Might we want to wait and see what, if any, UI updates are coming with 10.7 before we expend a lot of effort updating our UI look and feel?
I agree it needs an update, but it'd be nice to get a closer (as in: hands on) look of where the OS is going with UX and visual style. Just my 2ยข. -- Steve Holt On Nov 23, 2010, at 1:40 PM, George Lambrou wrote: > For the most part, this is the same as my post last week in the icon update > thread, however, the difference here is that I've added a new message > composition bar and source & destination handling; I'm working on horizontal > tabs, and I plan to show them as well as the new chat creation/joining UI > I've proposed below in another mockup soon. Anyway, here are my proposed > mockups and feature breakdown for vertical tabs and a new message composition > view: > > <Adium NUI Mockup.png><Chat Source OR Destination.png><Chat Source AND > Destination.png> > > The New Look: the updated look of the tab bar is inspired somewhat by iChat, > while adding a little more functionality to the mix, mainly in the form of > indication; I thought we could make vertical tabs act more as an HUD of > sorts, so that users can see what's happening within the window at a glance. > Status on Hover: I thought that we could use hovering to better show contact > status, by grabbing the colours used by the contact list for contact > statuses, and using them as the semitransparent background colour for the > hovered tab. My tab demonstrates this in the mockup using the default online > green from Aqualicious. > Close Button on Tab Hover: at first glance, it may not be obvious to new > users that you click the tab's status icon to close it; by making the close > button appear when hovering over the tab instead of just the status icon, we > can more quickly get new users used to using Adium. > File Transfer Indication: Valerie's tab features an arrow and circular > progress indicator, which represent a file transfer in progress; the > direction of the arrow represents the transfer's direction (up for sending, > down for receiving), while the pie represents its completion. I'm still > considering two ideas for handling duplex transfers to the same contact: two > indicators stacked on top of each other, or a single, two way arrow. > Other Indicators: I've added voice and video indicators to both Karl's and > Danielle's tabs, inaccurately showing all of their states so you can see how > they look. Danielle's tab also has an unread messages indicator, which has > been slightly altered to fit in with the rest of OS X. > Tab View Bottom Bar: The bottom bar allows users to create a new chat, join > group chats (the merging arrows button; anyone have a better glyph for > this?), and see how many they currently have open. > Message Bar: The aesthetic of the new message bar draws inspiration from the > Messages app on iPhone. The size of the splitter target is larger than it was > previously, and a handle has been added for increased clarity. > Character Count Bubble: A character count appears above the text cursor as > the user types. It fades away after a set (user definable?) interval, unless > the user has exceeded the character limit, in which case the bubble turns > red, and stays visible until the user fixes the issue; the user would also be > prevented from sending the message by hitting Return. The full window mockup > (again, inaccurately) demonstrates the counter in both of these states. Would > it be possible to implement this for more than just Twitter, instead of the > currently standard notification in the message view on other services? > Chat Source and Destination Placement: I think that moving the chat source > and destination fields to the composition area would help make them more > visible to the user than sticking them above the message view; instead of > being out of the way at the top of the window, they would be in the first > place the user looks when they start a new chat. > Placeholder Instructions: Adding some placeholder instructions to the > composition field while it's empty would be a great help to new users. It > would be another string to localize, but I think it'd be worth it here. > Proposed Handling of Chat Creation/Joining: Instead of presenting users with > a dialogue box, which then spawns a new window or tab, I propose that we move > chat creation functionality into the messages window; this, combined with the > tab view's bottom bar, allows the user to manage chat creation. No mockup for > this yet. > Animation: I think the message window refresh would be a great opportunity to > add a little more animation to the user interface. Small touches, like > sliding the source and destination pickers in and out of the window, or > fading new tabs in from the side, can give the UI a more dynamic feel, as > well as a bit of eye candy to delight users. > > So that's it for now. If you guys like the direction, I'd be happy to help in > any way that I can. All thoughts are welcome and appreciated, and thank you > again for considering my work. :) > > George Lambrou
