activity configuration UI

[Fania Bremmer]

Hi,

Am 28.03.2012 13:17, schrieb Aaron J. Seigo:
> hi everyone.
>
> please take a look at the attached screenshot of the activity configuration.
> (ignore the rendering issue with the selected wallpaper.) on smaller
> resolution screens this is what it looks like; with icon settings tweaked for
> lower resolutions we get two rows of wallpapers and things look a bit better
> but i think it is clear that there is room for improvement.
>
> a quick anatomy of that window, moving vertically:
>
> * a titlebar
> * a text edit
> * content
> * a toggle button
> * control buttons
>
> it would be nice to limit the number of vertical pixels used so that content
> space is maximized. it would also be nice to eliminate redundant and obvious
> text. as such, here is a set of proposals which i will implement if there are
> no objections:
>
> * change title to "Activity Settings" ("settings" being less "tech" than
> "configuration" and shorter, at least in english; use title capitalization)
+1. I would even prefer a title that integrates a verb, like "edit 
activity". But that's a wording question. I guess we use more often 
nouns than verbs... if we decide for one, we should apply it everywhere.
>
> * change "Activity name:" to just "Name:". that it is an Activity is implied,
> and is redundant with the title directly above it. the name also appears right
> next to the buttons on the activity view so there is an evident corelation
+1. Maybe even write the label into the text field until the user enters 
the first key? So we would save even more space.
>
> * move "Lock as private" next to the Name entry. this eliminates an entire row
> from the vertical space usage and puts all of the controls in one place
We moved it from up there to the very bottom, because it implicates a 
second page with the setting of the password. To link this clearly in 
the user interaction flow, we decided to put it directly on top of the 
buttons, to show with the changing button label that one more step needs 
to be done, to have a final private activity.

>
> * change "Lock as private" to just "Private". the phrase "Lock as private" is
> a bit awkward (it is not a natural phrasing one would use in conversation) and
> specifying "Lock" speaks to the mechanism rather than the intention of the
> user. the intention is "this is private"; the mechanism we use is "locking
> it".
Before integrating this phrase we tested with a lot of people. We tested 
different words and phrases like "protect, lock, mark...as private, 
secure" etc.  The result has beenthat most people preferred and 
understood the phrase "lock as private". Here both results, the locking 
of the activity with a password AND the encryption of the private data, 
have been understood.
Only "Private" would not clearly communicate the underlying action for 
the user.



>
> one further thing i'd like to experiment with is moving the save/close buttons
> into the title bar. some other mobile OSes do this and it would accomplish two
> things: better use of screen real estate, make it more obvious to people where
> these buttons are. people often do not find the buttons at the bottom; i've
> watched dozens of people go through the UI and this is a recurring issue.
+1, also because the buttons are often covered by the virtual keyboard. 
But if we move buttons up in the title bar, we should check that we make 
this is a general UI guidelines and have it consistently in the system

>
> on thing that would make this harder is that currently when marking an
> activity as "private" the label on the Save button changes to a very long
> text. i also question if this is really needed or not: mark it as private and
> when "save" is pressed take the necessary steps for a private activity.
see above, we tried to make it clear to the user that without the 
private-activation he can just save or create the activity. With the 
private-activation he needs to fulfill one more step, which is the 
password dialog.

p.s. i don't have locking activities working here atm, so i can't see if 
there is any UI for changing the password, or if the password is asked 
for every time a private activity is saved ... in any case, i'm more 
concerned at the moment about the default UI.o/active

One thing in general: I am thinking about a while now about some kind of 
wizard in this case: we could split those 3 steps into a small, little 
wizard, at least for the creation of new activities. That makes it easy 
to add different steps in between, like the private activities step -> 
it would be a handy and guided flow for the user, where he can quickly 
create a new activity. Maybe later we get even more stuff, like tagging 
etc for activities, which would be convenient to add in this wizard.
But I must admit that for editing an existing activity, a wizard would 
be strange.

So, thumbs up for your goal to improve the dialog (both dialogs, as 
create new activity and edit activity are the same).