Spent some time exploring PAF today, to see all the features it has. There are more than I realized. :) But I did come across some design shortcomings that I as a user found frustrating:

1. Navigating through my tree was bothersome. It was clunky, basically, and didn’t feel smooth. Beyond will fix that. :) (More on that in the preview release.)

2. Searching for people was difficult. I wanted to search by first name but the default search only let me search by last name (I would have to set up a filter to get it to work). Too much effort. Searching needs to be fast and easy. And selecting one of the search results should automatically update the main window.

I’ve been thinking about how the program should be designed, interface-wise. Should I use drawers? Panes? I’m going to draft a set of user interactions (basically what the user will be trying to do and how they go about doing it) for a number of tasks to see what is used most commonly and thus should be prominent in the interface. Designing this app is going to take longer than usual, but I think the end result will be well worth it.

Posted in Design
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