From your experience, what user interface do Window users like best?

1) Metro

2) Ribbon Control

3) Plain Toolbar

4) Plain Pulldown Menu

5) Tree Navigator

(Feel free to check all that apply or mention any I may have forgotten.)

Barry

I prefer to use options 3 and 4 but I could live with 2 if I had to.

Chris Holland
[Team Elevate]

On 25/03/2014 14:43, Barry wrote:
>  From your experience, what user interface do Window users like best?
>
> 1) Metro
>
> 2) Ribbon Control
>
> 3) Plain Toolbar
>
> 4) Plain Pulldown Menu
>
> 5) Tree Navigator
>
> (Feel free to check all that apply or mention any I may have forgotten.)
>
> Barry
>

Barry

>From your experience, what user interface do Window users like best?
>
>1) Metro
>
>2) Ribbon Control
>
>3) Plain Toolbar
>
>4) Plain Pulldown Menu
>
>5) Tree Navigator

<Tongue firmly in cheek>

I have yet to speak to anyone that like metro

<Tongue mode off>

It depends just what you're wanting to do, and what people are used to. A tree control of some sort for mailboxes seems to work best, but as people get more used to GMail that may well change.

The ribbon control has both evangelists and people willing to bury the designers.

Beyond that I can't say.

Roy Lambert

Chris & Roy,

Thanks for the feedback.
Maybe a few more users will chime in.

>I have yet to speak to anyone that like metro<

I can understand using Metro if the user had a touch screen because of "fat fingers". Otherwise it could be a nightmare for the user.

>It depends just what you're wanting to do, and what people are used to. A tree control of some sort for mailboxes seems to work best, but as people get more used to GMail that may well change.<

I developed a tree navigation control to open up forms and so far it works fine.

>The ribbon control has both evangelists and people willing to bury the designers.<

Earlier I experimented with a ribbon control but went overboard with it (used it on every form, so yes please shoot me<vbg>).

I ripped out the ribbon control(s) and went with a navigation tree that is docked to the main form. I still need to decide on the interface for actions related to a form. Like printing, searching for rows etc.. Each form will have around a dozen actions or options that the user can access. Right now I have them in a popup menu.

I may add a Ribbon Control to the main form and the buttons/controls on it will change (slightly) depending on which form is currently active. (Not all forms can be printed for example.)

I figure I could augment this with a pull down menu and toolbar if the user doesn't like the Ribbon control so they will be able to switch between the two interfaces.  Hopefully it will work with a touch screen without me having to resort to using Metro. But a touch screen is at least 6 months down the road.

Barry

On 3/25/2014 10:43 AM, Barry wrote:
>  From your experience, what user interface do Window users like best?

You did not mention what type of users - mass appeal or custom app - as
i think answer varies a bit.

I can't really speak for end users so this is more my own opinion and
some customer/family feedback. Generally i've found if the interface
makes logical sense to them, fits with their workflow and does not slow
them down they can use it. Having it nice looking does not hurt.

> 1) Metro

Like other have said have yet to find anybody that likes it. MS really
screwed up in my view making it mandatory on desktop and i know lost
half of our family to IPads/Android and Macs. I've helped few users out
of the full screen mode as they launch the app and then are stuck. Also
inability to run 2 apps on same screen (i guess somewhat fixed in 8.1)
is a horrible desktop choice - you basically can't copy/paste or follow
instructions from web/email/pdf and your app.

> 2) Ribbon Control

I quite like it in Office and can often find things easier on ribbon
version than older one. Does take up quite a bit of screen real-estate
though.

> 3) Plain Toolbar
Still fine if good looking though for anything new i'd look at ribbon

> 4) Plain Pulldown Menu
Fine as well for less-frequent used commands.


> 5) Tree Navigator
Yes. Works well for lot of scenarios.

You did not mention windows - i personally like the separate app window
model to the old MDI but again it depends on app. Window thing does not
block everything with a dialog and Alt+Tab works everywhere.


Raul

Raul


>> 2) Ribbon Control
>
>I quite like it in Office and can often find things easier on ribbon
>version than older one. Does take up quite a bit of screen real-estate
>though.

Office is my main experience of "the ribbon" (or as I like to think of it "page control at top of screen" <vbg>) as well and I often have to change tabs to get to what used to be in plain view, as well as hunt round for features I don't use often and are now stuck somewhere (to me) totally un-intuitive.

>You did not mention windows - i personally like the separate app window
>model to the old MDI but again it depends on app. Window thing does not
>block everything with a dialog and Alt+Tab works everywhere.

I use a page control interface a lot. I used to use MDI but found that a pain and I hate cluttering up the windows taskbar with 5 documents. Its a bit easier with W7 though.

Roy

Barry


>I can understand using Metro if the user had a touch screen because of "fat fingers". Otherwise it could be a nightmare for the user.

One of the few people I know with W8 has an all-in-one with touch screen. She uses her mouse all the time <chuckle>

>>It depends just what you're wanting to do, and what people are used to. A tree control of some sort for mailboxes seems to work best, but as people get more used to GMail that may well change.<
>
>I developed a tree navigation control to open up forms and so far it works fine.

I'm interested. Can we have pictures please?

>>The ribbon control has both evangelists and people willing to bury the designers.<
>
>Earlier I experimented with a ribbon control but went overboard with it (used it on every form, so yes please shoot me<vbg>).
>
>I ripped out the ribbon control(s) and went with a navigation tree that is docked to the main form. I still need to decide on the interface for actions related to a form. Like printing, searching for rows etc.. Each form will have around a dozen actions or options that the user can access. Right now I have them in a popup menu.

I like popup/right-click menus BUT not the way Microsoft did it. All to often my mouse tries to take a shortcut by going diagonally and the fly-out menu I was aiminf for runs away. I developed my own variant which only requires you to move up and down and needs a mouse click to open up the next level.

>I may add a Ribbon Control to the main form and the buttons/controls on it will change (slightly) depending on which form is currently active. (Not all forms can be printed for example.)

I used a tabbed interface these days with a single main menu consisting of my homebrew toolbars/buttons/dropdowns. I like it

>I figure I could augment this with a pull down menu and toolbar if the user doesn't like the Ribbon control so they will be able to switch between the two interfaces. Hopefully it will work with a touch screen without me having to resort to using Metro. But a touch screen is at least 6 months down the road.

See comment above. At least her screen is big enough. I hate the tablet ones where I keep on getting the wrong item from a drop down list eg departments on Amazon

Roy