New answers tagged web-app
4
To most people, there is no clear distinction between a web-app, website, or application in terms of how they understand interfaces and instructions.
"Save As" has been used in the most common applications for decades, and I have yet to see anyone confused by it. The situation that you describe is exactly one where "Save As" would be appropriate, and so ...
1
There's one big limit to on-page dialogues: They're always going to be covering up part of the page
Unlike having two actual windows, your dialogue can't be moved outside the browser chrome. You can't move them side-by-side (like the snap feature in Windows), for example. It'll always be covering something, somewhere. Arguably this can be more annoying than ...
1
Answering to your question "Why is this not being used more widely?", I think it has to do not only with Google being the first one to do it, and do it right, but also with technology.
We have web applications that are still using tables for non-tabular data, applications that haven't changed in years. A dialog like this requires, at least, some ...
1
The dialogs are not modal, so one can compose multiple mails in parallel by clicking Compose again. All parallely composed mails are auto-saved to drafts, they are undockable and minimizable in the window, so one can still browse and answer incoming mails in the also GMail-style "conversation" view.
As you see, these dialogs are quite powerful. The reason ...
3
Design it like an app.
If you want someone to interact with your website like an app you need to use the same frame of mind someone designing an app would use. Most of the documentation I've read on designing for IOS involves much more about user interaction and involvement than any technical gadgets or features. There are some excellent pointers on ...
1
A simple solution would to provide a simple textual description which informs users that they can drag and drop as shown below
Another option which you can possibly implement is that when an user hovers over an element which can dragged and dropped, you can provide a tool tip informing that this element can be dragged and dropped.
I also recommend ...
4
Users typically want to see the most recent activity first. Think tweets, online banking transactions, news updates. It makes it easy to see what's new since you last checked.
With conversations, it's different because there is the context of whatever message came before and after the one you're looking at. It's a similar situation to what you see in ...
1
Let the user decide because everyone is different.
From the User Experience standpoint this can be tricky. If you have a very long running discussion then you have to navigate down through the whole thread until you reach the part that you're looking for. Since English speakers read from top to bottom this is somewhat intuitive, but it can be quite time ...
1
I am trying to remember which email service other than gmail and office outlook groups emails with the same subject line.
That said, the reason Gmail might want to show the latest email at the last is so that the user can scan through a long list of related emails and quickly get an understanding of the starting of the discussion and its current state as he ...
0
Conceptually I would say that seeing the emails from oldest to newest makes sense because of how we keep archives in the real life - but let's look at a couple of use cases.
Use case 1. If you are cc'd in a thread and you need to get up to speed, having them chronologically makes sense and it's easier to understand the timeline of events - when and how the ...
0
Embedded help can be effective is designed carefully, as part of the overall user experience. The advantage of embedded help is that it can be contextual, concise and applied using different affordances to the user as and when needed.
For example, an HTML5 style in-field text placeholder can advise of date, time, currency formats required BEFORE the user ...
2
Horizontal menus and vertical menus are needed to aid information architecture - otherwise there is a danger to end up with the menu like the one on old Amazon website (could not find image unfortunately).
Typically, horizontal menu would be used at higher level, perhaps even horizontal subnav, but you definitely would not want to have a third layer of ...
6
Horizontal menu's don't readily support more than one level. Nesting or indentation are difficult to achieve, leading to many hard to use solutions widely documented in many articles and here on UX.SE. I'm no big fan of the Windows 8 website for instance, at the third level deep it just becomes weird.
Web documents are usually laid out for scrolling ...
1
You're right to brainstorm new ways to present Help. Traditional Help links that open in a new browser tab have two problems:
It's more difficult to digest the Help information when you don't have the original context to look at. See notes on Andrea Ames's Embedded Assistance talk
Opening a new window can be disorienting for non-savvy users. See the ...
2
I'm going to have to disagree with most of the answers here.
Do people really want a feature such as 'help'?
Yes, people really do want a Help feature! Studies have shown that people prefer to use self-service options as opposed to emailing, calling, or chatting with a support person. This is great news, since self-service Help is much cheaper than the ...
0
Rahul is absolutely right - you want to collect and analyze as much user feedback as possible. However, I think there's a difference between a user who is looking for a way to provide feedback (via bug reports or feature requests) and one who just has a question that needs answering.
Users prefer self-service - a fast answer that doesn't require waiting ...
17
I cannot comment on your user test results since I do not know your parameters and scenario.
But, talking about gmail's new email input method. The advantage which desktop email applications had over the web based ones was, while composing the email (in a separate window) you could freely browse older emails and look into content you might want to refer. ...
1
I think it would be fair to say that the user interface has to be designed for the content first. It is much harder to take into account of things such as the user environment, hardware devices and habits because these are much more variable. On the other hand, with content it is much more feasible to take into account of the types of elements, the number of ...
0
Display the "wait" on button down (ie as early as possible). Most of the time a fast filling progress bar or very short lived hour glass is pleasing to the end user (hey this program's fast!), and I've never seen one that "looks like a glitch."
2
Do not show the matching records
Since you want to see the differences between the source and the destination all you have to display are the rows with differences. For those without differences just verbalize it as a feedback of the comparison (for instance : 56 rows matched, 4 mismatched).
Make the differences obvious
Then pair the rows that mismatch ...
1
It's not very clear that "Review & Publish" is for this page or for all of the pages. When the link is clicked, a list of all of the changed pages is displayed and then the user can click the "Publish" button.
The hierarchy of pages and their state isn't communicated in your GUI. Simply reshuffling some elements should help here.
download ...
1
Depends on the context and type of user, but maybe the "You've tried it, now buy it if you liked it" approach would work. Don't mention plans, etc. Make it a seamless migration that requires only a credit card to unlock the goodness so it can be owned.
