Need Opinions on Symphony Properties - Part 2 of 3 (text properties)

Jenn Giardino, User Experience Design Lead for Lotus Symphony  |  Feb 5, 2009 11:26 AM
Profile image for Jenn Giardino This is questionnaire part 2 of 3 for trying to make your use of the Symphony properties more efficient to use.

Please compare the current design of the Text Properties sidebar panel to the potential redesign, then answer the following questions.

1. Of the examples shown above, do you prefer 1) the current Text Properties panel, or 2) the potential redesign of the Text Properties panel? Why?

2. Of the functions shown in the current Text Properties panel, which functions do you use most?

3. Which functions do you use least?

4. Based on your use of Lotus Symphony, what do you find most favorable about the current text properties panel?

5. What do you find most unfavorable about the current text properties panel?

6. Based on the example above, what do you find most favorable about the potential redesign of the text properties panel?

7. What do you find most unfavorable about the potential redesign?

11 Comments

  • Ivo Santos said on Feb 5, 2009 12:34 PM:

    Although, somewhat, "more confusing", after looking a seconds to the images i found the second more powerful and fast.

    The second image is more "Symbol to Function" approach while the first is more "Description of function to Funcion". It's more probable that a user gets more familiarized to symbols due to the visual cortex properties of the brain.

  • Eduardo Passeto said on Feb 6, 2009 6:32 AM:

    Second image is more atractive. It is more... intuitive.

    I really like Symphony sidebar. Now a critic: actual sidebar is great. But when you need to open "All Text Properties"... Well, it opens a soviet-design original OO interface windows. First time it was shocking to me.

    An effort to abolish "All Text Properties" button is really wellcome!

  • Jan Latzko said on Feb 7, 2009 7:19 AM:

    I concurr with Eduardo, it's more intuitive.

    Uses less space, again, and again concentrates on the most-used functions. That's great.

  • Udo said on Feb 10, 2009 3:25 PM:

    The buttons in the new Text Properties panel (Figure 2) could be grouped furthermore with headings (Font, Effects, Position ...). These groups correspond to the tabs in the dialog box „All Text Properties“.

    If the appearance of the text properties panel is changed, the appearance of the dialog box „All Text Properties“ must be also changed.

    Which updates are planned for the dialog box ?

  • Ben said on Feb 23, 2009 4:58 PM:

    The new design is very nice. I agree with the proposal.

  • SmartSuite user said on Mar 8, 2009 11:13 AM:

    This is the right direction...

    The SmartSuite Infobox is so nice.

    But on Widescreen LCDs we can have the Infobox

    as a panel.

    I like the new shown bar much more than the old one.

    For everyone who don't know the Infobox, take a look here:

    < http://www.bau-facts.de/symphony/infobox/ >

    Also take a look here:

    < http://www.bau-facts.de/user_interface.phtml >

    and here:

    < http://www.bau-facts.de/spreadsheets_suggestion.phtml >

  • Tim said on Mar 14, 2009 6:32 PM:

    Do not limit the the user from expanding the size of the panel and give us the ability to change the font size of the panel.

  • Bob said on Apr 21, 2009 11:57 AM:

    Why can't this be a toolbar along the top? and context-sensitive? I'm losing a lot of screen real estate, especially when user has other plugins (and therefore a sidebar panel already), or when using Symphony within Notes 8. OO.org 3.x gives user great flexibility in terms of what buttons to show in toolbars, reorganize and rename buttons, etc.

  • Mike said on Apr 22, 2009 12:15 AM:

    The ribbon in MS office is becoming incredibly powerful - would be great to see if you can emulate the power an flexibility of it

  • Andy Robbins said on Apr 30, 2009 3:51 AM:

    Can you allow resizing the side-bar, currently the maximum size is limited, you cannot drag the border left to get side-bar resized.

  • Mike Gotts said on May 28, 2009 3:09 PM:

    I agree with the side-bar resizing request. I've got a laptop with a 15-in 1680x1050 pixel display, and it's using the 120 DPI fonts in Vista. The Text Properties side-bar can't be made wide enough and 1/3 of the choices are clipped off. There is a horizontal scroll bar to see the rest, but it makes the side-bar annoying instead of a benefit.

    The same widtch size limit applies if you "float" the toolbar. You can make is smaller, but not big enough to see everything.
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