Logos 6 Paradigm Shifts

1. Complexity Is Back: When Logos 4 was launched, many tools and features of Libronix was done away with a focus on simplicity and a simple User Interface. With Logos 6, the tools and features have grown again. There are several ways of doing the same or similar things. The software seems to have become as complex as the text it aims to simplify, and one has to worry more about what to select and use. I am not saying that the tools are bad, just that simplicity is lost. Logos may have to think how to contain this problem in future releases!

2. Spiritual Life Locked-In To Logos: Logos has become less of a digital library of resources available elsewhere, and more of a set of exclusive tools and Logos-only resources. As we increasingly develop study habits that are dependant on them, a spiritual life outside of Logos is becoming as unimaginable as a life without electricity or internet

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DMB

Peter, I kind of doubt there's too much risk (I agree, Logos tries to avoid 'easy to use' and is surprisingly successful at it).

But judging from Logos4 and Logos5, finding someone who knew how a tool worked was always a challenge (strongly suggesting the tools are for purchasing only). Wiki-fication will likely be an issue in the immediate future.

Graham Criddle

With Logos 6, the tools and features have grown again. There are several ways of doing the same or similar things.

Absolutely the tools, features and capabilities have grown - and there were many fascinating ways people used Logos 4/5 to get access to information they wanted. It's not clear to me that Logos 6 has particularly changed in this regard - can you give some specific examples?

As we increasingly develop study habits that are dependant on them, a spiritual life outside of Logos is becoming as unimaginable as a life without electricity or internet

I don't understand this comment so long as we continue to recognise that Logos software is a tool for our use and not the basis of our spirituality.

David Taylor, Jr.

1. Complexity Is Back: When Logos 4 was launched, many tools and features of Libronix was done away with a focus on simplicity and a simple User Interface. With Logos 6, the tools and features have grown again. There are several ways of doing the same or similar things. The software seems to have become as complex as the text it aims to simplify, and one has to worry more about what to select and use. I am not saying that the tools are bad, just that simplicity is lost. Logos may have to think how to contain this problem in future releases!

2. Spiritual Life Locked-In To Logos: Logos has become less of a digital library of resources available elsewhere, and more of a set of exclusive tools and Logos-only resources. As we increasingly develop study habits that are dependant on them, a spiritual life outside of Logos is becoming as unimaginable as a life without electricity or internet

1. I disagree. It is still simplistic I just think that everyone is overwhelmed at the moment because everything is all at once.

2. I don't see any validity to this comment.

TCBlack

Feature creep happens in every software.

But yes, I see it too.

Bob Pritchett

I think complexity is always a challenge as products mature. We have 'pushed the reset button' several times at Logos (1995, 2001, 2009) with completely new platforms -- more often than most software companies -- but things just keep growing.

I believe that part of the solution is building a family of networked apps that can share what's important (your content, your notes, etc.) through different interfaces and levels of complexity, allowing you to use the right tool for the job -- but at the risk of a different kind of complexity. ('Which tool do I use?...')

This is why we have the Faithlife Study Bible app and the Bible! app in the mobile stores. They're largely the same under the hood, but the FSB app ALWAYS has a Bible and study notes, and has a one-click way to return to the study notes from any other book you've jumped to. You can't 'lose' the Bible through navigation.

In the same way, http://Biblia.com always defaults to a Bible on the left, with other books on the right.

http://EveryDayBible.com simply opens to today's reading, every day, with devotional content and an automatic annual reading plan.

I can imagine a world of apps / sites even more specialized, reflecting how the needs of a devotional reader might differ from those of a seminary student.

What do you think? Is this the right direction?

-- Bob

Geo Philips

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/645739#Comment_645739

Hi Bob,

I would agree generally. However I feel that beyond desktop, mobile (in its various iterations) and web, it becomes hard to keep track of different products.

