Suggested Pandora Gui - "tango"

[Arialia]

I made a video of the Tango GUI on a Nokia N800 (which has the same resolution touch screen - but is just a tiny bit smaller than the Pandora - 4.1" instead of 4.3") and my PSP Slim (so you could see it on a game system. These are just slideshows of the pictures you've already seen on here. So, it might just be a waste of time. You have been warned.



No waste time, is very difficult to have a good idea of screen Pandora when you have not device with similar resolution and size

so thanks a lot Chad

no the font is not big

but in effect when you resize at real size ( 44% for resolution 1280x800 on my laptop) seems very small but don't be afraid the computer don't really render good aspect

so it will be good thing that we have some testers like Chad to test Picture screen on device similar B)

while waiting for real Pandora .....

 

[Holokauston]

I think you took that a little bit too seriously.

+1


no not really just made a point against UI without "eye-candy" if it sounded harsh that was not my intention

 

[icurafu]

I like it Chad. I think this will make a perfect simple GUI for the Pandora. If I had this as one of the startup options, I would choose this nearly everytime.

 

[Karel Jansens]

I made a video of the Tango GUI on a Nokia N800 (which has the same resolution touch screen - but is just a tiny bit smaller than the Pandora - 4.1" instead of 4.3") and my PSP Slim (so you could see it on a game system. These are just slideshows of the pictures you've already seen on here. So, it might just be a waste of time. You have been warned.



First of all, I do love your GUI (although I'm enough of a geek to want to try out your text-based "alternative"), so consider the rest of my post as nit-picking:

1. I don't know if this is feasible, but couldn't the bottom tabs be aligned with the number keys of the Pandora's keypad? That way it would be rather easy to assign a <FN>+<NUMBER> combination to each tab. You know, for the touchscreen-impaired.

2. I'm still a big fan of a tile-based layout, mainly because it removes the ambiguity of where the clickable zone for an icon ends, so instead of having loose icons in the grid-based layout, perhaps true tiles (you know, with outlines) could be used. It's probably visually less appealing, but I'm betting it'll score big in the usability area.

3. Please, if possible, no kinetic scrolling! It really drives me nuts on a small screen (and is the main reason why I don't use Canola on my N800!). Gesture scrolling, especially on the slider layout, might work, but I'd seriously urge you to make it a user-definable setting.

As to the rest: Kudos on taking the good bits of Maemo and leaving out the lousy bits. Just make sure the top-right toolbar is expandable and user-accessible, that the home widgets are resizeable and can be locked in place and that there is an easy way to go in and out of fullscreen mode (i.e. without tabs and widgets).

Actually, this is a good place to find out what's wrong with Maemo from a usability point of view. Obviously, the Newton-specific points are less important, as the Pandora is not a handwriting-centric pocketable, but there's some very good stuff in there.

 

[sindbad]

2. I'm still a big fan of a tile-based layout, mainly because it removes the ambiguity of where the clickable zone for an icon ends, so instead of having loose icons in the grid-based layout, perhaps true tiles (you know, with outlines) could be used. It's probably visually less appealing, but I'm betting it'll score big in the usability area.

I'm partial to the way KDE's plasma widgets are delimited. Round translucid tile on which the text and image are placed.

 

[openthebox]

I like the GUI, it's user friendly.

I might be in a minority here, but I would like to see the F# keys to be a quick way to launch EMUs.
I want to boot up my Pandora and hit just one (or combo) key and it will take me straight to an EMU's start screen.

 

[Nova]

I really like the ideas outlined in your post. However, I have a few personal ideas I'd like to mention at this point.

1)I feel that for quicker access to tabs, the F keys could be utilised. Therefore, I have labelled each tab in my mockup with a shortcut.

2)The name of the tab above the selected one seems a little cheap. Therefore in my mockup, you will see that when on a tab, the tab will elongate allowing the name to be displayed alongside the icon.

3)I'm not too keen on the 3d tabs, it seems a tad busy, i tried to get an idea of what they may look like if they were flat, with a touch of glow on them.

Anyway, here's my mockup, feel free to critique:

 

[Sphinxter]

What is the visual appeal of having the toolbar shaped like a row of tombstones? OSX, e17, gnome, lot of great looking launch pads out there that all seem to have escaped this feature. Not feeling it.

 

[chad78]

What is the visual appeal of having the toolbar shaped like a row of tombstones? OSX, e17, gnome, lot of great looking launch pads out there that all seem to have escaped this feature. Not feeling it.

Firefox, Opera, IE, Konqueror, they all use tabs. Tabs are an excellent metaphor for what's going on here.

You've got a Emu Tab - the Tab is like a folder - inside of each folder is any given number of "Pages". These pages contain a given number of items. So - the whole thing is like a big filing cabinet, you use the tab to find the group of pages that has the item your looking for on it. It's the same metaphor as pretty much every file structure on earth - in fact, the very fact that we call files "Files" is an extension of that metaphor. The difference here is, instead of showing the entire folder that the file is in, we just show the top tab of it.

How many of those GUIs still show folders?

The tabs are not like OS X's dock - it's not like Windows' task bar. These aren't individual applications - they are groups of applications. Hence the Folder > File structure metaphor.

Sony's XMB does basically the same thing, except it puts the icon for the "tab" in the center of the screen, where they slide back and forth left to right. When a given folder/tab/group is selected the contained icons unfold from it in a flowing line up and down. That Emmy Award Winning design, however, is copyrighted and cannot be used legally by Pandora. Sony uses it on its PSP, PS3, and even a number of enhanced TVs. It was first used on the original Playstation. Wiki

I, as a Mac user and huge fan of Mac OS X, *HATE* Leopards "Stacks". It's ridiculous. It's change for change's sake, and it is a PITA to use. So, no, I don't want to copy that idea.

If you think they look too much like tombstones - you can change the color - or nest them on the top or the side.

 

[chad78]

The other day, I did change the "home" page mock up without posting at the end of the thread here, so here is it.


The home screen - user controlled widgets

Click for big.


And I just added a shot of the "Apps" tab. It doesn't really add any insight into the workings of the GUI, but I did alter where I put the name, and I only put the name of the selected icon. It does show an icon selected in Grid mode, which is something I haven't done before. Anyway, here it is - oh, and it has a new wallpaper.


The “Grid” Mode of the Apps tab

Click for big.


And, yeah, I just realized that "DVR" should probably go under "Media" and not "Apps". My bad.

 

[chad78]

1)I feel that for quicker access to tabs, the F keys could be utilised. Therefore, I have labelled each tab in my mockup with a shortcut.

We had discussed that in the last thread, but we were talking about just hitting the number - not the FN+#. Although your method would cut down on accidental switching. So +1.

QUOTE

2)The name of the tab above the selected one seems a little cheap. Therefore in my mockup, you will see that when on a tab, the tab will elongate allowing the name to be displayed alongside the icon.



Who you calling cheap? I'll have you know that I never kiss on the first date!

Oh... Well, that's basically a taste issue - I don't think it affects the functionality of the GUI either way - other than someone has to code the elongating tabs. (I got your elongating tabs, RIGHT HERE!) Sorry... I'm in a weird sleepy but hyper state. Please forgive me.

QUOTE

3)I'm not too keen on the 3d tabs, it seems a tad busy, i tried to get an idea of what they may look like if they were flat, with a touch of glow on them.



Again, that's a taste issue. My mockups, while reflecting my tastes since I made them, are more to show off function than form. This is how I want it to *work* - how it *looks* should be, as many have said, customizable. I think that it should be easy enough to switch between flat and 3D tabs, as well as color or placement.

QUOTE

Anyway, here's my mockup, feel free to critique:

One problem I see with the growing tabs is - what if your tab is labeled "Office Stuff" or "Old's Cool Emulators from the 1990s!" or "This is where I put stuff I don't want people to find." In my GUI, it would just either clutter the screen - or abbreviate to 2 lines, like "This is...to find" something like that. Or get really small int he font. How would you handle a long named tab (Assuming users can create / change their own tabs.)

Speaking of which, I do think it's kind of silly of me to think that every user will only need the 8 tabs I came up with. So, yes, I think tabs should be as easy to create, change, and reorganize as folders on a desktop. So I propose a limit of 10 tabs on the screen at a time - each assigned to a fn+# key, and FN+shoulder button switches between "pages" of tabs. What do you think?

 

[chad78]

The purist in me says that font anti-aliasing is eye candy :rolleyes:

Point taken.

 

[Svartalf]

Nice GUI mockups. Not sure if the usability is there for it, but it LOOKS nice and I'd say that if we've got skinnable or alternate UI shells, this would be a good one to tinker with providing. I'd think Hildon could provide this with the right skinning- heh...one more vote for something like Maemo...

 

[Tinnus]

So I propose a limit of 10 tabs on the screen at a time - each assigned to a fn+# key, and FN+shoulder button switches between "pages" of tabs. What do you think?

Please, let me select a tab with just the number key. They're small, they're in the corner, no one will actually press them accidentally and even then, it's not the end of the world--which, for me, having to press Fn + a number above it would be. You're supposed to use the buttons for fast direct navigation instead of linear, but having a combo completely defies that.

Also, when did we start to use a Fn + shoulder combo to scroll tabs? I also think this is a bad idea, something as basic (in the control hierarchy that is) should be easily done without weird button combos.

