[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":164},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-building-capacities":3,"related-why-the-name-capacities-how-it-started":62},{"id":4,"title":5,"authorKey":6,"body":7,"category":42,"date":43,"dateFormatted":44,"description":45,"extension":46,"icon":47,"iconColor":47,"imagePath":48,"keywords":49,"meta":52,"navigation":53,"path":54,"readingTime":55,"relatedArticles":56,"seo":59,"stem":60,"__hash__":61},"blog/blog/building-capacities.md","How we decide which new features to add","steffen",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":38},"minimark",[10,14,17,20,23,26,29,32,35],[11,12,13],"p",{},"We often get asked how we decide which features we add to @CapacitiesHQ. 🗺️",[11,15,16],{},"Here’s the answer. 👇",[11,18,19],{},"Very important: Every feature starts with a need or problem. There should never be a feature if it’s not solving a real problem. This cannot be stressed enough. Otherwise, you’re building a product with no real value and a lot of clutter.",[11,21,22],{},"We draw most feature inspiration from our community's feedback and by using the product ourselves. This helps us identify problems and friction points that stop users from getting their work done. We sometimes joke that our community is our first employee: a rigorous tester, opinion consolidator, and key source of inspiration.",[11,24,25],{},"Feature requests and explicit product improvements can be added to our feedback board, voted and commented on by other users. We review and cluster all requests and analyze their importance. This helps us to get a better understanding of the different needs and problems of our users.",[11,27,28],{},"In long and intense discussions, we combine all requests, comments, and ideas with our intuition and vision for what Capacities should become. We always radically aim for usefulness and simplicity – Capacities should just work and help, nothing else.",[11,30,31],{},"When features are big and fundamental, we share proposals or plans in our community for feedback. This ensures that we constantly have our users at the table with us. We fine-tune and iterate until we find a draft that fits into the greater picture.",[11,33,34],{},"Then we start creating. After a first draft, we introduce an early version to a small, selected group of alpha testers. In intense and incredibly helpful discussions, we optimize the last 20% in a combined effort. We refine the feature by addressing issues, polishing details, and enhancing interactions.",[11,36,37],{},"After a feature is released to all users, it’s not done. We constantly improve, iterate, and measure how it fits into users' workflows. Every feature is part of a continuous evolution of the overall product. We constantly strive to build a unified and consistent product – a beautiful environment to think and work in: a Studio for your Mind.",{"title":39,"searchDepth":40,"depth":40,"links":41},"",2,[],"team-product","2024-03-04","Mar 6, 2024","What's our decision making process? Here's the answer.","md",null,"/blog/building-capacities.jpg",[50,51],"Feature development","Build in public",{},true,"/blog/building-capacities","2 min",[57,58],"why-the-name-capacities","how-it-started",{"title":5,"description":45},"blog/building-capacities","yUEsybivkdEpilRjL0YjnGhgRSjIYeDYSFuYsPOVPcQ",[63,103],{"id":64,"title":65,"authorKey":66,"body":67,"category":42,"date":43,"dateFormatted":89,"description":90,"extension":46,"icon":47,"iconColor":47,"imagePath":91,"keywords":92,"meta":95,"navigation":53,"path":96,"readingTime":97,"relatedArticles":98,"seo":100,"stem":101,"__hash__":102},"blog/blog/why-the-name-capacities.md","Why the name \"Capacities\"","michael",{"type":8,"value":68,"toc":87},[69,72,75,78,81,84],[11,70,71],{},"Members of our community have recently asked us about the origin of the name \"Capacities\" for our note-taking app.",[11,73,74],{},"From the beginning, we wanted to build something that empowers users – a tool that makes people more productive. At the same time, we wanted our app to be something that is not a quick \"hack\" or a tactical \"trick\" to be more productive, but to enable users more profoundly and fundamentally.",[11,76,77],{},"For us, \"Capacities\" was a very good fit for what we wanted the product to be. By putting it in the plural, we wanted it to express the versatility of the product. There's not just one way to use it or one single use case but instead a whole toolkit for knowledge work.",[11,79,80],{},"While we are happy with the name, it is also true that it is a bit too long with 4 syllables. It also tends to take too long to convey the name with the correct spelling when introducing it to people. Another signal seems to be the lack of stickiness and recognizability: In some user messages, people accidentally call it \"Capabilities\" instead of \"Capacities\", and it happened more than once.",[11,82,83],{},"Among our users and in our community, a shorter name has emerged: people simply call it \"Cap\".",[11,85,86],{},"The name has served us well so far, but we are also thinking about making it something shorter and catchier. It is not our highest priority at the moment, but something we are talking about once in a while.",{"title":39,"searchDepth":40,"depth":40,"links":88},[],"Mar 4, 2024","A short history of how Capacities got its name and what it means to us.","/blog/why-the-name-capacities.jpg",[93,94],"Knowledge Management","Productivity",{},"/blog/why-the-name-capacities","3 min",[99,58],"building-capacities",{"title":65,"description":90},"blog/why-the-name-capacities","NSbPoAT10I6heZIU9-sCYunJXNr0Tds-5Uw-v6Iq6V8",{"id":104,"title":105,"authorKey":6,"body":106,"category":42,"date":151,"dateFormatted":152,"description":153,"extension":46,"icon":47,"iconColor":47,"imagePath":154,"keywords":155,"meta":158,"navigation":53,"path":159,"readingTime":55,"relatedArticles":160,"seo":161,"stem":162,"__hash__":163},"blog/blog/how-it-started.md","Why did we decide to build Capacities?",{"type":8,"value":107,"toc":149},[108,120,123,126,129,132],[11,109,110,111,115,116,119],{},"Everything started at university in Germany. Michael and I studied computer science and electrical engineering and realized this big divide between the ",[112,113,114],"strong",{},"technologies we were learning about"," and the ",[112,117,118],{},"technologies we were learning with",".",[11,121,122],{},"It struck us how unnatural most processes were: exchanging files, monolithic large documents, presentations, etc. We knew that there must be a better way. Today's technologies are so powerful. We knew we could build something simple and intuitive yet powerful and versatile. Something so natural that all friction and issues magically disappear, something that does not force us into adjusting our thinking to it but something that is an extension of ourselves.",[11,124,125],{},"All solutions out there did not meet what we had in mind. Some where based on traditional principles; they inherit a lot of biases from computer architectures: Folders, files, tables, and hierarchies. Others were complicated to get started with, had overwhelming degrees of freedom, or required commands and special syntax. They were not simple enough.",[11,127,128],{},"We decided to start from scratch. We threw away all assumptions about computers and how we work with them. We started with the human being in the center and got inspired by our natural way of interacting with our environment. That’s where everything started.",[11,130,131],{},"Read more:",[133,134,135,143],"ul",{},[136,137,138],"li",{},[139,140,142],"a",{"href":141},"/about/principles","Our principles",[136,144,145],{},[139,146,148],{"href":147},"/about/manifesto","Our manifesto",{"title":39,"searchDepth":40,"depth":40,"links":150},[],"2024-03-13","Mar 13, 2024","Knowledge work can be overwhelming. There must be a better way, so we decided to do it ourselves.","/blog/how-it-started.jpg",[156,157],"Origin story","Knowledge management",{},"/blog/how-it-started",[57,99],{"title":105,"description":153},"blog/how-it-started","FFhq00AomCENeh-0oz0gzxW2I7k72YKgMY0Sd5-HBhk",1776250823078]