On the Web, i feel Biblia and FSB is a good one-two punch. Could some of the other layouts be made an UI option on these two sites (Biblia already can accomodate various UI layouts but it does not remember them nor does it have some default options - like a devotional view. Plus I feel FSB looks more modern, can't place the reason why.)

Also, in the long-run, maybe there can be a Logos API that other apps could connect to. I am not sure of the vibrancy of the Christian app ecosystem but it would be cool.

Schalk Klee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/645739#Comment_645739

Bob,

I understand the issue you are facing. It is difficult to keep enhancing the features & functions while keeping the usability high. I personally do not like the idea of having to download and maintain many apps to access the same data sets.

My suggestion: Would it be possible to introduce "layout types". Example: a layout type for Devotional reading, one for Sermon prep, one for detailed textual studies. You could even go as far as to reduce the context sensitive menus based on the layout type being used. Provide another "master" layout type that has all features and let the user remove the features they do not need in a specific layout type. Based on the layout type, I could define one or more layouts.

I believe this will create the same effect as the multiple apps, but allow me to do it all in one place, even when I am not hooked up to the internet. I can then effectively build my own apps in your framework.

Thanks for the great job your team is doing. Much appreciated.

Regards,

Schalk

Eli Evans (Logos)

This is a great discussion. Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

The paradigm hasn't shifted, at least not intentionally. The way we see it, we're delivering more value within the existing paradigm. I don't know if you've been using Logos 6 much, but it's just as easy to use as Logos 4/5 were, and if you avoid the specialist tools, it's still simple.

One of our design mottoes is: "Easy things should be easy, and difficult things should be possible." In Logos 6, I think we've brought clear improvements on both fronts.

Easy things should be easy

With Factbook, it's now much simpler to read information from your various datasets. What used to take running the Bible Facts tool, Topic Guide, and Sermon Starter Guide now comes wrapped up in one tool.
With Everything Search, it's now much simpler to find data in your resources. What used to take knowing about and running different types of Search now comes in one.
Inline Search, while being one of "several ways of doing the same or similar things" (search), really does streamline the chore of getting a quick concordance of a term in your Bible.
There are a lot of other incremental improvements to common tasks.

Difficult things should be possible

Label Entry allows interested parties to collaborate on shared markup projects. It's basically a way to attach an arbitrary row of data to an arbitrary range of text in the library. That's flexible, powerful, abstract, complex, and easy to ignore if you never need it. Of course you need to be able to search for those labels, and that's going to require some kind of flexible, powerful, abstract, and complex syntax. Which is easy to ignore if you never need it.
Attaching notes to multiple anchor points is something that you may never need, but people who want it really want it. It's tucked away in a menu where it's ready if you need it, out of the way if you don't.
Ancient Literature and Cultural Concepts makes it possible to compare the Bible to other ancient books. If you never need to do that, you'll hopefully close or remove the section.
Are these things complex? Yoobetcha. But it's not the software that makes them complex; they're inherently complex tasks that the software makes possible.

We specifically didn't create new tools for some of the new datasets. For example, the Cultural Concepts dataset is exposed in Factbook and in Passage Guide. You don't need to learn how to master a new Cultural Concepts browser tool; the new information appears alongside everything you're familiar with. Same for Semantic Roles and Case Frames, which are exposed in Clause Search and Bible Word Study.

I highly recommend this article:

Photoshop is a City for Everyone
http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/13/3959868/photoshop-is-a-city-for-everyone-how-adobe-endlessly-rebuilds-its

Logos is also a "city for everyone," and our hope is that in version 6.0, it's just as livable and clean a city as it ever was, just with a few more neighborhoods.

If there are places where you-all think the "difficult things" interfere with or get in the way of the "easy things" we definitely want to hear about that. We do want to build more services and attractions for our city (while simultaneously upgrading the pipes), but at the same time, we don't want those new amenities to make it more difficult to live and work and get around.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/645739#Comment_645739

http://EveryDayBible.com simply opens to today's reading, every day, with devotional content and an automatic annual reading plan.

