Don't understand new control panel UI

jfriend

Big mistake here in this new UI. I can't tell which controls are on or off. Bad mistake in the UI design. How could you guys miss this? Why go inventing something brand new that has these kinds of issues that nobody has seen before. UI designers trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist (creating their own unique look) and they create a problem instead because we can't tell which is which.

In this screen shot, I honestly don't know which options are on and which are off. I can't tell whether "off" means it's currently off or whether it means you click on that to turn it off. Come on Smugmug, you can do a lot better than this. This is so wrong, it's silly.

rainforest1155

Hi John,
Sorry to hear you're confused by this. If you see on, it means an option is on. When you see off, it means it's off. That's reinforced by the glowing green of the on and the gray color of the off switch.
I hope this helps.

jfriend

rainforest1155 wrote: »

Hi John,
Sorry to hear you're confused by this. If you see on, it means an option is on. When you see off, it means it's off. That's reinforced by the glowing green of the on and the gray color of the off switch.
I hope this helps.

OK, that answers my question. But, do you all think it's entirely obvious which way is which? It sure wasn't to me.

Malte

jfriend wrote: »

OK, that answers my question. But, do you all think it's entirely obvious which way is which? It sure wasn't to me.

It's not obvious. I think it would actually help to remove the text alltogether and just have it lit up green when on, black when off.

Malte

SamirD

For a second I didn't get what you meant until I stared at it for a while. It definitely can be confusing. For me it was intuitive that something glowing 'on' was on, but it can also be interpreted as 'this needs to be click to be on'. Bad UI for sure if it's this easily confused. :cry

Pure Energy

Hmmm... looks easier to interpret than some things in the gallery settings that have circles for yes, no and what's that third one? Oh, I don't know so we'll go with that one since it probably means I'm undecided... I hope... but wouldn't that just mean no? And why is there a third one and not a no or is it a yes for that other setting? Oh, whatever.

I would have thought the glowing light highlighting the "on" button would further help indicate that the feature is on just like the glowing lights on a computer indicate it is on. Ding ding ding, like a light bulb going on over a cartoon character to indicate they got a thought. Here's a thought, try reading the choices as a sentence, for example: "Family View" is "ON." If you want it off, then click it until you can read it as "Family View" is "OFF."

jfriend wrote: »

Big mistake here in this new UI.

I'm all for making things simpler but this detail is not a "big mistake". I'm not sure it's a mistake at all. You do have me thinking... where do you see this logic elsewhere? I mean, here I am looking at a light switch for the room I'm in and the switch is flipped upward and says "ON." Yep, the light is on. Flip the switch downward and it says "OFF." Yep, the light is off.

This seems normal to me but maybe it isn't.

sara505

I can't even find my control panel.

Andy

sara505 wrote: »

I can't even find my control panel.

Sara: it's called Account Settings now. Here's the announcement on it, which was also in your login news popup: http://news.smugmug.com/2012/06/28/say-hello-to-your-new-account-settingsl/

sara505

Andy wrote: »

Sara: it's called Account Settings now. Here's the announcement on it, which was also in your login news popup: http://news.smugmug.com/2012/06/28/say-hello-to-your-new-account-settingsl/

Thanks, Andy. I'll poke around and see what's what.

jfriend

Pure Energy wrote: »

Hmmm... looks easier to interpret than some things in the gallery settings that have circles for yes, no and what's that third one? Oh, I don't know so we'll go with that one since it probably means I'm undecided... I hope... but wouldn't that just mean no? And why is there a third one and not a no or is it a yes for that other setting? Oh, whatever.

I would have thought the glowing light highlighting the "on" button would further help indicate that the feature is on just like the glowing lights on a computer indicate it is on. Ding ding ding, like a light bulb going on over a cartoon character to indicate they got a thought. Here's a thought, try reading the choices as a sentence, for example: "Family View" is "ON." If you want it off, then click it until you can read it as "Family View" is "OFF."



I'm all for making things simpler but this detail is not a "big mistake". I'm not sure it's a mistake at all. You do have me thinking... where do you see this logic elsewhere? I mean, here I am looking at a light switch for the room I'm in and the switch is flipped upward and says "ON." Yep, the light is on. Flip the switch downward and it says "OFF." Yep, the light is off.

This seems normal to me but maybe it isn't.

The analogy in "standard" UI widgets is the radio button. If you want to turn it "On", you click the "On". If you want to turn it off, you click the "Off". This is backwards from that. Here, if I want to turn it off, I click where it says "On". I was completely confused as to what state it was in. I thought that I would click "On" to turn it on. I thought I would click "Off" to turn it off and that's not how it works.