I agree with changing the "E-Mail" text to "Inbox," but there is
also a behavior change that is needed. I didn't realize this until now,
but the E-Mail button doesn't do anything unless you are in either the
address book or the personal settings. (Ex: you are reading a message,
you can't click E-Mail to go back to your inbox, it doesn't change
anythign when you click on it). I believe the E-Mail button should
become an Inbox button, always bringing you to the 1st page of your inbox.
I also agree the "move to" box looks very out of place, and
replacing it with a drag-and-drop system would be ideal, but what do
they drag? Thats the part I am stuck on, and more important than what
do they drag, how is the user supposed to know they can drag that part
of the message to move it?
Making the logout and delete buttons more distinct wouldn't hurt,
but isn't a huge deal. I disagree with the need for two menu bars.
Look at Thunderbird sometime, it has no difficulty fitting all its icons
onto one line. Once the icons are modified to have the text under them,
this will clear up a LOT of space on the top bar. Additionally, doing
something about the "Move to" drop-down box will clear up even more space.
Rob
Jeffrey Bacon wrote:
The text 'E-Mail' might be better changed to 'Inbox" or 'Last Folder' or even '{last folder}' to tell you what folder it's returning you too.
To keep with the drag-n-drop theme, the 'move to...' dropdown might be eliminated in favour of dragging your message to the folder you want. The question is what user interface key to use to indicate 'drag this to a folder to move the message there'. Not that it's a perfect example, however, Thunderbird doesn't even have a 'move to' command outside the menus (you have to drag-n-drop or go 'Message > Move..' or right-click > Move..).
I think that we can probably, at minimum, have the labels on the upper-right buttons moved below to buttons (eventually a preference for Show Labels on the buttons would be good). However, from a usability standpoint, we have to make sure the delete and logout buttons are distinct in their visual appearance as to not confuse users. (The current delete button confuses me a bit as that symbol in Thunderbird means mark as junk)
We also have to leave room in the design for expansion (eg. Search, Filters, Spam stuff, etc.).
So, basically, after further review, I think the 2 button bars makes more sense for future and for lower resolutions and to get the message list to line up with the top of the folders.
Kevin Landers wrote:
Bob had some interesting feedback that made sense. I figured I would reply to it here.....
I agree with you in trying to keeps things simplistic and clutter-free.
I had not considered that the email button would take you back to the inbox, even if you had just come from the trash folder. Something to ponder. Perhaps the "Email" button could be configured to do exactly what the green arrow is currently doing, take you back to the last folder list you visited.
I sort of wonder even how much the text beside the right taskbar icons is needed. If there is to be text, why not put it under the buttons and provide ourselves with a little more horizontal working room that way. It would certainly help to clarify across the board what each icon is for (in addition to the ALT/TITLE tags).
Thanks, Kevin L.
Rob Smith wrote:
Here you go. For your suggestion, I'm not entirely sure I agree.
The >back arrow has always made sense to me, although it isn't an entirely >necessary function (you can always use your browsers back button). I >guess my main concern is with putting more buttons up there, and that >clicking the mail box button to go back is A) more confusing than a >green arrow and B) probably wouldn't take you to the correct page if >you had been browsing a page other than the first page. As is, on >lower resolution screens (800x600) you get some overlap in buttons on >the top bar. If we keep adding more, it will just get worse.
Rob
Kevin Landers wrote:
I would agree that if the green buttons were used for navigating through the messages, that there should be a grayed-out state for the first and last messages in the list.
On the "x of y," what if it were centered between the two buttons? Is there any simple and light-weight way of doing maybe green font images such as:
<- 4 of 25 ->
where the "4 of 25" would be in a font and color that reflected on the green arrows color and shape....?
That may be a tad much, tho....
Thoughts?
Kevin L.
Joshua Layne wrote:
I will admit that I have made that mistake with the green button, however I like the grayed out button when there are no more message (i.e. you are on the first message) and I also like knowing which message I am on and how many total messages there are.
what about the green arrows (with a grayed-out state) and the text "x of y" below them (centered underneath them)
my $0.01 on usability.
j.
On Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:36:46 -0400, Kevin Landers support@bezaleel.net wrote:
Tried sending this once, let me try sending it again.....
My suggestion is this:
In the Message View, how about removing the < Message # of N > text and links entirely?
Then take the Green Left Arrow button that links to the Inbox and instead set it to go back one message. Then add a Green Right Arrow button that is set to go forward one message.
The Green Left Arrow button as it is now, is sort of confusing. Unless you mouse over it, it does not provide any clarity as to what its purpose is. Also, there is already the "Email" link on the top right for taking you to the Inbox. This seems sort of redundant.
What do you guys think? Does this make any sense?
Looking forward to the feedback, Kevin L.
Jeffrey Bacon wrote:
That looks pretty good Rob. Some other minor changes I would suggest would be:
- move the Cc/Bcc links under the 'Recipient' text. In fact it
would be cool if the [Cc] link opened the Copy box and disappeared and the 'Copy' text became the link to close the Cc box. Ditto with the Bcc.
Probably more user friendly if the Cc link text stays as Cc so the visual switch for the user (Cc -> Copy) is removed
- remove the white line separators in the mail headers
- 'move to...' drop down looks out of place along the top but I
can't come up with a nice location for it off the top of my head
Rob Smith wrote:
> I have updated my version of mail.css (along with several other > files) to improve the overall look of roundcube. Most of the > changes > are very minor, with the overall goal of making the interface more > consistant and usable. I also created more usable screen space, > leading to significantly larger message reading and mailbox listing > windows. Attached is a zip with all the files that need to be > replaced in their proper folders, from the root of your roundcube > server. I have also attached some sample screen shots. This > release > has been tested with firefox and IE6 and works properly in both. > These are all the changes I can recall off the top of my head, > there could be more. Overall, I feel this fastly improves the > appearance and usefulness of the default roundcube theme. I > have not > modified the Address Book or Personal Settings screens yet, but > I will > put out a new version that alters those when I get the chance. For > the moment, I have simply focused on the most used parts of the
program.
> Rob > > *Changes: > /Main Window:/** > *Taskbar menu background image removed, and changed to line up with > the other menu icons. > RoundCube logo slightly changed, line below it removed. > Entire interface moved closer to the top of the page after taskbar > location changes. > Message count bar moved to bottom of page (its not ideal there, I > know, but I can't come up with a better place for it). > Bottom of the page set to be closer to the bottom of the browser > window, same with right side. > */Message Reading Window:/* > Message reading pane scrolls within the window, instead of the > entire > page scrolling. > */Composition Screen:/* > Border colors changed to match the rest of roundcube (Couldn't > get the > bottom of the message body border to show in firefox, if anyone > knows > why, please tell me). > Window sizes changed so that even wih CC and Bcc selected, the page > will not scroll. > >
> >
> >
> >
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