Toodledo is an online to-do list service. In a saturated market, it’s important that a service stands out in order to be distinguished among the other competitors. On a superficial level, I like Toodledo more than I like other services like Remember the Milk, todoist, and ta-da lists. Toodledo is intuitive and simple to use. Don’t let the ease of use placate you into thinking that Toodledo lacks features, because it doesn’t. It has all the necessary components in the free version to make it a useful product.

User Interface:

I give Toodledo four stars on the UI portion. It’s very easy to navigate, comfortable to look at, and sports a clean interface. I opted to utilize Folder view (one of many choices) because I like to keep things organized by a specific goal. The basic hierarchy is that tasks are contained in folders. This approach makes it easy to separate high-level tasks and keep them organized. You also have the option of collapsing the details for each task, but I prefer to have them open. Not much is hidden from the main window – the only reason I leave it is to change some settings or to add tasks. To get that 5th star, I would like to see a more customizable user interface with the option to collapse folders individually instead of “all or none”.

User Experience:

After using Toodledo, I can’t think of a single thing I would change as far as usability goes. It’s simple, efficient, and powerful all at the same time. Since the site utilizes AJAX, there’s not a lot of page loads and page changes to wait on. You’re also allowed to filter, sort, and search through your tasks, which makes finding anything amazingly easy.

Features:

I feel that Toodledo has all the features I’m looking for in a task management application. The core functions – due dates, recurrence, prioritizing, and status – are all present. One feature I didn’t expect to see was a timer function, which allows you to easily track how much time you spend on a task. Click the play button for the task and it starts counting. When finished, press pause. It doesn’t get any easier than that without reading your mind.

OpenID support is present in this application, which is how I signed up my account. This was my first use of OpenID. Once you have an account (either traditional or through OpenID), you can add the other authentication method to your account without canceling out the other.

Toodledo has integration into Twitter, Google Calender, Google Homepage, Firefox, iPhone/iPod Touch, and a developer API. The Firefox addon is great for checking on tasks and loads directly into the sidebar. You can actually do everything through the sidebar that you can do through the website, but I prefer the site to the sidebar because it organizes tasks much better.

I deducted half a star for having features not available in the free version. There are some features that would be nice to have, but aren’t deal breakers. The fact that they’re holding something from users is irritating, so they’ll take a slight penalty for it.

Feature comparison with other similar sites

Performance:

Performance of the application is fantastic. The site is snappy and responsive, and doesn’t require extra page loads due to its use of AJAX. In Firefox 3, the application has no quirks or bugs that I’ve found. It doesn’t make the computer lag or cause any other issues with bandwidth.

Overall Impression:

There are some extra features unlocked by subscribing to a paid account, but I don’t feel that they warrant the expense. Users are allowed to publicly share their tasks so friends can keep track of accomplishments. I guess you could use this as a motivational tool or just to keep people informed of your progress.

If you’re looking for an online task management suite, look no further. I find Remember the Milk to be too cumbersome and ta-da lists to be too confusing. Toodledo is neither. There are a few minor annoyances (paid subscriptions, more UI tweaks) that prevent me from giving it five stars, but it’s a solid application nonetheless. It’s certainly the best I’ve found yet and will definitely pull me away from Thunderbird’s task manager. For now, I’ll call it the best online task manager suite available.