ease of use - what makes an easy interface?

The design guru Edward Tufte has said that you
should trust the intelligence of the user and offer pages that are
rich in options. Myself and some friends came up with some weblog
software and tried to follow that advice when designing the control
panel, but when we show this software to anyone, their first reaction
is "It looks too complex." So we face 2 possibilities:

1.) the theory is wrong

2.) we implemented it badly

Personally I lean toward theory #2

We've been trying to adjust the control panel so that it looks
cleaner. One possibility that we've toying around with is a "Simple
Mode" and to test it I've put in a link to a page with limited
options. Should it be the default for the software? Power users could
click on the "Full options mode" link to get all the options.

We are looking for some objective feedback from outsiders so I'm
throwing the question out to you all. I put up a demo site for people
to trash as they see fit. If you want to log in, go here:

http://publicpen.com/designer/
username: designer
password: designer123


Any feedback will be gratefully accepted.

On 5 Jun 2004 15:08:35 -0700, lkrubner (AT) geocities (DOT) com (lawrence) wrote:

We are looking for some objective feedback from outsiders so I'm
throwing the question out to you all. I put up a demo site for people
to trash as they see fit. If you want to log in, go here:

[snip]

It does look a bit overbearing when you first log in. I think my
suggestion would be to have all of the "options" in a preferences
section, and have the initial login page just have some simple,
commonly-used options:

* Post an Entry
* Change Settings

perhaps also:
* Upload Image
* Upload File
* Manage Users

but I'd expect to be able to upload an image directly from the entry
posting form, ideally, since that's when I'd usually be uploading
images.

Perhaps also further subdivide the options section firstly into "style
settings" vs. other stuff (since you seem to have a lot of style
settings) and then there further into other sections, rather than
presenting everything on one, huge page.

-Claire

Claire Tucker <fake (AT) invalid (DOT) com> wrote

On 5 Jun 2004 15:08:35 -0700, lkrubner (AT) geocities (DOT) com (lawrence) wrote:

We are looking for some objective feedback from outsiders so I'm
throwing the question out to you all. I put up a demo site for people
to trash as they see fit. If you want to log in, go here:

[snip]

It does look a bit overbearing when you first log in. I think my
suggestion would be to have all of the "options" in a preferences
section, and have the initial login page just have some simple,
commonly-used options:

* Post an Entry
* Change Settings

perhaps also:
* Upload Image
* Upload File
* Manage Users

but I'd expect to be able to upload an image directly from the entry
posting form, ideally, since that's when I'd usually be uploading
images.

Perhaps also further subdivide the options section firstly into "style
settings" vs. other stuff (since you seem to have a lot of style
settings) and then there further into other sections, rather than
presenting everything on one, huge page.

-Claire

That is some really spot on feedback. Well done. Thank you. I think we
are going to implement every one of your ideas. I especially like the
idea of uploading a file right when you're making a post. I'd been
avoiding it because it is difficult, but you mentioning it makes me
see clearly how important it is.


Really, I think that's the most spot on feedback we've ever got. Very
to the point.

lkrubner (AT) geocities (DOT) com (lawrence) wrote in message

It does look a bit overbearing when you first log in. I think my
suggestion would be to have all of the "options" in a preferences
section, and have the initial login page just have some simple,
commonly-used options:

* Post an Entry
* Change Settings

perhaps also:
* Upload Image
* Upload File
* Manage Users

but I'd expect to be able to upload an image directly from the entry
posting form, ideally, since that's when I'd usually be uploading
images.

Perhaps also further subdivide the options section firstly into "style
settings" vs. other stuff (since you seem to have a lot of style
settings) and then there further into other sections, rather than
presenting everything on one, huge page.

-Claire

Okay, we've simplified the interface for this software. We'd like
everyone to go back and give it another look. We are still looking for
feedback and ways to further simplify this and make it more user
friendly.

(To repeat the intro, this is an open source PHP/MySql project that
gives people the power to control their sites even if they don't know
anything about HTML.)

Go here to login:

http://www.publicpen.com/designer/mcControlPanel.php


you'll need a username and password to get in:
username: designer
password: designer123


the public side of the site is here:

http://www.publicpen.com/designer/