[dev] UI feedback

[Jan Schneider]

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

> Quoting Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org>:
>
>> 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.
>
> I guess we will agree to disagree on this.  But I'm not going to  
> rock the boat as we are getting closer to release.  What inevitably  
> will happen is that I (or someone else) will introduce the more  
> compact design you mentioned previously to fix these issues.  The  
> unfortunate side-effect of this is that this means that I will not  
> be tweaking the default display once released.

As long as this theme is only condensing elements by reducing padding,  
this seems fine. That theme should *not* turn into a completely  
different theme. Though we probably want to add some later.

>>> * 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.
>
> I don't necessarily disagree with this, although my preference would  
> probably be before rather than after the box.  But various UIs are  
> all over the board when it comes to this positioning, so its not 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.
>
> I think we used to have popdown icons for each address, but it was a  
> usability nightmare (especially when you had more than a few  
> addresses).  I believe it was sort of a compromise solution to  
> remove the icons but keep the popdown feature.  I understand  
> consistency, but I felt that the old way we handled this was  
> acceptable.  Users had an indication they could click on names and  
> the popdown was not unexpected behavior.

I see how this could get messy with a lot of addresses. I still like  
to try this first.

>>> * 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.
>
> It looks like Verdana was removed from the font list.  IMHO, Verdana  
> is easier to read than Arial.  IIRC, one of the drawbacks of Arial  
> is that at smaller sizes (such as what we are using), it begins to  
> look narrow.  Verdana displays wider at these small sizes - this is  
> one of its main design characteristics.
>
> FWIW, Verdana is apparently available on 99.7% of Windows machines,  
> 98% of Macs, and 68% of Linux.  So removing it because it is not  
> widely supported would be an incorrect assumption.  Our old method  
> of using Verdana and falling back to Arial seems more appropriate  
> than the current solution.

The font is a crucial part of the new design, so I don't want to  
change that. I think it's also a good part responsible for the  
fresher, crisper look. Verdana might be more suitable for smaller font  
sizes, but those have gone anyway :)

>>> * 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.
>
> For something like reply/forward, the popdown menu should  
> automatically be triggered when hovering over the popdown icon.   
> This is different from the topmenu, since there the popdown menu is  
> triggered when hovering over the main text (although I noticed that  
> hovering over the popdown arrow in the top menu does *nothing*,  
> which seems very counterintuitive).

Yes, that's also on my todo list.

> We don't want auto-popdowns for these buttons, however, since the  
> auto action taken by the default button is almost certainly the  
> correct action for most users.

Agreed.

> Other feedback I forgot to mention:
>
> * There is no mailbox size/message location anymore in dynamic view.  
>  I know some people debate the existence of this, but I find it  
> tremendously useful.  And at a minimum, all users benefit from  
> knowing the size of their mailbox.

It's still there but commented out, because I didn't find a new place  
for it. The second topbar is a natural place for this, but it's  
already used for the quota if enabled. We could make enabling the  
quota toggling what's displayed there.

> * Topbar actions with submenus should do some sort of reasonable  
> action when clicking on the parent (e.g. clicking on "Preferences"  
> should go to the preferences page of the current application).

Also on my todo.

That being said, none of these things are show stoppers for a preview  
release. I actually wanted to do that today, but I'm still struggling  
with the icons which, at least for IMP, I wanted to sort out before  
the alpha release. So it's probably happening tomorrow.

Jan.

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