The action "Interface = understanding": first results

Good day friends!

My name is Bjorn Lundstrem , and I lead a team of client application designers (CAUID team) in the framework of the action "Interface = understanding" .

Yesterday, having received agreement from the project managers, our team started to work. And today we are ready to present you the sketches of three client applications . Let me remind you that this block of projects was chosen by us for a free (or shareware) implementation. Of course, this work can by no means be assessed as final - this is only the first step towards improving the design and user accessibility of programs. Ahead - a huge number of stages.
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Nevertheless, let's see what we have come to this moment.

Orga

Pictures are clickable

Peter Welderson reports :

“The idea of ​​a complex organizer for the secretary and manager is not new at all. I met similar programs in the late nineties, and at the beginning of the two thousandth, when sites like softpedia became the objects of mass attention of novice developers.

Nevertheless, in this concept there is something that fundamentally distinguishes it from all others - a very attractive set of functions that integrate perfectly into the working cycle of a manager - calendar, email and RSS clients, CRM-like contact system, etc.

Unfortunately, this is not only the main plus, but also the main problem of this project. The fact is that the programmer presented each function of the organizer on a separate tab. This not only does not order work with the program, but also makes it chaotic, forcing the user to rush through different tabs to view related information.

My main work on this project will be to ... maximize the integration of functions. On the one hand, it will simplify the perception of the organizer, on the other hand, it will increase the total productivity.

I began my work with a small modification of the controls - I painted the tabs and application panels in a strict light gray color scheme. The tabs design is as close as possible to the standard organizer - this metaphor will work well to facilitate perception. For time work, the design turned out well, although I still have to think about the contrast of the elements.

I decided to start working on usability with the “ Mail ” tab - here the modifications are most obvious. I got rid of the tabs of the second level " News" and "Faxes ", combining all three entities in one tab " Mailbox ".

Taking advantage of the excellent set of Fugue icons (I always use it for sketches), I chose the icons that are most appropriate for impersonating the basic functions of working with messages, faxes and news.

Considering that not every manager or secretary can afford a high-resolution monitor, when implementing the message box, I decided to rely on the experience of Mozilla Thunderbird, not Outlook. The list of messages is thus located at the top, and the message viewing window is directly above it. Above the list of messages I placed a small but functional panel, on which, depending on the selected item, the list of actions will be displayed. "

Chameleon Windows Startup Manager

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Svante Strickholm tells :

“I’m probably more fortunate than other developers, since Chameleon Startup Manager is quite a thoughtful program. The competition in the configurator market for startup applications for Windows made the author consider both usability and design nuances.

My complaints about the main window of the program are minimal. Dialog boxes cause a lot more questions. Too many input fields, too vivid references to reference sections, duplicate functions - work on all this is to come later.

Like all developers, I decided to start with a fairly unambiguous and at the same time complex modification - changes in the design of the main program window. The themes used in CSM by default, I was not pleased - in my opinion, they lack integrity and gloss.

In the new design, I decided to go on an unusual and controversial move - to slightly change the newest Windows design metaphors and add to them icons with rounded edges “a la iPhone”.

At the same time, I optimized the toolbar, moving the quick search by elements to it and removing the secondary elements in the menu bar. This helped give her a clearer and more austere look.

The side panel also underwent a similar demarcation of elements (there additional functions are located in the “ More ... ” menu) and the list of applications (there the minor values ​​look a bit lighter). The text fields in the bottom panel were ordered, so that additional SpinEdit to adjust the delay was placed there.

Now I am working on a panel showing the delay time to load the application. In addition to clarifying the timeline, I plan to refine the logic of moving elements. ”

CodySafe

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Says Tove Sivers :

“Four years ago, they gave me a 512 megabyte flash drive, which I was extremely happy about. Then it was still a rarity. Today, anyone connected with IT is hard to imagine without a flash drive. Such prevalence moves the market of portable-applications to unprecedented development.

CodySafe is a simple but necessary application. In fact, this is a convenient menu that appears from the system tray when inserting a flash drive, and allows you to run any of the portable applications that are present on it.

As a first step, I decided to re-design the menu itself - in my opinion, it was too overloaded with the Windows Vista metaphors - with excessive gradients, bumps and glass effects. I slightly reduced the menu width and brought it into more conformity with the Windows 7 metaphors. When drawing from scratch, the volume was lost, it remains to be worked on. The color of the item headers was changed from black (the outline stroke seemed awful to me) to white with a slight shadow.

I regrouped the elements on the right side of the menu, bringing the logo of the program into a separate transparent shield over it, and making the first item a reference to the Explorer. It is logical that a regular user with a much higher frequency will refer to the root of the flash disk than to individual thematic folders. In the left part of the menu a quick search panel was added - in my opinion it will help you find portable applications not only on the disk, but also - if connected, on the Internet.

Contrary to the metaphors of Windows 7, I did not get rid of the icons for the right side of the menu, but used their system counterparts, which are more pleasant and balanced in color. To draw the eject and stop buttons, I had to go back to Vista metaphors. I made the button gradients less aggressive.

In general, the menu has become much better. The final design refinement and working with the settings window will help make the application comfortable for everyday use. ”

From the team leader:

Our action continues. If you want to order a design or redesign of the client application interface from our team and get a discount of 40% of the market value , write a request in free form at interface [at] iunderstand.ru ; to order usability testing please send a free form application to usability [at] iunderstand.ru

Respectfully,
Bjorn Lundstrem.