Table view minor update is causing issues

[Koichi_Tsuji]

I posted to UI refresh testing thread as well, but better to place the same post as “question” category as well…

Table view seems to be slightly updated, it has been skipped rows coloring, i.e. one row white background and then followed by gray background, but now all rows are white out.
This happens on desktop only, the table view on mobile phone stay as it it (was).

Not sure if this is just a bug happnening during the course of update to App UI / UX, but there is at least “inconsisitancy” based on the user devices.

The worse affect to this chage is happening on the dashboard with interacive mode as well.
Upon selecting row on the table (or deck or any other list view), the rest of the view are filtered. But even after selecting row on parent table based view, the selected row is not highlighted. This make us “unsure” which row is currently selected. This need to be corrected.

[Aleksi]

We identified the issue yesterday and I have reported this internally so we are aware of this and I hope that will be fixed as soon as possible at least with the Dashboard view. Thanks for this info.

[Koichi_Tsuji]

Thanks Aleksi.

I also noticed the table view (as inline) is display all the text with LOWER resolution, so not easily readable. This could be also another side effect due to the recent change in UIs. Appreiciate if you dig in internally as well.

[Aleksi]

What do you mean by “lower resolution”? Printscreen possible?

[Koichi_Tsuji]

I will email to support desk as it contains private info on my app.

[Aleksi]

Thanks, please mention my name so I will get it.

[Koichi_Tsuji]

just sent.

[Aleksi]

Where did you send it? I’m not able to see any emails from you with support@

[Koichi_Tsuji]

i sent usual address support@appsheet.com

[Aleksi]

Now we received it, thanks.

[Kirk_Masden]

Hi @Aleksi! Hi @tsuji_koichi!

I’ve been away from this forum for a while (busy with other things) but a recent issue with the appearance of some parts of me app has brought be back. I’m posting here because I think my issue is related to what @tsuji_koichi has posted about.

In my app I have also noticed the change (for the worse) in the appearance of the tables. In addition, here are some other changes:

In each case, the color used to be the same as the main actions (the “display prominently” arrows) but the color has changed to grey. I checked other apps and the same thing has happened.

I hope that writing here is enough but, if I need to, I’ll send a note about this related point to support.

Thanks!

[Steve]

I’m told the color changes for actions are intentional.

[Kirk_Masden]

I see. Thanks. I’m glad to know what happened.

In one part of my app, I use a format rule to grey out one of these inline actions under certain conditions. I may have to rethink that now.

Once AppSheet has set up the environment in which we work, we assume those conditions will be constant as we build our apps and documentation. This is not a major change but, nonetheless, once AppSheet has made a decision as to how something will work or appear, I’d appreciate as little change as possible, unless there’s a clear need for an adjustment.

It’s interesting to me that this change was made even though, as far as I know, the following issue is still unresolved:

Inline action placement Questions

It seems that the placement of inline actions has changed. In the following screen, the action used to appear immediately after the text: [Screen Shot 2020-05-06 at 08.18.48] The difference is starker when viewed on a wide computer screen (which is one important way in which my app is used): [Screen Shot 2020-05-06 at 08.13.11] I’m not sure if this is a bug or if a decision to change the placement was made. If this was done intentionally, I’d like to inquire about the reasoning. I’m not…

[Kirk_Masden]

I’d like to add one point to my plea for consistency. That is that actions are similar to links in HTML. In HTML, the time-honored default is to make links blue to help the user distinguish links from ordinary text. So, blue is basically a “click or tap me” signal. Why would that be considered to be problematic with inline actions, which are very similar to (or sometimes the same as) links? I’m not asking you to respond, @Steve. Just venting.

I respect the right of AppSheet to make the final decisions about how the platform will work. Still, it would seem to me that it might be good for AppSheet and all of us to have a “public comment” period before such changes are made.

[pravse]

100% agree on the feedback period. @Mike_Moss and @morgan FYI — I believe that was supposed to happen for the current set of changes. I know we discussed it internally and there was at least one posting about some changes. Maybe not this one — we’ll check and make sure we do more of this.

Overall, we are trying to make the app UX more modern and consistent with current expectations for app styling. We want to make sure apps built on AppSheet look comparable to hand-built apps built by dev teams with UX designers. The style choices will probably be a bit different from web content styling (so the blue links analogy may not apply as is).
Style is very subjective of course. My strong recommendation to our UX team is to be opinionated but to be consistent — i.e. make similar choices everywhere across the product. We have not been good about this so far and trying to rectify that now. The end result (the apps built) should be elegant, professional, and modern. Otherwise, it hurts not just AppSheet but it hurts app creators who invest time and energy building great apps but then their end users have UX expectations that are not met.
In terms of disruption caused, I wish there were a way to have no change at all, but that doesn’t seem possible. This will probably mean changing some default choices that we made before. As long as the changes are not drastic in terms of fundamental placement of elements or UX flow, I have urged that we should proceed. I do recognize that format rules that assumed our old default formats may no longer be quite optimal.
However, we would do well to indicate upfront what we intend to do and why. And we’d also benefit from feedback and understanding scenarios better – eg: “we need greater contrast on this element because we use the app in low-light environments” — that is the sort of thing our team would definitely not know.

Some specifics:
*) The “tiger-striped” table is pretty old-fashioned, and out of vogue for mobile apps. So we’re retiring that.
*) The interactive dashboard highlighting is a bug — affecting only free accounts today. Fix will be out on Monday
*) Color changes for action text were intentional — but our UX team will take the feedback and reconsider.
*) There’s other subtle changes that you may or may not notice (padding, margins, etc) — that should mostly be invisible except that they improve the overall sense of symmetry and cleanness of layout. Occasionally, we may mess this up in one of the form factors (i.e. fixing it for the phone layout could perhaps mess it up in the full-screen layout) … but these are bugs and will be fixed rapidly.

I hope this context is useful. Within the team, we hear and discuss all negative (or positive) product feedback and it has impact on how we think about what to do. We may not always sound like we are listening and I know our responses are sometimes sporadic. All the same, the feedback does guide us a lot, so I want to share my appreciation and please do continue to share your thoughts.

[Grant_Stead]

I agree that consistency is important, but at also don’t want a product that stays in the past. (Imagining a website from the 90s right now) I consider a good portion of the license cost is in constantly modernizing the platform.

I had an awesome call with @Scott_Haaland and the automation team, where we were able to get an early look at a few things and provide healthy feedback and discussion. Maybe UX and other Appsheet teams even marketing/sales, can apply those kinds of early one on one discussions.

[Kirk_Masden]

Thanks so much, @praveen! Your comments make perfect sense to me. Thank you very much for your detailed explanation.

I also agree with @Grant_Stead. I wouldn’t want the platform to be stuck in the past either. Even if I find myself feeling slightly sad to see a feature I like change, I can also understand how it may be best for the platform as a whole.

While we are on the subject of appearance, @praveen, I have two comments / questions:

1. I recently showed my app to a Japanese colleague whose major field is IT. Immediately upon seeing the interface he commented on how nice the layout was. My interpretation is that he was referring to the overall look of the AppSheet platform. So, AppSheet is on the right course.

2. For about half a year now, I’ve been wondering about whether a change I noticed was intentional or not. Several people at AppSheet have told me that the issue is under consideration but I still don’t know where it stands. I’ll paste the link to that thread below. I wonder if you can tell us whether or not this is part of the overall project to improve the appearance of apps build on the platform or if something else is behind this:
   Inline action placement