Loomio
Wed 8 Oct 2014 2:15AM

Feedback requested: new mockups for the desktop/tablet view

AI Alanna Irving Public Seen by 193

We've been hard at work designing the all-new look and feel for Loomio 1.0, with improved navigation and functionality. We would really appreciate some feedback from the community at this stage. Have a look at the images below and consider....

  • Does this workflow make sense to you?
  • Is the design intuitive? Can you find what's important to you?
  • Do you have any specific suggestions for improvements?

Group Page

Inbox open

Group drawer open

Thread Page

Inbox open

Group drawer open

Very interested to hear what you think!

PS: We are also seeking feedback on the new designs for the mobile/phone views


UPDATED: click images for full-size screenshots :)

MPR

Miguel Prados Rodriguez Wed 8 Oct 2014 2:30AM

In large groups, a Topics section including different Threads rather than just Threads, will be useful. I like the new look but I think that Loomio will be much more useful if used like a parliament for organizations. That is, now it is like a place to talk about something and reach a consensus (if possible) but it is not THE place to take decisions inside an organization, because with an intensive use, the number of threads causes mess and it is very possible (I saw that a number of times) to propose a voting over a topic many times (the same). To organize threads inside topics may help, but it has to be re-thinked as the place where we reach consensus, remember it, find it again if necesary, easy and fast to track down and do a follow up, with love, Miguel

MH

Mike Hargreaves Wed 8 Oct 2014 2:49AM

A few questions:

Does the loomio logo link to the inbox drawer? The menu states are not very clear in the images.

Is this fully responsive? How wide is the discussion area? Are you condensing to always have a drawer open? Good idea, the flow will be far better to navigate multiple conversations. The menus get overwhelming in here sometimes.

Is the threads menu filtered by group?

What will happen to the split view Discussion / Current Decision?

The New Thread button under show more is an absolute land mine! Wouldn't it make more sense at the top of the threads frame as it would naturally be the next in the chronological flow + it would keep it out of the way?

NA

Nico Aumar Wed 8 Oct 2014 7:39AM

I like these designs/ideas. Just a question, is there a link where the user can make the left frame (I don't know how to call it) visible or not? or at least resize it?

DN

Diogo Nunes Thu 9 Oct 2014 7:01PM

Love the design. It would be good if the left sidepane could be collapsible, that is with the click of a button it would disappear and the content on the right would fill all the space available.

AI

Alanna Irving Thu 9 Oct 2014 8:32PM

Great questions everyone. @richarddbartlett will be in here shortly to answer what he can :)

RDB

Richard D. Bartlett Fri 10 Oct 2014 12:35AM

Thanks for the questions everyone! I don't have answers exactly, but you give me new ideas to draw with :)

Miguel: the current designs assume a 'feature freeze' - no new functionality, just a new interface. The intention is to have people receiving 'early access' to this new interface before the end of November. There are many new features on the horizon, and we have some of them in mind as we draw these designs (e.g. how can a thread exist independently of a group?). We'll be finalising and implementing those features on a rolling basis.

It's great to hear a strong directive from you that topic categorisation would be a big improvement - I imagine it won't be hard to design or build.

Mike: we're not sure what the Loomio logo should link to! Currently the in-app 'home screen' is a dashboard, which will be replaced by the inbox drawer. So we have an opportunity to replace it, e.g. with an activity feed, or a snapshot view of all your groups.

It will be fully responsive, so it will look and work great on any screen 320px and above. Personally I'm not a fan of the current 2-column layout, as it doesn't respond well to different screen sizes, and the hierarchy of information is unclear.

I'm not really sure about the placement of the 'New thread' button - I like the consistency of having an action at the bottom of each card (new thread, invite people, new subgroup, etc), but good design is knowing when to break convention! Moving it to the top right could work really well.

Nico & Diogo: it's really useful to hear that you want to hide the inbox drawer. We will have to provide a no-drawer view for logged-out visitors anyway, so it would make sense to provide logged-in users the option to hide it too.

Thanks everyone, keep it coming. This kind of dialogue is extremely valuable :)

cc: @robertguthrie

SC

Steve Coffman Sat 11 Oct 2014 2:32PM

I like it! Thanks so much for what you are doing.
You guys are awesome!

MI

mix irving Mon 20 Oct 2014 4:54AM

I had the same thought about the 'drawers'
I think the name suggests that they are close-able. I'd second being able to close them as an option. - could be nice to have less clutter on a screen when you're wanting to just dive into a particular conversation completely. Especially if the notification feed is live and a juicy eyeball-magnet

Other thought with the drawers was that at a glance it's hard to tell which of the top icons has been 'activated' and opened the current drawer.
I think this is really important because I think users associate information with space, and if it's not clear why the same space is holding different things it might be less intuitive. Could be wrong though.

What does "inbox open" mean? Is that just like a stream of the current things which are happening in groups and threads I'm part of ?

I'm still getting a feel for the asymmetry of the page suggested. I wonder what it would look like inverted. Something the the back of my mind reminds me eye focus of pages lands top left (in L-R top-bottom reading countries). Something to experiment with

MI

mix irving Mon 20 Oct 2014 5:04AM

It's so hard to say what it's like to interact with a thing till you are using it for real problems.