Sorry for the long email but I enjoy thinking about and tweaking interfaces to make them easier to use so that's why I seem to just go on and on. If you're not interested in this kind of thing or take offense with constructive criticism then you should probably stop reading now. :)
On Wednesday, November 29, 2006 10:37 PM Juha Suni <> said: > I'm answering for Brian since I had pretty much the same questions > when I started testing it. Found the answers and actually the user > interface is really intuitive once you "get" it. I wouldn't call it intuitive. It's not intuitive because the knowledge I have about the interface when I first started using it wasn't enough to actually use it fully. In this case the application should give hints and/or instructions. Having said all that, the interface is definitely cool and I understand it's only at v0.2. I think Brian has made a really slick app so far with some great ideas. > 1. Changing the priority happens by just dragging the item up and > down. Since they are ordered from high to low, the app knows how to > set the new priority according to your drag. An if you drag a low > item to between med and high items, it conveniently just asks you > which one do you want the dragged item to be. When you hover over these links for a sustained amount of time, or if you click and don't move, it'd be good for a popup/tooltip to appear that says, "Drag up or down to change priority." > 2. The whole form doesn't disable. Using the checkboxes you can > select items and then select a new lable for them from the top. When you check a box for the first time it'd be good for a tooltip to appear at the labels dropdown saying, "To change a task's label choose one from the following list." This could use cookies so that it is only shown once per computer/user. > 3. There are small + and - links near the label, these can be used to > create new lables or edit old ones. This one is ok I think. But maybe a tighter visual relationship between the dropdown and the +/- would be helpful. > You can also create a new label > quickly by typing out "MyNewLabelName>", or even create the todo-item > for it at the same time using "MyNewLabelName->MyNewTodoItem". There > is also a shortcut for setting the priority. Just type "med!" and it > will change to medium. This is cool but definitely not intuitive. Again, upon first click in the task box a tooltip can appear that says "This is where new tasks go. To add a new or already existing label, type 'label> task'. To set a tasks priority type 'low!', 'med!', or 'high!'." > 4. This was something I hadn't seen before and really intuitive. You > do it like you would with a pen and paper. Try drawing a line on top > of the item, from left to right. Yes, with your mouse - click'n'drag. > To remove the line do it from right to left. Works amazingly well. Yes this is very cool and a good idea, but definitely not intuitive. When was the last time you performed this action to get the same results in any other program? I don't have any ideas about how to give instructions for this in a slick way but they should be there somewhere. Alternatively: 1. For all these instructions, small boxes that span the width of the application can be placed at either the top or bottom. Each box will be about a specific part of the interface, will be a different color, and have a small x at the top right. They'll all appear the first time the page is loaded and stay present until the user clicks the x on each one of them. 2. A tab can be placed somewhere, probably at the top, that says "How do I use this?". When you hover over it a large tooltip can appear that gives instructions for everything. 2a. Using an accordion animation, a div that has instructions can slide open while pushing the entire app down the page). So that's my .02 on that subject. Again, good work Brian! Chris. _______________________________________________ jQuery mailing list discuss@jquery.com http://jquery.com/discuss/
