Improve the workflow in the "new appointment" dialogue. [$15]

[Timo Reimerdes]

I'd love the new-appointment dialogue to be reviewed and redesigned for ease of use:

What it should be like:
1. Double-Click on date for new appointment
2. Have the Keyboard input focus in the Title textbox. (Wich should be the topmost field, as the name indicates)
3. Tab to the "all day" toggle, wich in month view (The only view?) is on by default.
4. a) Turning it off via Space and pressing Tab gets you into the starting time box [tab]-> starting date [tab]-> end time [tab]-> end date.
4. b) Leaving it as is and pressing Tab gets you into the starting date box [tab]-> end date

Pressing Enter during any of these steps creates the appointment with the entered information, except in comments.
Pressing ESC during any of these steps cancels creation of the appointment.

What it currently is like:
1. Double-Click on date for new appointment.
2. Focus in all day event toggle (hard to notice).
3. Tab will NEVER get you to be able to confirm the creation, it gets stuck in the comments field.
4. The title is a textfield somewhere in the middle of the dialogue.

Reasoning:
Look at how Apple, google and MS have spent time and effort into creating a workflow in the creation of appointments.
There is an expectation being built that users will have when creating an appointment "for their calendar" via maya. The central part being: If you already assigned the date by picking a view (month) and an action (click) use as much of that and make the refinement of the data optional. Chances are: the user was right.

So, If you already have date (the click) and expect it to be a not "for that day I clicked", I'd be asking "what should be noted?". Thus the title is / topic / summary - in my opinion and the above mentioned - the first logical thing that should have keyboard input focus.

In MOST cases clicking the date + entering the title + pressing enter would insert the kind of date that the users action indicated to that point.

The next step would be a decision between refinement (all day, start time, end time) vs additional information (repitition, participants, location, reminders).

I'd go for: "is this an all day event?" "yes" -> start date -> end date -> ... // "no" -> start time -> start date -> end time -> end date ->...
 => create the appointment with the data.
And then, go on to location (being this far at the bottom would i.e. allow for an openstreetmap pic) and participants (contacts management -> pictures and names?).

Lastly additional comments. Because they appear quite often, but are least valuable for easy evaluation by the application. So.. just leave that field there or make if "click here to add a comment".

[Corentin Noël (tintou)]

What it should be like:
1. Double-Click on date for new appointment
 -> Already implemented
2. Have the Keyboard input focus in the Title textbox. (Wich should be the topmost field, as the name indicates)
 -> It has already moved to the topmost field.
3. Tab to the "all day" toggle, wich in month view (The only view?) is on by default.
 -> It won't be "all day" by default, but it's possible to navigate to it via [tab].
4. a) Turning it off via Space and pressing Tab gets you into the starting time box [tab]-> starting date [tab]-> end time [tab]-> end date.
 -> The Date box is currently not editable, it's why they don't get focused on tab-press. Feel free to open a bug in the Granite Project about this restriction.
4. b) Leaving it as is and pressing Tab gets you into the starting date box [tab]-> end date
 -> Same as 4. a)

Thank you for the report.
I just pushed a fix that will allow you to skip the comment field with [tab].

[Timo Reimerdes (timorei)]

You know - don't take the steps as separate items - the important part is the flow of it all.

So - The issue is not with "something has to have the focus" or "this item needs to be there" - if you have a better version, ok. I'm all for it. I just stated that - with some rather prominent examples - there are layouts and versions of a 'create new appointment flow' that really work smoothly.

So, while all the items must work, the focus must be there and the keyboard navigation must work, that is not all. It's really important for the elements to be in the right order, size, position, tab, enable-state, validation condition, ... to have a smooth "Oh, this is easy" reaction. I think I have shown a sensible one. You may adjust as needed (or the UX team, for that matter).

Thanks.

Timo

PS: And yey to the comment field skip.

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

OP, please split this up into several reports. We can't track group reports.