Tile UX: Is there too much information in these tiles?

Question

I'm working on a flashcard application - I really like the UX of skydrive.com and want to apply the tile paradigm to this app. In the app, Cards belong to Sets belong to Folders. A Folder is represented by a solid blue box; a set is represented by a blue-bordered box. This is what I have so far:

It feels a bit cluttered though. I'm wondering if I should hide/show some information upon hover - if the user hovers over the item then they can edit/delete. Eventually there will be a checkbox in one of the corners as well (to facilitate multiple items being selected), which might clutter things further.

Skydrive puts the "actions" up in the top menu bar, so if you select an item, you can manage it from the bar, instead of placing the actions in the item itself. I'm definitely ok with this option, but I'm interested in hearing if you think there's a better one.

I do prefer text links to icons so I'm trying to figure out how to keep everything there, but I'm open to any suggestions.

Answer 1

Remove the card information from the folder tile, since it tells me this folder has 1 set and 1 card (independently) and not 1 set which contains 1 card. It's a bit confusing in interpreting. It also keeps the layout consistent of sorts, just one line at top and bottom.

If you want to keep the interface clean, remove the edit options from the top line and like you mentioned the on-hover effect, bring the editing options only then. This is what pinterest does too. You might just keep a single call to action icon to create a menu from it for the editing & other options.

Also, definitely give the user the control to select the color of the tiles (d'oh!). Since, it provides some form of grouping of items.