Over the next week I need to schedule something like nine phone calls with artists living in New York, California, London, and Canada, among places and time zones. Also, I work in New York from 9am to 6pm, 5 days a week. Coordinating these phone appointments by email would be a major headache not only for me but for everyone involved. That’s where doodle.com comes in.
In one semi-cryptic sentence doodle.com is democratic, complex decision making and scheduling done right.
How it works:
I decide that instead of bouncing back and forth forever on email, text, and IM between 9 people to find dates that work I will go to doodle.com and pick dates and times that work for me. (e.g. 9pm on Sunday) I set these time slots through next week, which is the period in which I want to have the conversations.
I send a secret link to my doodle.com page to each of the people I want to talk to. One email is sent once to nine people.
Each of the people clicks on the link, checks one of my times that works for them, and hits save. (There is no need for anyone to register at all or provide any information besides their name, but I provided my email address initially so that I get a confirmation each time someone picks a time.) Our shared time is immediately blocked off for others so that nobody else can pick it.
I get a table like the one above that shows me who to call and when. No double booking. No confusion. No headaches, period.
What’s really awesome is the extensibility. Almost every function when creating the form is an option, so I was able to check no duplicates and enable timezones. Doodle.com has a separate (but similar) functionality for group voting on things like, “where should we have dinner next week?”
Not only is this an example of excellent design, it’s a triumph of technology. When technology works, and this really works, it’s fabulous.
