Our largest UI change to date is here!
Here are the details:
Three-column layout -> Two-column layout
The three-column layout was problematic:
- for teams with a medium to high number of docspaces it was cognitively overloading;
- for teams with a low number of docspaces, the first column was mostly empty;
- the colors made it look like the important thing was the first column, when in fact the organization of documents is secondary or even tertiary in importance;
- it moved the editor too far right on the screen, making it hard for people to focus on it when writing;
- it was hard to get right on smaller screens, even on 1366px; not enough screen real estate on most screens out there;
- it was too different from most other systems out there, so people didn't immediately recognize the pattern, introducing friction;
So we decided to combine the first 2 columns into 1, and pick different colors.
UI Improvements across the app
We made a huge number of small adjustments to colors, spacings, and the blocks are more tightly integrated. The cleanest design in Archbee to this date!
Of course, we couldn't resist and improve more than 20 interactions, as UX is the most important an app like ours can offer :)
Docspaces -> Collections
The concept of docspaces (document organization) was also alien to most people, and it was easy to confuse it with workspaces (company/people organization), so we decided to rename it to "Collections".
Favorite Collections
Lastly, we introduced the concept of Favorite Collections, as most people only interacted with 3-4 docspaces and they had to scroll and visually search for what they needed. Even if you could drag and drop to organize them to your needs, the overload was still there.
What are we working on next? (subject to change)
- API docs template similar to Stripe and Readme with the API docs and example side by side;
- Google Drive, Asana, JIRA, GitHub, Zapier: all authenticated integrations;
- Dark Mode;
Get in there, play with it and let us know in the chatbox how you feel about this important change in the app!
