General UI/UX feedback

paaljoachim

Verified User
Joined
Jul 2, 2019
Messages
11
Hey

My web host https://archhosting.net have this weekend switched from cPanel to DirectAdmin.

I notice a few things that I want to mention. The icon grid skin is available and that is great!
- Icons should be sharper.
- Your Account right sidebar could have a resize arrow so the user can resize the sidebar (horizontally).
- There is an animated jump/curving fade when going to another screen. There is really no need for that. It would be better that it just goes direct to the new section without the extra animation.
- Even when a dialog box is small the background is faded out. It would be better for the eyes to just keep the background in focus and make the dialog box even more prominent if needed.

For instance yesterday I needed to re-add Let's Encrypt SSL certificates. For everything I did a message showed up under the Messages and I also received an e-mail. It would be better to just have it run through the process and give a message direct on the screen instead of adding all the extra messages.

I believe that is it for now. I might come back and edit this message to add additional thoughts.

Thanks.

Paal Joachim
 
These are constructive feedback, Paal.

Since we don't have any easy to use Voting system, I am adding my +1 to this.
 
- There is an animated jump/curving fade when going to another screen. There is really no need for that. It would be better that it just goes direct to the new section without the extra animation.

Thank you for the feedback. For this one I have a question though. How would you know the page has loaded? As for non single page applications you just get 'white screen' on new page loading time, and even if it's not what you desire - that's how many sites work and you know something new has loaded. Single page applications, even facebook, when you scroll down - you see something to know it's 'loading/loaded' instead of nothing. Waiting for suggestions :)
 
A blank page is not a problem for me. At this matter the user knows that something is beginning and loading.
Some customers told me that don't able to see ajax progress bar effect and had access problems with google chrome mobile regarding latest issue I can confirm it.

Evolution skin it's really great and very clear. I remember a skin done by you few years ago I don't remember the name but has the same style what it's very useful and friendly.

Best regards
 
"How would you know the page has loaded? As for non single page applications you just get 'white screen' on new page loading time, and even if it's not what you desire - that's how many sites work and you know something new has loaded. Single page applications, even facebook, when you scroll down - you see something to know it's 'loading/loaded' instead of nothing. Waiting for suggestions"

From my experience up to this point in using DirectAdmin is that it is hardly any gap between content of the old page and the new page. So I see no problem going from the old page to the new and not having a transition between them. The half second transition could instead show a white blank screen. It should be as small of a transition as possible. As I need to go between pages and focus on what I need to do and have as little as possible things that disrupt my focus away from the content.

The bottom line is to as smooth as possible go from one page to another. If the content does not show up right away because of a slow internet connection or whatever else then there could just be a half second longer white screen. Not enough time for me to react. The focus would still be on the content even though it might happen to be delayed by a very short amount of time.
 
I sent a reply and received a message that it went to moderation. So I am guessing it should be in the line to be approved.
I will add most of the message again.

" For this one I have a question though. How would you know the page has loaded? As for non single page applications you just get 'white screen' on new page loading time, and even if it's not what you desire - that's how many sites work and you know something new has loaded. Single page applications, even facebook, when you scroll down - you see something to know it's 'loading/loaded' instead of nothing. Waiting for suggestions."


Today going between screens there is very little time gap between the old and new page. There is a fade and a spinner transition that lasts for perhaps half a second or less. Just removing the fade and spinner having an inbetween moment of white screen would help. As having as small of transition as possible from one page to another will not disrupt the reading flow.

Removing the fade and spinner one would see half a second (or less) of a white screen. Not enough time passes to react to it. The focus would stay on the content. If for whatever reason more time passes then there would just be a little longer with a blank white screen. It does not disrupt the focus. As the focus is usually the black text on a white background. Transitioning with the background color seeing no text for a moment is totally fine. Anything else can create a disruption one does not need.

Paal Joachim
 
It seems I have had some difficulty in posting. As two posts have been sent to moderation but I have not seen them up here.

Bottom line in reply to transition with fade and animation is that this disturbs the flow of reading text on a white background.
The transition from one page to another is very fast and it is a lot better to just have a white blank page for a moment before the black text is seen. The less visual transitional extra stuff the easier it is to keep the focus on what one is working on directly on the page.

So please remove the fade and animation and replace it with a blank page. It will just be seen for a very short moment before the content is in place.
 
Thank you for the feedback. For this one I have a question though. How would you know the page has loaded? As for non single page applications you just get 'white screen' on new page loading time, and even if it's not what you desire - that's how many sites work and you know something new has loaded. Single page applications, even facebook, when you scroll down - you see something to know it's 'loading/loaded' instead of nothing. Waiting for suggestions :)

I'm a fan of a loading bar on top like mobile phones do natively usually. An example library https://ricostacruz.com/nprogress/

The current jump animation is kind of messing with your orientation.
 
Last edited:
I notice that today there is a loading bar on the top and all text get blurred. Moving the loading bar to the middle of the screen and just keeping the text in focus would help. As I would still be able to read the text while waiting a few moments for the loading bar to finish.
 
Hey Martynas

I am hoping that you will remove the blurred background soon, as switching from sharp text to blurred text is exhausting for the eyes. Just have a spinner or some other signal showing that something is loading, or nothing as all for the very short transitions. The smallest visible transition the better, as it still keeps us in the work flow without much disruption.
 
New IconGrid UI is good but it keep reloading session on every 30 to 60 seconds of all tabs to same logged in clients tab which disturb my work on other tabs.
 
I think he means the one when you first login. The huge DA logo that twist in the screen. It's really too big. Make it about 3 cm wide not 18 cm
 
I think he means the one when you first login. The huge DA logo that twist in the screen. It's really too big. Make it about 3 cm wide not 18 cm

Hehe, that's what I call a feedback :) Thanks! Latest version of the skin has pre-loader size of 1/4. To update:
Code:
cd /usr/local/directadmin/data/skins
mkdir evolution
cd evolution
wget -O evolution.tar.gz https://demo.directadmin.com/download/evolution.tar.gz
tar xvzf evolution.tar.gz
cd ..
chown -R diradmin:diradmin evolution

It'll be added to DA pre-release binaries soon, and will be included into the next stable release of DirectAdmin.
 
Back
Top