Cool! This is new. I hadn't heard about it before. Thanks for letting us know, and thanks Faithlife for creating it!

Mark Barnes

1. Complexity Is Back: When Logos 4 was launched, many tools and features of Libronix was done away with a focus on simplicity and a simple User Interface. With Logos 6, the tools and features have grown again. There are several ways of doing the same or similar things. The software seems to have become as complex as the text it aims to simplify, and one has to worry more about what to select and use. I am not saying that the tools are bad, just that simplicity is lost. Logos may have to think how to contain this problem in future releases!

Peter, out of interest, can I ask if you've used Logos 6 yet. I've been using it quite heavily for the last few weeks (I was part of the beta-testing team), and my experience is the opposite. I'd say that Logos 6 has simplified a lot of tasks for me.

Randy W. Sims

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/645995#Comment_645995

"Easy things should be easy, and difficult things should be possible."

Logos is nothing like Perl. [;)]

I think the interface is the way to solve complexity and Logos is looking really good in v6. Maybe could split up the Tools menu into two, increase white space in a few areas like the Library, but everything else looks much more polished and refined. Still exploring but I'm really liking all the touches to the interface.

Richard Lyall

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/646007#Comment_646007

Some thoughts in response to OP ...

Point 1: "Paradigm Shift" - adding new tools does not mean the paradigm has shifted. When I updated to L6 earlier today, the same desktop came up as before, with my usual devotional\study layout. A casual onlooker might ask "so what did you just pay for - it looks the same." At one level this is correct - because I am able to continue working exactly as before using the same tools as before, same resources, same layout. But there is a bucketload of new things to find. But I am not forced to rework my study paradigm at all. It is as simple or complex as I need it to be. So I disagree with Point 1.

Point 2: "Locked in". I'm not sure what the concern is here. My spiritual life is no more locked into Logos than my diet is "locked in" to my set of kitchen knives, or my local Tesco. Those are there tool for getting something done. If L6 offers facilities unavailable elsewhere, then it is a pioneering tool, and there won't be alternatives, unless someone attempts to create one. How much you buy into this is up to you.

Any of us can walk away at any point if we want to (although we won't because we've invested a lot of money). I've gone back to a paper Bible for most devotional reading - this is because the physicality of a book, where things are on the page, is helpful for me, and it's less distracting, but Logos is always to hand for digging deeper.

Eli Evans (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/646013#Comment_646013

Logos is nothing like Perl.

Gold star for catching the reference, Randy! (And no, it really isn't.)

Eli Evans (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/646013#Comment_646013

I think the interface is the way to solve complexity and Logos is looking really good in v6. Maybe could split up the Tools menu into two, increase white space in a few areas like the Library, but everything else looks much more polished and refined. Still exploring but I'm really liking all the touches to the interface.

Thanks for noticing! One of the things we did with L6 was a comprehensive typography, spacing, and color review on all of the guides and tools. There is now much less visual variation -- for example, second-level headings in guide sections are all pretty much the same now, where they were wildly different in L4/5.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/646006#Comment_646006

http://EveryDayBible.com simply opens to today's reading, every day, with devotional content and an automatic annual reading plan.

Cool! This is new. I hadn't heard about it before. Thanks for letting us know, and thanks Faithlife for creating it!

BTW, this is so cool that how come it's not advertised as one of the Logos Websites on https://www.logos.com/websites?

Drew Hannay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/646515#Comment_646515

http://EveryDayBible.com simply opens to today's reading, every day, with devotional content and an automatic annual reading plan.

Cool! This is new. I hadn't heard about it before. Thanks for letting us know, and thanks Faithlife for creating it!

BTW, this is so cool that how come it's not advertised as one of the Logos Websites on https://www.logos.com/websites?

I think there are plans to make it even cooler, so maybe they're waiting until that happens? There's also a mobile app in beta that the two mobile interns worked on this summer: https://community.logos.com/forums/p/91295/634531.aspx