activity configuration UI

Wed Mar 28 16:03:33 UTC 2012

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 5:11 AM, Fania Bremmer
<fania.bremmer at basyskom.com> wrote:
> 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.

Generally, I like the idea of sparsity, especially on the small
screen. Not a bunch of extra images and words. An interface where
people's first interaction is "That's cool" or "Clever". Where after a
few operations, there is no more thinking involved...the interface
fades into the background of thinking.

This function seems to be already more explicit than the Activity
Spinner or Recommendations where there is just a peeking handle just
waiting to be tugged on. Yet with a new person, one time is all it
takes and they no longer think about it.

>>
>> 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.
>

I like "Edit Activity". Verb+predicate makes sense. The user arrived
at this screen to do something.

>>
>> * 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.

+1. "Activity" is redundant. Label in the text field implies sparsity.

>
>>
>> * 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.
>

"lock as private" sounds awkward. How about a slider with (or as) an
unlock/lock icon and "private" to the the appropriate side of the
slider, similar to layers in Inkscape or objects in Scribus.
(Especially on small screens, the Inkscape method is not as good).
Maybe "make private" with lock/unlock icon? Or is it possible to make
the slider look like a lock instead of a rounded rectangle? Scribus
icons attached.

>
>
>
>>
>> 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).
>
>
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