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UI Guidelines for Shift

0. Introduction

This document has two parts: first, a list of aspects of the Sophie UI that Astea feels need UI input, and second, a schedule listing when aspects of the UI need to be integrated into Sophie 2. (See also the release schedule.) This is currently a draft; as this document grows, it should show areas where Astea is in agreement with Shift and areas where more discussion needs to happen before work can be done.

1. Aspects of the Sophie UI

(Most of this is based on sophie_v2.pdf.)

1.1. Graphic look & feel (general)

I think the graphic look is generally good & we like it.

1.2. Interactions (general)

Basic questions that need to be worked out:

• How much drag and drop is there in the interface?
  • Can we drag and drop from palettes to HUDs?
  • From HUDs to palettes?
  • From book to book?
• Number of halos on frames: ideally, there would be a balance between easily accessible functionality & less potential for confusion.

1.3. Arrangement of flaps, tabs, and palettes

I think we're in basic agreement that things used to create books (resources, frames, etc) appear in the left flap, while things related to the structure of the book (page thumbnails, list of books) appear on the right side.

We should hammer down exactly what the tabs are and what they are for - Sophie 1 had tabs with the vague names "tools", "library", "resources" which proved to be confusing.

1.4. Timelines

The way timelines were done in Sophie 1 wasn't wonderful and could probably be reworked.

1.5. Embedded books

The way embedded books were handled in Sophie 2 - particularly the editing of embedded books - was confusing and needs to be rethought.

1.6. Page templates

The idea of page templates is confusing to a lot of people; a good way to implement this that would be quickly

1.7. Reader application

The author application contains reading functionality; the UI of this shouldn't be too different from the authoring UI. The reader application, however, needs to have its UI thought through more carefully: many of the people using Reader won't have used Sophie previously. Because it's their first introduction, it needs to be easy to use; it should also be inviting.

(If we're planning on having Reader work in a browser as an applet, does all reader functionality need to be confined to a single window?)

1.8. Things that don't work

(This section lists things in the Sophie UI that don't currently work.)

2. Schedule

(This part of the doc lists when things should happens, milestones etc.)

2.1. Big Dates

2009-08-14: This is the first Beta release; most of the UI should be integrated into the product at this point so it can be critiqued.

2.2. Small Dates

2009-05-13: When the first round of this document will be critiqued by Shift.