joule | The user interface

marnanel posting in

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the current user interface for Joule, and how it can be improved. Currently, you have three things to enter, in a space that looks like this:
You need to enter

Your username. This is a text box.
A site. This is a drop-down list containing all the sites we support. If you came to Joule from a particular site (say, Twitter), that site will be pre-selected. Otherwise LiveJournal will be pre-selected.
You must press either the "chart" button or the "graph" button.

Let's call these "the controls". I would like to simplify them a bit. I wonder whether we should make any of these changes:

"Graph" isn't much used (92% of all reports are charts), and it probably should be something you can select when you're looking at the chart rather than from the front page. So maybe there should just be a "go" or "OK" button on the front page that took you to the chart.
I would like to have other options than "chart" or "graph", like a line graph showing the change in the number of your followers over all the time you've been using Joule. We could have this accessible in the same way as just discussed for the bar graph, so there wouldn't have to be three or more buttons to choose from.
Perhaps the controls shouldn't be on the reports page because they clutter up the report, and it would be better just to have them on the the main page, and a link back to the main page on the other pages.
Most people (93%) don't go to their page using the controls. I think what happens is that they use them the first time, and then bookmark the report page. So perhaps we can simplify further and we shouldn't have the sites box. Instead you'd just type your username and it would give you a list of charts you might be interested in. That takes a little longer for the first-time user, but perhaps it's a bit less alarming or confusing than all those controls.

Thoughts?

Update: I have implemented 1, 3 and 4 as an experiment. I would love to hear feedback either for or against it.

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Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

drkcherry

I have never used the graph.

Before any changes started showing up on my LJ, I used the bookmarked page to go and look at it. I also only use it when I am being nosey and checking someone else's status, again only using the chart, not the graph.

For me, the only time the graph has much use is when I have a mad influx of drops or adds. I just like to see them all grouped together.

Personally I'm pretty happy with the LJ/Firefox addon.

And when did we add Twitter as a choice? Hooya, have to check that.

From: (Anonymous)

So far, I do like it better than the drop-down box. Less clicking, especially since my mouse is often possessed. It might be interesting to include a "summary" of known stuff about each of the options, though... e.g. a quick check to see if the account exists, and perhaps an indication that it's been Jouled before, for example:

"I believe you have accounts here:
* HoopyCat on Twitter (Jouled since May 3rd)
* HoopyCat on LiveJournal

You can also check for HoopyCat on identi.ca, digg, etc..."

From:

nirikina.livejournal.com

I never had any problems with it before. Personally I don't like putting my name in one on page, then choosing what to look at on a second page. Would be easier to have it all on one page. But that's just my opinion.

Also, it doesn't respect the fact I have my default font set to Arial, it insists on displaying the pages in Times New Roman.

From:

hel

I liked being able to be viewing my twitter or lj list, and click the dropdown menu and chart and see the results for the other. I don't see a way to easily go back and forth between lists in this, which is a big loss of functionality for me.

From: (Anonymous)

The new interface is JUST TERRIBLE. Do you really mean I can't just type a username into the box to follow someone on LJ, but have to keep returning to a page and picking LJ over and over? No no no. Fail. Go back to the old way. It was fine! You tried to fix it and broke it.

From: (Anonymous)

I preferred the old way. One page and choose from a drop down box for the site.

From:

martzin

The graph/chart and blank/non-blank controls work well as links.

A disadvantage of the new design is that it makes completely unobvious how to navigate to a different account. Going to the front page doesn't come to mind. You could add “select a different another account” on a link. You could even keep a recent list in a cookie (trimming style changes by keeping five distinct recent accounts and the last style).

Without blanks should be the default choice, it gives more information at a glance than the alternative. I wouldn't mind graphs being the default choice either, if only for discovery purposes. I'd never seen them before (possibly there used to be a display bug). Chart with blanks can be used to give a time scale, but the graph does it better, so maybe you don't need blanks at all.

Choosing an account could be quicker and in one step: a box and five links with the favicon next to the site name.

From: (Anonymous)

Lots of messing around if you're looking at more than one account.
And Im getting this
Sorry, there seems to have been a problem:

DBD::Pg::st execute failed: ERROR: duplicate key value violates unique constraint "checks_pkey" at /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0/Joule/History.pm line 103.

From: (Anonymous)

It's ugly.

From: (Anonymous)

I liked the old way. Type in a name and choose your site.

There's nowhere to return to if you get this message You haven't used Joule before today. Welcome!

Come back tomorrow and you'll see a list of who has friended or unfriended you between now and then

If I want to look around some more I have to push the back button

From: (Anonymous)

Where did the input box go? And lately the results are sometimes all squished up to the left, although that doesn't make it impossible to read.

From: (Anonymous)

I much preferred the old way.

From: (Anonymous)

I really dislike the multiple pages and clicks to get to the report page. Why make a completely separate page for the sites? Why a separate page for the intro? I have not, in fact, bookmarked my several joule pages (because I check on a variety of computers), and generally would just enter one, click to report, then enter the next, etc, on the same page. This having to enter name, click, click site, THEN get a report, then GO BACK TWO PAGES to enter the next one, is amazingly annoying and user-surly.

From: (Anonymous)

Hi. I have a question related to options for reports: is there a way that we could have the "unfollows" and "follows" of Twitter users formatted without the photos, in an exportable Excel or Word format?

The reason I ask is that Twitter has twice in the past four months encountered some horrible glitch that has made the system randomly deleted hundreds of my followers all at once (the first time, they deleted 75% of my followers in one hour accidentally, then last week they deleted 40% of my followers - not because of spam but because of a tech glitch). They refuse to help me restore my followers, which is why I found your app. I want to be able to capture a list of all my followers in a way that would allow me to contact them again easily to ask for them to refollow, in case Twitter ever does this again.

Thanks,
jennpozner

From: (Anonymous)

It seems difficult with the new interface to check on a couple of journals in a row. I miss that, so...

From: (Anonymous)

Also, this is disappointing, because I'm seeing lots of comments from people dissatisfied with the new formatting, and obviously there hasn't been a response or a change.

I imagine if you keep it in this format, I'll probably just stop using Joule.

From:

marnanel

Sorry, I was away at a conference for a while, and then a number of other things came up. I think the consensus is pretty clear to revert the change now, so that's what I'll do.

From:

txvoodoo

Honestly, "chart" isn't really descriptive - it's more accurately a table.

If most people use Chart, just put a link on the results to "See this data in another format" and maybe a drop-down *there*

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