I have sent this mail on Wednesday to the developers list but since the
discussion takes part mostly on the quality list I repost it here as well.
My original comments are inlined in Ken's mail below. But the discussion
so far has changed my views with regard to tagging, so in addition to my
comments inlined below I would like to make some further proposals
regarding tagging:
I think all pages should have tags associated with it right from the
outset. Users might want to add personal tags to them but a base set
would be nice.
As Wouter has written a partial search would also be nice. His example
about the two jdbc pages proves that this would ease finding related pages.
In my original posting below I have written that for every page in the
main area related pages should be listed in the sidebar. I still
consider this to be helpful. The way to find related pages could be done
using tags. The results should be ordered by the number of tags that
match the tags of the current page.
I think the results page's usefulness could be enhanced by displaying
the tag for each of these pages in a smaller font below of each of the
pages.
Hovering over any listed page could also display a small note explaining
what this page is used for (after a reasonable and not too small amount
of time - otherwise this could get annoying). This might be another way
to help new user find their way around the admin console.
So contradicting my original statement I now find tags _to actually be
useful_. I nevertheless still think that this dragging feature described
below would be a nice addition.
--
Wolfram Rittmeyer
And now to the original mail:
Ken Paulsen wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> The GlassFish admin console team has been working hard on ways to
> simplify our development, while at the same time attempting to improve
> the experience of using the console. We have created a prototype which
> shows a couple different designs we are considering... we'd like your
> feedback on what you think of it. Here's how you can help:
>
> * Try the working prototype at: http://63.227.208.233:9999/admingui/
> * Respond to this email or to my blog that I am about to write about
> this (http://blogs.sun.com/paulsen). I think Jason and Anissa
> will probably write too (http://blogs.steeplesoft.com/ or
> http://blogs.sun.com/anilam/).
>
> Here are some things we are particularly interested in feedback on:
>
> * Do you like/dislike the menus?
Mostly I like them. Looks are good (apart from minor glitches) and usage
is intuitive. I have a few issues with them though.
Navigating to the second and even more so to the third level (e.g.
Configure->Service->Security->Realms) is more cumbersome than in the
tree-based version. Especially if you switch a lot between different
sub-menus in lower levels. Thus I think for the menu the structure
should be reworked so that the depth of the menu can be decreased.
One also does not see topics that are closely related _after_ one has
selected a task (e.g. Virtual Servers and HttpListeners). The sidebar
could be handy to achieve just that. So say s.o. has selected JDBC
Resources the link for JDBC Connections Pools could be displayed in the
sidebar. Coukld be abit tricky to find the appropriate tasks that fit
well to another task, but I think this would help the user tremendously.
I think (though this might be due to being used to the tree) that the
menu is not as tempting for newbies. With the tree it is pretty obvious
what you can do. So one tries this, tries that and so on. The tree nodes
stay expanded if not closed explicitly so other options on the same
level are displayed to the user. It helped me a lot getting used to the
admin console and I fear that a menu might be not as stimulating to just
look around as the tree. Which would be a shame given the high quality
of GlassFish's admin app. But I might be wrong here. I'm very curious
about further comments coming in.
A small drawback of the menu is that no longer all applications (or
ressources and so on) are listed - this has been the case in the tree
and I considered it to be useful.
I assume performance to get better so I just mention it to complete this
list ;-)
> * Do you like/dislike the tree?
Well given my remarks above it should be ovious that I like the tree a
lot. It is also something that is more common on the web than menus.
The tree on the other hand has one _big_ drawback itself: It wastes a
lot of screen real estate.
Another, smaller drawback of the tree if that one of the plus sides of
the tree can also quickly become a burden: Expanded tree nodes. They
help if the item that is needed is already displayed and nearby. But if
one has deployed a lot of apps, configured some ressource etc. the tree
tends to get quite big quickly.
So maybe (even though this is probably the least wanted option of yours)
it makes sense to keep both as options (like in your prototype). I think
menus probably appeal more to advanced users while trees make it easier
to find your way around GlassFish's admin app in the beginning.
Having said that the toggle button should be displayed somewhat more
prominently (e.g. next to the help button) and with a better label.
Though the toggle option is probably only a prototype feature anyway ;-)
> * Do you like/dislike the tagging feature?
I'm sorry, but I think the tagging feature is not very useful. It is
useful for blogs and even more so for aggregating sites, but I think a
tag cloud would be a bit over the top for the admin app.
Though I like the concept of a sidebar and the way you implemented the
minimizing and retrieval!
Instead of tagging I would prefer if one could drag some kind of page
handle onto the sidebar (comparable to folders in Gnome's nautilus or
Apple's Finder). Well okay, probably not easy to implement but this
would be really useful. This is especially true for the menu-based
implementation. Changing from one page (say deployment) to another (say
configuration of an http listener) involves way more steps than simply
clicking on just one handle in the sidebar. And it is likely that some
tasks get used over and over again while others are rather seldomly
used. So I think to have the most needed tasks in the sidebar would help
the user a lot.
Quite a lot of text. But as probably most GlassFish users I use the
admin console a lot and thus I am very interested in your plans. You
probably should regard this as a compliment ot the overall usefulness of
the admin console ;-)
--
Wolfram Rittmeyer