After the introduction last week, I had a hard time picking a feature (or group of features) coming in the next big release that I wanted to show off. There’s a lot to come.
That said, I figured I’d start with what I know best: the Filer User Interface. In my previous post, I introduced some of the changes and enhancements we’ve made. But in this post, I’ll go a bit deeper into the changes, and some of the reasons why we implemented them. One of the important things to note, though, is that most – if not all – of these changes were driven by user and customer feedback. Sure, some of the small visual touches were courtesy of the UI team, but the bulk of the functional-type changes came from your feedback.
To start, we’ve redone the login screen. In 1.0, the login screen displayed a lot of information it didn’t have to. Overall, the login page should be simple and to the point. Ours was overly cluttered.
As you can see, it’s a lot simpler now, and the controls (help, shutdown) are maintained in the new version.
Next up is the improved home page:
There’s a new “shell” – meaning the background/headers and general organization have changed. We’re fans of keeping things simple and clean, and I think we’ve done pretty well here. The widgets showing you valuable system information are on the right hand side (in 1.0, some were on the left and were jarring). They’re also more compact in their display. The charts showing volume growth and snapshot information are still front-and-center.
The right hand side “widgets” block is the part of the home page we revamped the most. You can see that it’s a lot more compact than in 1.0, and the widget design is a lot more consistent. The “snapshot in progress widget” will also automatically appear as it did previously and will also show you what volume is currently performing a snapshot:
Also on the home page we’ve added a new “notifications” drawer at the top of the screen:
This tab is always present at the top of the screen, and will notify you when you have new system messages requiring action or your attention. When you click on the tab, it will expand to show you a list of your current messages:
Users can also dismiss messages by clicking on the red “X” marker on the right. But users cannot dismiss important messages – only the system itself can do that. Messages are colored and the icons change based on the type/level of the individual message as well.
The other transient messages have also gotten a makeover:
These messages are dismissible as well, and are also individually colored and styled based on the type and severity of the message.
The notifications system is critical for us to communicate effectively with users and administrators. So it’s really important for it to look good, work well, and communicate the needed information. We’re pretty happy with the drawer system for the sticky notifications. The initial feedback has been really positive.
The volumes and snapshots pages were revamped as well. First up, the volumes page:
Overall, the workflow should be a lot clearer, and we make better use of the total screen real estate available to us. Volumes can be selected with the dropdown; you can see immediate information about selected volumes, etc. We’ve also added a helpful design touch: color highlighting in the navigation tree on the left. When a file is “dirty” (not yet saved to the cloud; new/changed), you’ll see the name of the file in the nav tree change color:
The same applies when it’s clean:
An icon on the right hand side also indicates the current state of the file (dirty/clean):
We’ve also spent (as you can see from the above) some additional time working on the display of the file information on the right.
The Snapshots page got much of the same:
The workflow is much clearer (progressing from the left to the right), as you have buttons to control snapshot behavior (stop, start) on the right side. Snapshot search has been redone too, and it is hidden unless triggered by the user.
Overall, we’re big fans of the refreshed look, and we hope you will be too. We have listened and will continue to listen to your feedback and constantly challenge ourselves to make the Filer better and easier to use.
That’s pretty much it for the UI stuff (that we can show you right now!). If you have feedback, please send us email – feedback@nasuni.com or sound off in the comments.
Plus, as I mentioned in the last post, if you’re excited about these features, there’s no reason to wait to start using the Filer. If you start now you’ll get immediate access to all of the features discussed in this series the second we release. Sign up today and use the coupon code “Summer 2010” when subscribing, and you’ll get 10% seasonal discount off the subscription price!
Other posts in this series: