Interface refinement
July 16th, 2009You might have noticed something a little (or a lot) different with Cashboard when you logged in this morning.
We’ve been busy designing new features and decided to release some of the improvements now instead of waiting.
These latest improvements have everything to do with reducing the clutter, visual noise, and weight of the Cashboard interface.
Home
The old interface had extremely LARGE fonts, which were a bit…loud. We’ve reduced the fonts to let the interface breathe with some needed whitespace. Sorry for yelling. We’ll keep our voice lower from now on.
Header size has also been dramatically reduced, and we’ve eliminated display of logos within the header. Your logo will now show on the Cashboard login page and inside the app on the header.
The next step to reducing clutter and confusion was to eliminate all sidebar buttons. We’ve made creating items and searching much more clear by moving those menus and highlighting them with images.
Project Tasks
Again, you’ll notice the lack of sidebar buttons here. We’ve moved those functions in-line with the project into a toolbar.
Overly wordy help text has been axed, along with displaying edit/delete/time logging icons for each task. You’ll now only see those icons when placing your mouse over a task row.
Creating Projects
Wordy help text only added to the clutter and confusion of this screen.
That text has been moved into minimal tooltips. The help is there when you need it, and doesn’t distract you when you already know what you’re doing.
Invoice Worksheet
Invoice buttons have gotten the same treatment as the rest of the application. The Invoice Details section is also much more intuitive to use.
We’ve eliminated the pop-up window editing in favor of direct manipulation of those options right on the screen.
When viewing any invoice, partial important details are hidden. The rest are just a click away.
Odds and ends
You’ll notice some other minor things, including two brand new color schemes which many of you should enjoy. We’ve touched many parts of the application with this update, but we’ll continue to reduce and refine as we go.
Cashboard isn’t perfect, but we’re working towards that goal. As always, comments and feedback are welcome.
Thanks again for being a customer.
July 16th, 2009 at 04:23 AM
Loving all the enhancements Seth. One quick question, would it be possible to let us have our logo back again (limited to a certain height to still fit the layout)? I know I’d get used to it, but I really miss it! (As a side note, if I was letting clients access the system, I would want it there to keep my branding more unified)
July 16th, 2009 at 05:15 AM
I applaud you guys for constantly working to improve the utility and ease if use of Cashboard.
While many of your changes are definite improvements, for my own part, the fundamental changes to the UI that seem to come every few months mean the we have to re-learn how to interact with the app, without prior notices. This sometimes means that a 10 minute task can take 2-3 times as long to complete the next time we log in, simply because we have to re-learn how to do something, or search for something’s new home in the interface. It also often means that I have to take time out of my schedule to help my office manager figure out the new process, meaning I have to do extra work, and quotes or invoices will go out late.
For our own part, my office manager and I liked the sidebar tools, large type and help text. They made the app easy to use, friendly and engaging.
Please don’t misunderstand: we love Cashboard! But we ask that you please give some advance notice of major interface changes, or do as Google does and give the option to switch between new and old interface.
Hopefully these changes won’t impede our workflow too severely. We have a lot of quotes and invoices to push out in the next several days.
July 16th, 2009 at 08:33 AM
Well done! One of my favorite things about Cashboard is the regular updates.
I would have to agree with Adam. I miss my logo in the header (I love it on the login page though!) I think an option to have it back in the header (smaller?) would be excellent.
I’m torn on the sidebar buttons. On the 1 hand, they were big and easy to see. On the other, they were a bit too big. I think I’ll get used to the new interface. I don’t mind the UI changes at all.
July 16th, 2009 at 08:58 AM
@Craig – I understand your concerns.
We do as much as we can to minimize the impact of these design changes by grouping large changes together and providing a comprehensive write-up of what’s changed here on our blog.
We’ll continue to keep this in mind when moving forward with the app.
Logos in the header
I went back and forth on the header logo thing when I was in design mode. The logos might reappear there. I’ll think on it.
Sidebar buttons
I understand a lot of people felt that the buttons on the sidebar made the application more friendly. I was once of a similar mind.
However, there were a few problems with them that I became to understand while dealing with support emails and critically taking a look at our design.
First, those large buttons added to the visual noise of our screens and were overly emphasized for the tasks that they perform. The tasks those buttons represent are the exception, not the rule on each screen they appear on.
Second, the placement of those buttons caused a serious disconnect for new customers of the application. A good percentage of customers didn’t quite understand that the actions there were connected with the item they were viewing.
I think you all will adjust to the new changes and end up enjoying them a lot more. It’s definitely made a positive impact on our usability testing results.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:51 PM
Just a quick item of feedback. When you hover over timesheet lines, the X and pencil hover over the name of the project so you can’t see it.
It would be more friendly if it hovered over the right by the checkbox and didn’t cover things up.
I’m not sure if this is happening elsewhere in the app.
I’m using FF 3.5
July 16th, 2009 at 01:06 PM
Just to put in my 2 cents. I can agree that the interface does need a little more decluttered and its looking good now.
