[horde] Interface design Horde 4.1/5.0

[Vilius Šumskas]

Jānis <je at ktf.rtu.lv> rašė:

>> The main reason for giving such a redesign a high priority is the  
>> fact that we have been told many times that Horde looks outdated in  
>> comparison to similar applications.
>>
>> My own experience has been kind of desastrous in that regard: Kolab  
>> Systems is currently trying to move the Kolab ecosystem from Horde  
>> to Roundcube. To a large part due to the fact that is is being  
>> considered "to look slicker".
>>
>> Roundcube is not the only contender in that area. Google, Tine 2.0,  
>> Open-Xchange, Zarafa all offer frontends with a more consistent  
>> interface than what we provide at the moment.
>
> the next is not about Horde:
>
> I have impression that most of "interface improvements" are mostly  
> marketoid-driven efforts (because "we must have a new product with  
> astonishing look") and during the process the most important thing  
> often is forgotten: the product, besides looking "super-duper", must  
> do the work it is intended to and, in the best case, as glitch-less  
> as possible.

Maybe that's true in a home user environment, but it's far from  
reality in the business. All new projects and upgrades should be  
justified. Especially in these grey economical times. And trust me,  
when you have to present an IT upgrade project to the management, such  
things as "nicer look" won't go through. These people speak in terms  
of saved work hours, or increased revenue percents, etc, etc.

> I am very poor indicator as I hate the progress for the sake of  
> progress, but what I see during my working day at some institution  
> employing around 130 people:
>
> - people mostly hates Windows7 and stick with XpSP3;

And most people (including me personally) hated XP when it first came  
out and preffered 2000. What people like or don't like is not really  
an indication.

> - people are mostly conservative and stick with MSO2003 instead of  
> falling in love with MSO2007+

For us it was quite the opposite. Everyone loved Office 2007! Now even  
most inexperienced can use styles in a document, make tables and  
forms. In fact helpdesk support calls associated with office suite  
consulting dropped to almost zero.

And it is not because the interface is nicer, but because the  
usability was changed in such extreme way, that even after learning  
period lag, the users outperformed themselves when compared to the old  
version.

As a long time Horde user, administrator and evangelist I must say  
that a proposed interface redesign is a much needed one. Horde always  
lagged a bit from usability point of view when comparing to  
competitors and web applications in general. But while the focus was  
on a technical side of things the gap for the past couple of years  
became larger and larger.

As for the actual design here are my toughts:
1) I really think that "New Item" icon/link should be moved near all  
the other actions. For me it makes no logical or usability sense to  
have one action separate from the others. In fact after months of  
using Dynamic IMP interface I still cannot be used to it.
2) Make a cross-application navigation one level only. All these menus  
on the left and on the top, and multiple levels of menus on top of  
that is confusing. In place of dropdown arrows, there could be an  
indication with a new mail count, meeting alarm count, tasks due to  
alarm count, etc. Top level navigation could be stickable at the top  
of the page all times.

-- 
   Vilius