1
In my opinion, using the native fonts of the OS you're targeting is best bet. Those fonts have been designed for legibility on the screen for that particular platform, and they will also feel natural to the daily user since he's already used to seeing them on the whole environment.
Segoe UI was designed for Windows 7 and above if I'm not mistaken.Lucida ...
1
Versioning systems are fun.
While versioning systems and models do exist, the issues with editing the same file as someone else usually come back to management (either physical management or personnel management). When two people have the same file open at the same time, unless there is a need, chances are they are making decisions for themselves.
That ...
0
You should use the same terms for the same things.
Can My First Page be Flow Charts?
Publish and live are in the same semantic field: why not saying Go live and Live or Publish and Published?
If you choose second option Draft can be Unpublished.
Review and Edit have a close meaning: why not using Preview instead ?
Why don't you granularize the edit ...
14
Yes, there have been formal studies demonstrating that as users become increasingly familiar with mobile devices, they shift increasingly toward using native apps.4 This trend is likely a combination of three factors:
People prefer the familiar. If people know of a site or app that's likely to address their needs, they're more likely to use that known ...
1
I think the challenge in answering the question is twofold. 1) definitions 2) research.
As for definitions, I'm going to make an assumption that we're comparing:
Native App = a self contained application written in native code for the device it's running on.
vs.
Web App = an application written with web technologies using a client/server model where the ...
0
I disagree with some of the points others have made. Unless your app is mostly well designed static content, avoid web apps for mobile. Even in these cases, the app could probably be built to run faster natively in almost the same time. You aren't going to save time using inferior tools. Rarely is this a "tradeoff" type decision, unless you have a bunch of ...
2
Look and feel depends on how you design the web-app. You can design it to look exactly the same as a native app, but you have to choose which native you want it to be like (unless you build multiple web-apps that is). The result is that most web-apps try go for something that is usable by both iOS and Android but looks like neither - which is why people ...
6
This is actually cultural thing.
In US and Germany, X is commonly used as check mark.
In most of the countries it is ✓.
In Japan its O mark is used.
5
I had to make a similar choice today and this is what we decided:
Green check mark for correct
Green generally describes a good thing and the check mark translates for Daltonian users (people with red-green colorblindness) too
Yellow triangle for warning
Yellow is generally the color for warning signs (ex: road signs) and a triangular form for Daltonian ...
15
I would use a red exclamation point as the Icon in the column (similar to the Icon JohnGB used. My first thought was to rename the column so you could use a red X. For example if you renamed it to 'Conforming', 'In Good Standing', 'No Violations', or 'Playing By the Rules', then you could use a red X to indicate that the company is NOT conforming, or has a ...
6
A red tick mark seems ambiguous, "Is it acceptable but not good?", "It is completed but has some problems?" or something else? Since, check mark is something which represents completion or acceptance/approval.
For violation, you might use a X like John suggested or you can go for a circle with a backward slash (the symbol for prohibition).
21
On closer inspection of your question, I am revising my answer. What you're trying to convey is "Does this company have a failure (i.e. non-compliance to some standard)? Yes or No". In which case, color is irrelevant, it's not a failure, and a check mark is somewhat standard.
Consider a table where multiple types of the same thing, like a tablet computer, ...
40
A checkmark represents something positive - usually 'good' or 'correct', so you shouldn't use it to represent something negative like 'serious violation'. I would focus on using either a X or a warning sign, with a preference for the warning sign.
Icon aside, I don't see any good reason to have columns for both 'serious violation' and 'Overall alert'. The ...
6
Besides the obvious UI affordance of a visible search box, offering a custom Find solution gives you one big advantage over the browser-based find: control over the presentation of matches.
If most of your users are going to be looking for specific text in chronological order, a custom solution may not be necessary. However, implementing your own Find ...
2
Some advice in addition to the points already mentioned: if you do implement your own, don't think of it as a re-implementation. Think of it as an addition. That means:
Make sure the Ctrl+F version still works, and make sure it works well (so keep the text as basic HTML). Don't steal the ctrl+f shortcut.
Choose a fundamentally different form for the ...
2
In any case let your users know how they can search the log file. As stated before only 1 in 10 internet users know about the CTRL+F shortcut, so don't just assume everybody knows.
A visible "custom" search bar is better from a UX perspective (if it performs well), however it might not make sense for you to implement it, so instead you can make it obvious ...
5
Don't expect users to know shortcuts. If searching within the log file will be something users will be doing often, an unobtrusive search bar that accomplished this is the best answer. Though it sounds like your users are likely to be more tech savvy than the average person, here's an article that states that only about 1 in 10 internet users even know about ...
2
As users become more proficient, you want them to keep using your service, not start looking for something better and faster. Keyboard shortcuts allow frequent users to become more proficient in your application.
While the mouse is easy to use and a mouse base GUI is easy to learn to use, it is not perfect. One challenge of the mouse interface is that it ...
2
If you like the opposite approach of first selecting the property (or tag), and only afterwards selecting which items to apply it to, you can use a button next to each item. Something like "Add property".
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
If the property has no value (like a tag), then you can show it next to the ...
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In general, yes, keyboard shortcuts have been shown to be effective. Some research suggests (1) that having keyboard shortcuts in a web app improves revisitation. In general, keyboard shortcuts enable power user activity. Keyboard shortcuts also improve accessibility. (2)
You also have the evidence of what the major players in the field are doing (i.e., ...
4
Keyboard shortcuts are most often used by 'power users' as they take time to learn, and unless you use the software a lot, you are unlikely to gain any benefit from it.
So most users will likely not want or need keyboard shortcuts, but those that do are usually your early adopters and make up the group that is (arguably) most critical to initial success. ...
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