Opinions Wanted: v3 GUI Prototype

[Ken Paulsen]

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?
• Do you like/dislike the tree?
• Do you like/dislike the tagging feature?

Of course all other comments are also welcome (what's missing?  what do you really like?  what do you dislike? etc.).  We know there are many issues with this UI, it is an early prototype -- far from production ready.  Some major issues we're aware of:

• Many broken button clicks (particularly posts that don't do a redirect)
  
• Performance -- it's not good right now, it will be MUCH better when it's not a prototype (note: it also doesn't help that this prototype is running on a small desktop machine over a DSL-line... ;) ).
  
• Many pages are broken (some intentionally for the public demo, others are simply not implemented)
• List of tagged pages can sometimes show duplicates
• Ajax for updating tags and other portions of the screen is not implemented
• Breadcrumbs do not exist

So... as you can see we're not looking for bugs, but rather general feedback on the navigation and L&F.  Thanks for taking a look!

Thanks,

Ken Paulsen (and the rest of the GF Admin Console Team)
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[Ken Paulsen]

Hi Kristian,

Thanks for the great feedback!  To answer your question regarding searching... currently we only search tags (not the content seen on any screens).  Implementing a tag-search is very easy and straight-forward, searching localized content is much harder.

Our thought for tags was that pages could be tagged with some default tags.  The user can then add / remove tags they would like to see, for example I might put "ken" as a tag on the 5 or 6 pages I like to visit.  Then the search would allow me to find those pages in 1 click.  Tags might be task-oriented (monday tasks), content oriented (applications), or user oriented (ken).... depending on how you'd like to use them.

We also plan to have a "settings..." page (the link is in the menu).  This page will allow you to turn off features like tagging which might otherwise get in your way. :)  The sliding panel on the right is supposed to remember to stay off the screen when you close it also -- that's a current bug.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Ken

Kristian Rink wrote:

Hi Ken, *;

a few comments as I have stumbled across this earlier, already... :)

Ken Paulsen schrieb:
  

Here are some things we are particularly interested in feedback on:
    * Do you like/dislike the menus?
    

Pretty good. Actually, the menu structure looks rather straightforward and
quite task-oriented, in my opinion way more "logical" and consistent than
the current tree-view navigation.

That said: I liked the tree in GFv2 but maybe, if included in v3, it should
be pruned a little - in my opinion it is too big right now, some things
could eventually be arranged in a better way (like, in example, having just
a tag "applications" to contain everything including webapps, ejb modules
and the like in a table-like fashion explaining what kind of type each app
is?).


  

    * Do you like/dislike the tagging feature?
    

Well... so far tagging seems all around, but honestly speaking, personally I
don't see much use in that feature, around here. Given a strictly outlined,
usable, sane menu structure easily allowing for having all features just a
click away, I am not sure why to eventually add even more complexity by
introducing a navigation hierarchy / structure of my own... ;)



  

Of course all other comments are also welcome (what's missing?  what do
you really like?  what do you dislike? etc.). 
    

At first a "visual" thing: I would kinda scale down the big blue page header
("Glassfish V3 Prelude Administration Console"). Sure, it's not that big,
but at least on my notebook display (1280x800), that's quite a big area on
the screen not really containing any meaningful information. Having this
header half as high still should be sufficient IMHO.

Then: As stated I don't personally see the need to have tagging around.
Other than that, I'd like to have the "search" facility located in some more
exposed position (in the main menu?) as "fallback" given someone doesn't
find/want to search the section required... Search does also search the
admin_gui itself and not just the tags added to pages, doesn't it?


  

    * Performance -- it's not good right now, it will be MUCH better
      when it's not a prototype (note: it also doesn't help that this
      prototype is running on a small desktop machine over a DSL-line...
      ;) ).
    

Been testing it using a thin DSL line myself, I think it's not all that bad
either. ;)


  

    * Ajax for updating tags and other portions of the screen is not
      implemented
    

Though I generally like AJAX being used in tools like this, I surely would
enjoy seeing features like this dumped for the sake of performance in final
release. Glassfish v2 admin_gui was quite a pleasant and usable experience
but also had some minor glitches eventually could be done better (log
viewer, in example). From that point of view, less AJAX for the sake of an
admin_gui as light and responsive as somewhat possible seems desirable... In
my opinion (even though drastically limited in terms of features), the ui of
tomcat lambdaprobe management UI (lambdaprobe.org) still somewhat shines
even obviously discontinued...

