On Tue, 2009-12-15 at 15:25 -0500, Paul Mossman wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I just merged a new sipXconfig Admin and User portal layout (and
> graphics) from branches/user_mdasilva_skin into main. (XX-7253,
> revision 17532.)
>
> These are major changes,
Quite aside from the issue of getting the unit tests working, I'd like
to have a discussion on whether or not the proposed new UI is actually
an improvement or not before it is merged to main.
I have looked at it running, and I find it to be a big step in the wrong
direction in a number of respects:
* It has much more empty space, which it achieves by adding
gratuitous internal borders (the functional part of each page is
in a white floating round rectangle within a larger colored
background).
* Most of the fonts are, by default, significantly smaller than
the ones in the existing interface - even very important text
like the top level menu titles are very small text.
* It has wide fixed-width elements at the top, resulting in very
poor layout when the screen is narrowed (made smaller
horizontally).
* Changing the font size in the browser (which I routinely do when
faced with very small font sizes on my laptop screen) caused
many bad layout effects - the text expands to outside the boxes
and other framing elements.
* It uses graphical elements overlaid with link text for controls
- these are very poor from an accessibility point of view, and
often pose a problem when localized text is significantly
different length.
I don't want this to be all negative - I did like the color scheme, and
the general 'softening' of the look was good (to the extent that it is
implemented without the problems above). I'm sure that a longer and
more detailed look would have found other positives.
I'm very much supportive of spending time and effort to improve the look
of our UI - visual appeal is very very important, but so is good web UI
design. I'd like a design that makes better use of space (whoever is
doing the design should be regularly looking at it on a small laptop
screen, and changing window geometry frequently, because real users need
those things). It should also be compatible with existing sipXecs
skinning conventions; if that cannot be done, then I think the change
should be put off for a major [4.x->5.0] release so that community
members who've build their own skins have more time and warning to
participate and adapt.
I also think that some time spent reviewing where various elements are
in the navigation structure so that they are grouped in a more intuitive
way would also be a good idea (I realize that was deliberately out of
scope for this effort), but I'm sure it's too late in the 4.2 cycle to
open that can of worms.
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