As a designer working on InDesign, I worked closely with product management, development, QA and our beta teams gathering feedback, refining and iterating the design until we all signed off on the design as final. Our team successfully shipped InDesign 1.5 and 2.0.
The work was broken out by features. Below are a selection design specs at various stages which outline some of our challenges and solutions.
Tables
Text or Object Selection in Tables
Scripting
Display Performance
Tabs
Ink Manager
We provided early UI examples to our beta team, which enabled us to elicit feedback early in the design process. We sent them email at regular intervals asking them provide feedback. Examples of these communications are provided below.
Table Tool
Tool Box
Stroke Palette
Table Tool
This is the request for feedback that was sent regarding updates for creating/editing a table.
Creating a Table in InDesign
The first link below, “Creating a table from menu” has had some significant changes and I have a couple of questions so please review. Also there are a couple of questions about the menu — please review and comment to the forum about those as well. Coming up for those with a passion for tables… Table options dialogue box Merge and unmerge Below are links to the 3 ways to create a table for your review.Questions
Which menu would you expect to see this information:- Under the Object menu (option 1)
- Under its own menu (option 2)
Menu Placement
Tool Box
This feedback was requested for proposed changes to the toolbox.
Stroke and Fill for Tables from Toolbox
Below is something we are exploring for Anna. One of the new features of Anna is the ability to format text in frames when the frame is selected with a selection tool (i.e., type tool is not active). This does create a bit of uncertainty with fill and stroke. Same goes when you are working in tables and have selected a cell or group of cells and want to change the fill and/or stroke of text. One possible solution is to add a fill and stroke for text only to the tools. Below there are some examples of how this might be done.- This first example has the additional fill and stroke for text placed below the original fill and stroke.
- The second example us a fly-out to switch between the object stroke and fill, and the text stroke and fill.
- The third example has 2 toggle buttons to depress to switch from the object fill and stroke to the text fill and stroke.
Questions:
Which of the 3 do you prefer and why? What are the negative issues that a user may encounter with this type of new UI? Do you have any suggestions for improving the UI aside from what is shown here?Toolbox
Stroke Palette
This request was for feedback on a new idea I presented for the InDesign Stroke Palette.
Stroke Palette Feedback
Below is something we are exploring for the stroke palette. Here are a couple of questions: Do you prefer the view of the lines over a description of them as in the current InDesign? What about dashed lines? Note that this UI is taken from Illustrator — do you find it to be intuitive? One thought is to add a drop down similar to other line styles, but adding a custom selection so that you can create your own. Would you prefer to always create your own style of dashed line, or would you prefer to have a basic set to pick form and the ability to create a custom line? Do you have any suggestions for improving the UI for creating custom dashed lines?Stroke Palette