On 2015-01-08 16:45, Francis Lachapelle wrote: > > On Jan 8, 2015, at 10:20 AM, Sven Schwedas <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 2015-01-08 15:56, Francis Lachapelle wrote: >>> Hi Anna >>> >>> On Jan 8, 2015, at 9:26 AM, Anna Christina Naß <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>>> The next major release of SOGo (v3) will offer multiple themes and/or an >>>>> easy way to customize the colours and fonts of the interface. >>>> >>>> I hope that it will feature a non-flat really-usable "classic" theme for >>>> people who dislike the Windows 8-ish style which appeared everywhere in >>>> the Internet and makes many websites harder to use than ever. >>>> >>>> If there is a need for financial support for such a theme, just open some >>>> kind of Kickstarter or Bounty. >>> >>> You'll have to define what "classic" is for you. >> >> Presumably the current v2 theming. > > The v2 theme hasn't changed for years. It's time to move on.
I don't even want to know how much time we waste every year re-training users because someone found it was necessary to "move on". I hope the v3 design will be good enough to stay with us for a couple of years as well. >>> Rest assured that v3 will be even more user-friendly and hopefully pleasant >>> to use for the majority of users. >>> >>> We're looking into adopting Google Material design specifications >>> (http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/). It's the most >>> complete spec I never seen for web applications. >> >> While it's not as bad as others, there's some rather jarring concepts, >> like "floating action buttons" (3 toolbars weren't enough, apparently?). > > They suggest to only promote the most common/important action as a floating > action button. There should not be multiple floating buttons. None is too many, sometimes. Why do we need floating buttons now when we just spent years training users to use the toolbars? >> In general, "context sensitive" UX is fine for casual use where you >> don't bother trying to learn a program anyway; but when you want to >> (because you're using $program 8 hours a day and it'd make you more >> productive), it makes training muscle memory a lot harder as actions >> randomly appear/disappear (especially bad when there's not even keyboard >> shortcuts). > > I'm not sure to follow. Who's talking about a random interface? That's just my observations with recent "UX improvements" from Google/Microsoft/random webapps copying their styles – or rather, the main things my users complain about to me. It takes too long to identify interactive elements (due to the "everything must be flat and there can't be any elevated elements" craze – Material isn't the worst offender here, thankfully), and when they do, the elements randomly disappear because users try to reach them from a slightly different context, like in Firefox' and Office 2013's context dependant context menus – Firefox doesn't even show keyboard shortcuts any more, so while they still exist, the average user wouldn't know how to look them up. > Why would v3 not have keyboard shortcuts? v3 has to be accessible on > mobile devices and will therefore be responsive. In this perspective, > the interface will change depending on the size of your screen but the > interface will stay similar. As long as the shiney new presentation doesn't impact productivity, I won't mind. But far too many recent re-designs sacrificed usability to be more impressive in presentations, and I'm more than a bit wary of them by now. -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen, / Best Regards, Sven Schwedas Systemadministrator TAO Beratungs- und Management GmbH | Lendplatz 45 | A - 8020 Graz Mail/XMPP: [email protected] | +43 (0)680 301 7167 http://software.tao.at
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