Well, whatever, if no one agrees it's fine, I'll just ask for whoever codes whatever UI, please let it be completely configurable ESPECIALLY the controls

(hmm actualyl I'm having crazy ideas on completely scriptable UIs. That's cool )

 

[chad78]

Nice GUI mockups. Not sure if the usability is there for it, but it LOOKS nice and I'd say that if we've got skinnable or alternate UI shells, this would be a good one to tinker with providing. I'd think Hildon could provide this with the right skinning- heh...one more vote for something like Maemo...

Thank you.

I'm curious what you mean by "if the usability is there for it"? Do you mean that my GUI is lacking usability, or that I'm asking for the Pandora to do things it can't do, or something completely different?

If it's the first one - what can I change to make it more user friendly?

 

[naples39]

I think the home tab should definitely have a section for 'most recently used apps'. That way it truly would be a home tab and you wouldn't have to navigate away from it every time you actually do something on the pandora.

 

[chad78]

Please, let me select a tab with just the number key.

That makes sense. Okay - +1 for just the 1 = Home, 2 = Apps, etc.

QUOTE

Also, when did we start to use a Fn + shoulder combo to scroll tabs? I also think this is a bad idea, something as basic (in the control hierarchy that is) should be easily done without weird button combos.



What is the alternative? The should buttons switch between pages of icons (within a given tab). Number keys are taken by the tabs. Analog sticks and D-Pad are used to navigate the icons. Unless we made it Analog sticks for the icons - D-Pad for the tabs.

Another alternative would be hitting "Select" turns the tabs "page" - but that would be a one-way navigation. So maybe limited to 2 pages (a total of 20 tabs). Or they could have a ton of them, and just have to hit select a lot - or use the touchscreen to move backwards.

QUOTE

Well, whatever, if no one agrees it's fine, I'll just ask for whoever codes whatever UI, please let it be completely configurable ESPECIALLY the controls

(hmm actualyl I'm having crazy ideas on completely scriptable UIs. That's cool )




OH! Brainstorm!

Keep it 8 tabs per screen and use 1 and 0 for turning pages!

it's like this

Page back / Home / Apps / Web / Media / Communication / Emus / Pandora / Prefs / Page forward
.....1..............2.........3.........4..........5................6................7..........8............9..............0

I think the home tab should definitely have a section for 'most recently used apps'. That way it truly would be a home tab and you wouldn't have to navigate away from it every time you actually do something on the pandora.

That's the great thing about a widget-style set up - you can pretty much get whatever you want on there. So, "Recent Apps" / "Recent Files" widget, here you come.

 

[Svartalf]

Thank you.

You're welcome.

QUOTE

I'm curious what you mean by "if the usability is there for it"? Do you mean that my GUI is lacking usability, or that I'm asking for the Pandora to do things it can't do, or something completely different?



Something completely different.

There's the coding effort involved. I don't think that's going to be TOO hard- I don't think Hildon's beyond doing a single thing you're showing.

What I'm getting at is things that would be called "design sins"- things that don't make sense or end up looking pretty but cumbersome to use. There's a LOT of that sort of thing with all the Compiz eye candy turned on on Linux, for example- looks
damned cool, but it gets damned annoying in a regular use scenario. Another example of this is the "Start" button to shut down
a Windows machine.

Until you have a more functional mock-up (Do you have something in Python for N800 that I and others could tinker with??) that people can duff about with that does little more than tabbing over, button clicking, etc. you can't tell if you've made any oopses- it looks right to me, so I think this is going to probably be a winner...but until you implement the thing just a little bit further to get interplay, you can't be for certain it's usable.

 

[Shiny]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2109/247201...dc6c7f16a_o.png


<purist mode>

• Drop the >s before file names.
• Un-bold.
• Make the text ridiculously small.
• Replace spaces with underscores.
• Lose the whole "WELCOME" thing. I like my interfaces to be as cold and lifeless as my ex-wife.
• Date format should be DD/MM/YY; Least significant to most significant. Anyone who uses MM/DD/YY is just plain stupid.

... and then we might have a deal

</purist>

I'm not too keen on the effect used to signify that an application is selected. It just doesn't stand out enough. Will there be anything else to help it grab your attention? Perhaps it could jiggle around tee hee.

I like the idea of switching between tabs with the number keys, but I'll problably find myself having to count down the tabs just to figure out which one to press. This might become second nature in time, but optional numbering would be nice. The bit about changing pages with 0 and 1 is just brilliant

 

[Sphinxter]

I find the drawings a bit illogical, looks like those are upside down and taped on the bottom of the pages or something weird, tabs always go at the top of every tab interface I've used but I don't get out much, more like tombstones in the dirt. Bit too much clutter, white space is one of the most important design elements, might look better with a couple pixel bigger more visible icons without the headstones, their transparency adds to the clutter.