One thing is be responsive. Nothing's worse than a slow/delayed interface. Another thing is obviously the organising of information, putting things into well-defined catagories.
Enter your access code at the bottom of the screen
That's not a great user interface. You have to look to the top right to read this message, and then get sent away to the bottom of the screen to enter the code. Why not put the message to enter the code right next to where you have to enter it?
You are absolutely right. I've experimented with having the log window right next to the input box, but couldn't make it work nicely. The reason is that the editor has to be big, and the log window needs to be quite tall to accommodate large lists of data. I could have the instructions in a different window, but that would complicate the code too much at this stage.
In general, I'm trying to make incremental changes that are strict improvements, i.e. going from "sucks a lot" to "sucks a bit less". Eventually I think a more standard login process (say, a "popup" in the middle of the screen) would be better.
Thanks for the feedback! It's very useful to think about eye movement when doing interfaces, and it's something I will do more of.
You missed the point. The idea is to start off with a bad user interface and then build it into a good one. This is only a couple of small steps towards that goal, with explanations behind each decision.
Part of the difficulty is striking the balance between new user friendliness and power user friendliness. Both are important, the former for growing a community and bringing in new users, and the latter so that the program is useful for complex production tasks. These two goals are often at odds with each other.
Yes, this is something I'm thinking hard about how to balance. Right now my thinking is to provide a kind of power-mode for power users, and then minimize them amount of steps required for simple tasks or "proven workflows", such as putting up simple static content, etc.
8 comments
2 u/insert_name 15 Sep 2015 21:25
One thing is be responsive. Nothing's worse than a slow/delayed interface. Another thing is obviously the organising of information, putting things into well-defined catagories.
1 u/svipbo 15 Sep 2015 19:49
That's not a great user interface. You have to look to the top right to read this message, and then get sent away to the bottom of the screen to enter the code. Why not put the message to enter the code right next to where you have to enter it?
1 u/oskarth [OP] 15 Sep 2015 19:54
You are absolutely right. I've experimented with having the log window right next to the input box, but couldn't make it work nicely. The reason is that the editor has to be big, and the log window needs to be quite tall to accommodate large lists of data. I could have the instructions in a different window, but that would complicate the code too much at this stage.
In general, I'm trying to make incremental changes that are strict improvements, i.e. going from "sucks a lot" to "sucks a bit less". Eventually I think a more standard login process (say, a "popup" in the middle of the screen) would be better.
Thanks for the feedback! It's very useful to think about eye movement when doing interfaces, and it's something I will do more of.
3 u/Drenki 15 Sep 2015 21:13
You missed the point. The idea is to start off with a bad user interface and then build it into a good one. This is only a couple of small steps towards that goal, with explanations behind each decision.
0 u/idle_voating 16 Sep 2015 23:54
Being able to find and do what you want makes a good interface. If it's a puzzle to solve that's a bad thing.
0 u/skeeto 17 Sep 2015 04:49
Part of the difficulty is striking the balance between new user friendliness and power user friendliness. Both are important, the former for growing a community and bringing in new users, and the latter so that the program is useful for complex production tasks. These two goals are often at odds with each other.
1 u/oskarth [OP] 17 Sep 2015 10:58
Yes, this is something I'm thinking hard about how to balance. Right now my thinking is to provide a kind of power-mode for power users, and then minimize them amount of steps required for simple tasks or "proven workflows", such as putting up simple static content, etc.