However, I think you might have gone a little too far. I enjoyed seeing my logo at the top of every page, and liked that my customers saw it too when logging in instead of just my company name.
I also think the design seems a little awkward now, and not entirely unified in terms of font size and layout. Maybe I’ll get used to it but on initial impressions it seems not quite as tidy.
Anyway, you’re working hard and its your application so I trust you know where you’re going with it all :)
Good luck,
Andy
July 16th, 2009 at 02:05 PM
As I said yesterday, great improvements, Seth.
The only recommendation I have after working with this for a good 24 hours is that I too miss the logo in the header. One of the main reasons why I love Cashboard is because it provides fantastic branding options that I found lacking in other applications. So, count me in as another loyal customer looking for that to come back.
Other than that, I love that the big buttons are now gone. Honestly, I always thought those to be a bit tacky. I think that using tooltips attached to smaller icons is a fantastic way to accomplish section-specific tasks.
In addition, you continue to improve the overall workflow by utilizing nifty Javascript features, so great job with that.
July 16th, 2009 at 03:24 PM
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
The logo will have to be about 30px high to fit, and honestly I thought that to be a bit small to display some of the HUGE logos I’ve seen people using inside the app.
However, that’s a judgement call I suppose you as designers will have to make on a site-by-site basis. I’ll see what I can do to provide some logo support in the header since everyone seems to miss it so much.
Thanks for all of the feedback as well. Not going to respond point for point, but I am listening and evaluating everything…
July 16th, 2009 at 05:40 PM
Great updates to the UI guys. I agree, a little warning would be nice. I’m pretty quick at learning new interfaces, however I’m sure you have a lot of customers who get worried about sudden UI changes.
July 16th, 2009 at 06:58 PM
Everyone, there was advanced notice on our twitter account.
However, I realize not everyone uses twitter. Next time I’ll work on a pre-release blog post and in-application announcement. Lesson learned.
July 16th, 2009 at 09:34 PM
I also want the logo back
July 17th, 2009 at 12:54 AM
Ok ok ok…header logos are back :)
July 17th, 2009 at 01:13 AM
Wow, one minute my logo is gone and the next minute it’s back again. Good job listening to feedback! Logos for everyone!
July 17th, 2009 at 08:19 AM
Seth,
Nice job on the new interface. I always felt that the last version was clunky and I never did like the large buttons.
I’ve seen about 5 iterations of Cashboard and each time it gets better.
@Craig – This iteration of the interface will probably stay much longer than the others. It takes time and lots of trial and error and reflection to finally find the design that is the most usable. I think they dialed it in this time.
@Seth – Now start adding integration features. Integrate with QuickBooks, Quicken, FogBugz (FogBugz 7 just came out and has a cool new API and Plugins Model) or Remember The Milk. Maybe Google Calendar. A Mobile Cashboard would be cool, but make it web-based so that I can access it with my Windows Mobile phone or Blackberry and not just an iPhone (boo Harvest). Maybe some more payment gateways than just crappy Authorize.NET and PayPal. Element Payment Services is more secure with their Hosted Payments Solution because credit cards are entered into their servers on an IFRAME which takes you out of scope of PCI DSS and release you of credit card data liabilities. Their rates beat Authorize.NET too. As a partner, you could get a tiny bit of revenue too. Maybe more widgets.
Software products with crappy interfaces often thrive on integration options alone because benefits sometimes win over usability. But CashBoard would have both.
Anyways, just my thoughts. Keep rocking!
Mark Howard Elexient LLC
July 17th, 2009 at 10:58 AM
Thanks so much for returning the logo! Great UI improvements.
July 20th, 2009 at 05:28 PM
I agree with Justin that the covering up of task names in the timesheet is problematic. I’m accustomed to doing time sheet searches every week and scrolling down through the entries in my results, using my mouse pointer to help me look for certain items and now as I do this the task names are unconveniently being covered up as I go.
I also agree with Andrew that the UI looks more awkward and less uniform.
peace|dewde
July 21st, 2009 at 04:51 PM
RE: Row hover-menus
Just pushed a change to the server live that cleans up those menus quite a bit.
Thanks for the inspiration to do something better with em. ;)
July 23rd, 2009 at 05:24 AM
Seth:
Your solution is the perfect blend. I really hated complaining initially (yes really) because I was in agreement with the spirit behind your changes. I totally didn’t think of moving the little action bar up into a tab-like formation, but dude. Great idea. This is significantly more useful and convenient than before.
Keep up the excellent work. I dig how well you receive feedback (criticism?) and always manage to find a solution that satisfies.
peace|dewde
August 1st, 2009 at 06:10 AM
No wonder I couldn’t find the multi-statement PDF button. I was looking for the big sidebar buttons, because I had seen them there previously. I ended up downloading the PDFs of each invoice, because I couldn’t find what I was looking for.
I’m in agreement with Craig Chapman above.
Thanks, François
August 1st, 2009 at 06:13 AM
I just found the multi-statement invoice I was looking for. The icons weren’t clear enough for me.