Selection of Categories/Spaces inline issue

[alexeychumakov]

Hi,

The way of inline tree navigation (e.g. selecting a space as a template) is non-intuitive:

The beginner tries to click on the space to select it then rather falls down.

Suggestion (feature request) :

Remove radio buttons at all; Use click for item selection; Add 'open' buttons to the right of space names to navigate them.

Cheers,

[kevinr]

Interesting suggestion thanks. I'll pass that onto our UI designer.

Thanks,

Kevin

[alexeychumakov]

Interesting suggestion thanks. I'll pass that onto our UI designer.
Kevin

You're welcome!

[lintonb]

Hi,

Thanks for your suggestion.

In the inital ideas we had one design that had an icon after the label which had the same behaviour as what your are suggesting with an open button, but people did not like this. Usability studies showed that clicking on the link to open/navigate felt natural in this paradigm.

Take a look at the studies:

http://www.alfresco.org/mediawiki/index.php/Improvements_to_picker

Also, take a look at another topic where we have discussed this in some detail:

http://www.alfresco.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=464

Could you provide more detail of the interaction you were thinking of for selecting the item. A typical approach here for web apps would be a checkbox which would clearly not work in this case.

What I think would improve the current picker is underlining the link and displaying a breadcrumb style path (as found in the studies). Improvements we should hopefully make soon…  . We are also looking into offering a tree style control as an option to the user.

Cheers,
Linton

[alexeychumakov]

Could you provide more detail of the interaction you were thinking of for selecting the item. A typical approach here for web apps would be a checkbox which would clearly not work in this case.

I've asked myself: what exactly is annoying me? And tried to trace the eye-and-hand movement.

The result is:
After opening this control, I first read the options left to right, top to bottom. My hand just follows my mind.
Automatically, when I find what I want (as a web user), I first click it then realize what I do. 'Click' is my 'yes, I found it!' answer, NOT 'I want to open this', because I was told that I should select the category.

My eyes do not want to step back to view the radio button, as is feels 'unnatural' (maybe for Hebrew the direction would be opposite).

I've posted one way to circumvent it before–but if most users tell the opposite, here's one more option:

Place custom selection link to the right of the item to follow natural reading flow: think of the menu–the price of the course is to the right or to the bottom 😉

Moreover, maybe this selection link should behave as 'accept' button, not the radiobutton (if I finally made up my mind, why click twice? There's always way back!).

That's it!

Cheers,

[lintonb]

Hi Alexey,

Thanks for the additional detail - this is really helpful.

I have put together a quick interface *sketch* showing
your latest suggestion. Let me know if this is your thinking.
Clicking on the object still opens the object.

You can see the sketch at:

http://www.alfresco.org/mediawiki/index.php/Improvement_ideas

Also, do you think this is the right approach? Would you prefer
a tree style control to this clickthrough control?

Thanks,
Linton

[unknown-user]

Linton,

Yes, the example you constructed is imo more intuitive

Ronald