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30
Nov

Keeping it simple : Design and UI (2/5)

by Tal Zubalsky on 9:52 pm 4 Comments

This is the 2nd of 5 short posts about Octabox’s approach to simplicity.

One of our main guidelines during development is that the user’s information comes first. Nothing should stand in the user’s way to his information: not banners or alerts, not screen-blockers or any other graphical distractions.

We apply this principle by designing the UI to be as focused, simple and clear as we possibly can.

Octabox Dashboard
(click the image to view full size)

The main work-area is centered and white – hovering above the darker background, making it feel closer to the user. The navigation is placed on the top and the sides, not taking the eye’s focus from the main area – but still – remaining noticeable, quickly and easily accessible.

We try very hard to stay true to our principles while dealing with issues like:

  • Different screen resolutions (yes, some still have those 17″ CRT monitors running with 1024×768 …)
  • Fluid UI (yes, some work with that history bar docked to the left)
  • Cross-browser support (unfortunately, some still use Internet Explorer 6)

We don’t think minimalistic design takes the place of an aesthetic, modern design and the feedback we got so far on the UI has been confirming our believes.

We use less detail, graphic elements and visual load on the user’s eye to make the user feel the application revolves around him and his info, making it easier on the user to consume his relevant data easily and in a focused, productive way.

In my next post in this series, I will cover our simple approach to structure and logic.

Categories: Graphical Design, Web Development — Tags: , , —
30
Nov

Keeping it simple (1/5)

by Tal Zubalsky on 9:52 pm 0 Comments

No one wants complications. It’s as simple as that.

I’m Tal, one of Octabox’s creators, and Octabox’s designer and user experience specialist. I have learned animation and design and have been working in the field for 5 years specializing in web, UI and interaction design, as well as animation and post production for television and music videos.

In the following short posts I will elaborate a bit about our approach to simplicity in the various aspects of the development process:

  • Simple design and UI
  • Simple approach to structure and logic (Very soon)
  • Simple interactions and usability (soon)
  • Simple approach to sharing (soon)

We live by these principles day in and day out, trying our best to incorporate them into our products. We always keep them on the back of our minds in every step we take because we feel simplicity and focus are the key to a successful, useful service, to you – our users.

Categories: Graphical Design, Web Development — Tags: —
13
Apr

Open Source Saved My Life

by Eran Galperin on 9:16 pm 0 Comments

Or at least my sanity. Friday afternoon, after several hours of intense development, my HP lappy decided to take a bow and go to sleep indefinitely. After an hour of pleading it to power back on, I gave up and moved to outfit my desktop as a replacement development platform.

I downloaded and installed the latest Windows builds of Apache, PHP and MySql, and within 15 minutes I had a fully operational development server without spending a dime. All that was missing was checking out our latest SVN repository revision (which unfurtunately was without the lost hours of today’s development effort), and then it hit me how I’ve been taking open-source for granted. What I’ve just been able to do - rebuild an identical development machine (minus some lost code) in minimum effort and zero cost, allowing me to get to work until my laptop gets fixed, is no small feat.

In honor of this small eye-opener, I give you some personal favorites:
Open Source Windows - Tons of great open-source software for windows.
Web development - Apache Server, PHP, MySQL, subversion, phpMyAdmin, Zend Framework, jQuery, Firebug

Now, if someone would just get that Windows thing open-sourced…

Categories: Web Development —
07
Apr

Octabox gets a facelift

by Eran Galperin on 4:55 am 4 Comments

The new layout went online today. This might sound ridiculus, but the previous design was supposed to be a temporary placeholder for a couple of weeks (and stayed for over 5 months…). Either way, we are very happy with the new concept and hope you will like it too.

I’ll just leave a teaser and say that this facelift extends much further into the platform (though its not on the public server yet). Stay tuned!

Categories: Graphical Design, Start up, Web Development —
06
Apr

Startup Weekend Israel, day #2

by Eran Galperin on 10:08 am 0 Comments

So another day of intensive startup experience. Yesterday we chose our idea - to make time-bartering service. A person can chose to give some of his time for another with his expertise, and then later receive a service from another member with the time credits he accumulated (By the way I voted for another idea which I thought was better, but thats irrelevant now).

So today we split up into teams. Dev team chose their development language, and unfurtunately it was asp.net. There was only one other PHP dev there besides me, so I guess it was not meant to be. I decided to move to GUI stuff (javascript, css, html) where no one claimed any particular mastery, and rode the wave from there to join the user experience team (a group of people discussing UI concepts and working on interface mockups). The UE sessions were very interesting and I felt like I had a lot to five there. This in contrast to the dev group, where they had like 30+ people… the chaos was staggering.

Near the end of the day the development funneled to basic bottleneck in web, the graphic design. Somehow, we have only 2 designers compared to 30+ devs… how is that possible? someone told me that some of the devs got in with designers tickets… thats pretty incredible. Design was further delayed by all sorts of non graphic professionals trying to have to much input (they call themselves marketing ;) ), and logo was finalized only around 9pm … actual page design wasn’t even started before we separated to our homes, Which tomorrow will be an impossible race to the finish.

