A pretty face doesn't improve usability
Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2014 12:51 am
I can see a lot of hard work has gone into the latest update. I like the ability to see my notes and annotations separately with this latest version and the added colors.
But i think the grid layout is overdone. I'd rather see a list of magazines, books and a list of chapters rather than an icon for every magazine, book and chapter. While the icons are nice to look at, it takes longer to scroll down and find things on my Galaxy 3. Now I have to carefully scroll down 3 to 5 times on my phone. For General Conference talks it's 13 or 14 screens. Before I could touch the screen once or twice to find the item I wanted.
The pretty pictures in the grid don't add much to findability and slow down navigation. I still have to read the small text label under the picture in some instances to be sure I've found the right one. The summary text from the intro paragraph of each chapter on the chapter icon in the BOM does not add to findability. The words on the BOM chapter icons are not useful as finding aids, and are too small and truncated in any case.
The Old and New Testament chapter icons are blank except for the chapter names. Now they've just put padding around the chapter titles for the sake of uniformity, sacrificing usability and findability. Why?
The icon used in the top level grid to represent all of the scriptures is confusing and misleading because it says "Old Testament". The word "Scriptures" is required underneath to verify the icon indicates all the scriptures, negating any value in adding a pretty picture.
If I want to move from the BOM to the OT, I have to navigate all the way out to the page with all the scriptures icons. Why can't I click on the navigation link at top and select a drop down menu to open the other scripture I want to read?
Lastly, it's nice to have the maps added, but once again their usefulness is limited. A pretty picture that isn't legible when zoomed is relatively useless.
I vote for an efficient navigational system over a pretty interface. I wonder how much usability testing was done on this release.
But i think the grid layout is overdone. I'd rather see a list of magazines, books and a list of chapters rather than an icon for every magazine, book and chapter. While the icons are nice to look at, it takes longer to scroll down and find things on my Galaxy 3. Now I have to carefully scroll down 3 to 5 times on my phone. For General Conference talks it's 13 or 14 screens. Before I could touch the screen once or twice to find the item I wanted.
The pretty pictures in the grid don't add much to findability and slow down navigation. I still have to read the small text label under the picture in some instances to be sure I've found the right one. The summary text from the intro paragraph of each chapter on the chapter icon in the BOM does not add to findability. The words on the BOM chapter icons are not useful as finding aids, and are too small and truncated in any case.
The Old and New Testament chapter icons are blank except for the chapter names. Now they've just put padding around the chapter titles for the sake of uniformity, sacrificing usability and findability. Why?
The icon used in the top level grid to represent all of the scriptures is confusing and misleading because it says "Old Testament". The word "Scriptures" is required underneath to verify the icon indicates all the scriptures, negating any value in adding a pretty picture.
If I want to move from the BOM to the OT, I have to navigate all the way out to the page with all the scriptures icons. Why can't I click on the navigation link at top and select a drop down menu to open the other scripture I want to read?
Lastly, it's nice to have the maps added, but once again their usefulness is limited. A pretty picture that isn't legible when zoomed is relatively useless.
I vote for an efficient navigational system over a pretty interface. I wonder how much usability testing was done on this release.