[dev] UI feedback

[Jan Schneider]

Zitat von Michael M Slusarz <slusarz at horde.org>:

> Using the interface over the weekend, these are my thoughts (on imp):
>
> * Padding has not grown at me.  At all.  It is wasting space on the  
> screen and is distracting.  We need to get rid of it.  (For the  
> record, I had raised these concerns in the original feedback.  I  
> didn't feel the need to raise them again the 2nd goaround, since it  
> would have just been repetitive of the original feedback).

The padding was already reduced in the 2nd round, so I assumed that we  
all are (more or less, but at least sufficiently) happy with it.
I don't think we will really find a padding that everybody is happy  
with anyway, so I only see another theme as the only option, like  
mentioned in my earlier reply. I personally find it less distracting  
*with* the padding, especially for the inexperienced user. Those are  
the users who complained most about the current design, advanced users  
care more about functionality than design.

> * On the compose screen, why is there so much padding between  
> Priority and Encryption?  It looks broken.  The popdown buttons are  
> too far away from the text here (and in Folder Actions in mailbox  
> screen).  Popdown positioning does seem appropriate in both the top  
> bar and action buttons.

Needs fixing.

> * Shouldn't the search icon appear before the search box rather than  
> after?  As currently styled, there should probably be some sort of  
> separator between search and logout.

I think the idea is to make that a submit button (and of course also  
mark the search field). As such it makes more sense after the input  
field. That functionality isn't implemented yet though.

> * Still totally disagree about the large/bolded subject.  That's  
> just bad UI theory.  Duplication of data with no benefit (and users  
> are never going to look at that information anyway).

I think you are going to convince me on that, there isn't much I can  
say against those arguments.

> And IIRC, we did analytics (at least at SAPO) and most users DO have  
> the preview header expanded to show To/Cc/Bcc, so this is an issue.
>
> * There's also no discernible indication that the preview header can  
> be toggled.  Or that the From/To/Cc/Bcc names are associated with a  
> context menu.

Since they have context menus, shouldn't they have a popdown icon  
anyway, for consistency? Consistency is also the reason that I removed  
the default underline, because those, and the address book links in  
the compose window, were the only active elements that used those  
markup.

> * There's an issue where the preview pane is not correctly sizing to  
> the bottom of the screen.  The right vertical scroll bar is floating  
> about 10px above the bottom of the browser window.

Yes, I noticed this too, needs fixing before the final release.

> * Folder lists are broken: everything after the first child level is  
> displayed at the same indentation.  Really not digging the icons  
> either - the expand/collapse folder icons are impossible to  
> distinguish.

Indention needs fixing, I only have one sub-level, so I didn't notice.

I agree with the icons, but it's what we got for now, and I'm not  
designer enough to make the plus/minus badges larger from the vector  
sources that we have.

> * We need to expand the space for the flag icons.  At times, you can  
> only see one icon.  Probably need to expand From also.  I Understand  
> Subject is the most "important" information, but right now way it is  
> taking up too much space.  (Maybe this is motivation to implement  
> dynamically expanding columns.)

Yes, I wasn't going to look into this until the icons are sorted out though.

> * Hiding groups of icons in the context menus are broken - double  
> separator lines exist.  This was working fine before switching themes.

The double separators are actually the old separators which grouped  
menu items. Since we have now borders between every item, I needed to  
find some way to highlight groups. Thicker lines didn't work with the  
design. I'm open for better suggestions, I don't like the current  
solution much either.

> * Action buttons are broken - or at least are not intuitive since  
> they require clicking on the text.  Clicking the surrounding  
> space/icon doesn't work.  There needs to be a definable area to  
> click on - namely, all space inside of the vertical separators.

Yes, that was broken in the delivered design. I planned to look into this.

> * Is there a reason the font was changed?  I'm finding the current  
> serif font (at least on Windows) more difficult to read - it is too  
> narrow.  I much prefer the old font we were using.

Serif? The default font is Arial now and looks pretty well on all  
platforms I have tested so far.

> * There is no feedback when clicking/hovering action buttons.

This has already been added to the delivered calendar design, but I  
haven't ported that yet.

> * There is no feedback when clicking/hovering refresh that something  
> is actually happening.

Yes, I'd like to have that icon spinning, but didn't have the time for  
it so far.

> * Popdown menus should automatically trigger on icon hover.  Don't  
> think this was part of the previous theme, so this is instead a  
> feature request.

I'm not sure what you mean. The hover effect that is used in the  
topbar? I'm fine with using that in the IMP popdowns too, but I didn't  
change any of the existing code so far.

-- 
Jan Schneider
The Horde Project
http://www.horde.org/