of every page, a setup list that ticks itself, and short tours you start when you're ready, never when you're busy.

What you can do with the guide

  • A Guide on every page. It sits in the page's header, with a small ring that shows how much of your setup is done.
  • A setup list that ticks itself. Choose a look, add the example space, name your Areas, add the people who matter, put Xale on your phone, connect Google Calendar. Each one ticks when you've done it, wherever you did it.
  • Show me around. A tour of the whole app in about two minutes: from a thought on your mind, to a map, to a task, to your Day and to Now.
  • A short tour for each page. Home, Notes, Lists, Mindmaps, Day, Habits, Meetings, Projects, Captures, People and Settings each have one, behind the "?" in the header. The first time you visit, a quiet line offers it once.
  • Nothing starts on its own. Tours begin only when you ask. Skip a step, close the tour and pick up later where you left off, and the page stays usable the whole time.
  • Tips with a "Show me". Short tips, like dragging a task onto your Day, each take you straight to the place they describe.
  • Quiet when you want quiet. The occasional one-line tip can be hidden everywhere with "Hide all tips" in Settings → Appearance.

Why I wanted a guide instead of a manual

Xale has enough connected pieces that a short tour helps you see the shape of the whole thing. But a tutorial that jumps in while you're trying to think is worse than none.

So the help waits in one place, in the header of every page, and comes out when you ask for it.

Rachit, founder of Xale

The ideas behind the guide

People learn by doing, not by reading

Most people skip the manual and start pressing things.

  • Worth reading: John M. Carroll, The Nurnberg Funnel (1990). People learn software best from short, task-first guidance they can act on straight away.
  • The usual way: a long walkthrough on the first day, forgotten by the second.
  • In this release: short tours that point at the real page, and a setup list you tick by doing.

An interruption costs more than it seems

Breaking someone's concentration has a price, even when the help is good.

  • Worth reading: Gloria Mark, Daniela Gudith and Ulrich Klocke, "The cost of interrupted work" (2008). Interrupted people worked faster to catch up, and reported more stress and frustration.
  • The usual way: pop-ups on the first visit to every screen.
  • In this release: nothing starts until you ask; a first visit gets one quiet line at most.

Further reading

  • Gloria Mark, Daniela Gudith and Ulrich Klocke, "The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress", CHI 2008. doi:10.1145/1357054.1357072
sign up — free

Free to start. Already using Xale? sign in