Oh well, I'll better stop muttering now... :) Keep up the good work, all the
best!
K.

  

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[Wolfram Rittmeyer-2]

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


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[Claudio Miranda]

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 5:36 PM, Ken Paulsen <Ken.Paulsen@...> wrote:
>
> Do you like/dislike the menus?
> Do you like/dislike the tree?

The drop down menus are nice, but I strongly prefer the tree menu.
Tree menus, looks to better organize the options.
With tree menus, you have the option to expand all nodes, and quickly
take a look at which option to click.

A suggestion: add an autocomplete textfield  on top of the tree menu,
and as the user types there, the tree menu displays only the menu
options who have those letters. One can see this feature in action on
eclipse IDE, at preferences window.

With this feature, no matter how large is the tree menu, users always
find a way to get directly to the desired page.

> Do you like/dislike the tagging feature?

In the context of appserver administration, tagging can be more of a
distraction, sorry to be honest.

suggestion 2: It really helps if all pages are bookmarkable pages, as
we can bookmark and quickly navigate to them, after login.

--
  Claudio Miranda
  _______________________________________________

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[Ken Paulsen]

Hi Claudio,

Thanks for your comments!

I have a question about your bookmarking comment... is this any different than tagging all the pages you want to bookmark with the same tag (i.e. "bookmark")?  I suppose what you'd like us to do is show those "bookmarks" without needing to first click on the bookmark tag?  Or did you have something else in mind?

It seems to me that we did not to a good job at making the use of tagging clear, or perhaps this demo does not expose it in a useful way...

Thanks!

Ken


Claudio Miranda wrote:

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 5:36 PM, Ken Paulsen Ken.Paulsen@... wrote:
  

Do you like/dislike the menus?
Do you like/dislike the tree?
    

The drop down menus are nice, but I strongly prefer the tree menu.
Tree menus, looks to better organize the options.
With tree menus, you have the option to expand all nodes, and quickly
take a look at which option to click.

A suggestion: add an autocomplete textfield  on top of the tree menu,
and as the user types there, the tree menu displays only the menu
options who have those letters. One can see this feature in action on
eclipse IDE, at preferences window.

With this feature, no matter how large is the tree menu, users always
find a way to get directly to the desired page.

  

Do you like/dislike the tagging feature?
    

In the context of appserver administration, tagging can be more of a
distraction, sorry to be honest.

suggestion 2: It really helps if all pages are bookmarkable pages, as
we can bookmark and quickly navigate to them, after login.

  

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[Claudio Miranda]

What I meant, is to be able to bookmark any page on to the browser,
but as it is a frame based page, there is no way to bookmark it.
I understand the tag feature comes to solve this. and maybe it can help.
So let me say that the tag feature is a good one, but I would
recommend to not visually disturb the administration interface.

Thanks for the clarification.

Claudio Miranda

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Ken Paulsen <Ken.Paulsen@...> wrote:
> I have a question about your bookmarking comment... is this any different
> than tagging all the pages you want to bookmark with the same tag (i.e.
> "bookmark")?  I suppose what you'd like us to do is show those "bookmarks"
> without needing to first click on the bookmark tag?  Or did you have
> something else in mind?
>
> It seems to me that we did not to a good job at making the use of tagging
> clear, or perhaps this demo does not expose it in a useful way...
>



--
  Claudio Miranda
  _______________________________________________

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[Sreenivas Munnangi]

Nice proto-type, pl. see my comments.

thanks
sreeni

Here are some things we are particularly interested in feedback on:

• Do you like/dislike the menus?

Yes, they are very good and I like the ability of reaching any depth in a single traversal.

• Do you like/dislike the tree?

I liked our tree in v2 and I think it is useful to present the entire scope of glassfish at a glance. It gives an idea of what can be done and where  they are.

• Do you like/dislike the tagging feature?

I like it.