Categories: Business, Start up, Web Development —
04
Apr

Startup Weekend Israel and a Shameless Plug

by Eran Galperin on 12:14 am 2 Comments

Today was the first day of Startup Weekend Israel which a very interesting to attend. For those who are not familiar with the concept, a quick recap: Startup Weekend is a gathering / conference for entrepreneurs from all walks of life (technological, business, marketing, etc..) for 3 days of concentrated brain-dump and hard core development on one chosen startup idea, at the end of which a finished (or at least, working) product emerges. All the participants are then given shares for a company that is formed to drive this product to whatever future it is destined for.

The odds (in my opinion) of something really great coming from this are slim, but the process itself is very interesting and there is much networking to be had. It was very interesting to see the different types of entrepreneurs and attitudes, and plenty of good ideas for a potential startup were shown. Tomorrows is the first day of active development, and its going to be messy (think 60 developers, designers, marketers and even some project managers). But it will be a worthwhile experience I’m sure.

In other news, I am starting my own blog! (You are very shocked, I can tell. You, our only reader.) It will be called TechFounder and there I will focus on the my experiences as a technological entrepreneur and developer in the web world. Posts there will be much more technical, with plenty of PHP, MySQL, Javascript and CSS goodness.

Categories: Business, Start up, Web Development —
26
Mar

Octabox Update

by Eran Galperin on 9:24 pm 0 Comments

In case you were wondering whats up with Octabox …

We are currently in the middle of a major upgrade and redesign. Based on feedbacks we have received from our private beta and ideas from internal brainstorming and review, we are building a completely new user interface. Simpler interactions, increased responsiveness (and more eye-candy ;) ) and overall tightening up of the user experience. New site layout

In addition we will be adding two new work-modes to complement the basic data management tools.

One is a ‘planning stage’ (we like to call it a ‘Thinking’ stage), in which a user can create contextual information - by stating a goal and then planning the steps to completion with the goal as motivation. A goal can be anything from completing a work project, buying a new car, doing your homework or any context in which you might want to manage information.

After thinking of the steps for goal completion, a user will be using Octabox management tools to manage information related to the goal (this is the second stage, ‘Manage’).
New site layout
This will be similar to the previous management tools supplied by the platform, however we are reworking and improving everything.

The third stage is a review stage we like to call ‘Learn’, in which expectations are compared to results and lessons are learned - and implemented for better planning for future goals.

We have no set deadline for the completion of this transition, however, based on current progress we expect to have a public beta version in a couple of months. Hope to see you there.

Categories: Start up, Web Development —
09
Mar

I want my old (Zend) studio back

by Eran Galperin on 12:37 am 29 Comments

After another hang up from Zend Studio for Eclipse (the IDE formerly known as Zend Studio) in which about 10 minutes of unsaved work was lost, I threw in the towel and went back to good old Zend Studio 5.5. For those not in the know (ie, You The Reader), Zend Studio is a line of development software for PHP from Zend. Having recently revamped their product to combine it with an eclipse project named PDT (PHP Development Tools), they created what would appear to be better but is ultimately inferior product.

Having used Studio for Eclipse for over two months religiously (~10 hours a day) you could say I have gotten pretty used to it. However, there is no getting past the hangups, which are not acceptable for a professional developer.

Firing up the old Studio 5.5, I was shocked on the apparent difference in responsiveness. I was so used to Studio for Eclipse that I forget how much faster the old 5.5 handles.
0% And Waiting
No more will I see the dreaded ‘Building PHP projects: 0%’ hoping it will not hang yet again.. especially when I hit the save button only to find out it has been queued behind that cursed process (which of course, will never finish… forcing a manual shutdown and loss of code).

The QUEUE

Zend Studio for Eclipse has some nice ideas - like a code analyzer and an integrated unit-testing with code coverage statistics. Too bad those features which sound great in theory are the downfall of this software product - it is the code analyzer that seems to be a big reason for the build process hangs (in response to a support ticket I posted to Zend, I was instructed by a support employee to turn off code analyzing.. It’s great to know that they are aware of the instability of this feature. However the Studio continued to hang up). And I spent several days (!) trying to make my unit-tests run from inside the IDE (ultimately failing despite some small successes).
You can say many things about me, but when it comes to making computer related things GO, I am your guy. The fact that I could not make Studio for Eclipse run the tests… Goes a long way for me as indication for the maturity of this software product.

If you are a PHP developer considering the move to eclipse, my advice is give this one a pass. At least until it matures enough to be a worthy replacement to the old Studio 5.5.

Categories: PHP, Web Development —
28
Jan

Be original or DIE

by Eran Galperin on 6:50 am 0 Comments

There’s a process philosophy called DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) that revolves around the notion that duplicate information is inherently bad. The thinking behind it is that duplicate information is harder to change, reduces clarity and is more likely to be inconsistent (since changes introduces inconsistencies between duplicates).
Such philosophy is the base for modern software engineering concepts, but apparently can be also applied to social networks.

An interesting experiment in social interactions has been attempted in an IRC channel (Internet relay chat) in which chat participants are not allowed to repeat any before said sentences. An automated monitoring system (called a bot) automatically mutes offenders for gradually increasing periods of time, forcing them to be original in what they say - or at least in how they say it.

I wonder if such philosophy could be applied in real life…

Categories: General, Web Development —