Upgrade StorageThoughts on Zotero's interface design
First, many thanks for this excellent, and much needed, tool. After using it for a week or so, I'd like to share a few thoughts.
For collecting academic data from the web, Zotero is unmatched. Here, the integration with a web browser works brilliantly -- a single click in the location bar and I usually have everything I want from the web page, including the pdf, with all meta-data entered into the correct fields. Fantastic! My only suggestion would be to always have a Zotero icon available in the location bar -- the snapshot or 'create item' icon when Zotero doesn't detect any meta-data, the citation or folder icons otherwise.
For displaying items in the library, however, Zotero feels a bit clunky, and, in my view, the integration with the web browser becomes, perhaps, a liability. The problem is that it usually takes several clicks to view item content.
When I click on a item in the middle pane, for example, the item data is not displayed (e.g., no pdf), and only some of the essential meta-data is displayed in the right pane. To see the item data -- the pdf or page snapshot -- I have to click on the reveal triangle, click on the pdf, and then click the View button. That quickly becomes tedious. Further, the abstract is missing, and to see it I have to click on the Notes tab and then click on the note (and then the tabs at the top of this pane disappear!) Or I have to click the reveal-triangle, and then click on the note.
Ideally, I would be able to view both the essential meta-data, as well as the data itself (e.g., the pdf), with a single click.
If Zotero were a standalone application, then it could easily accomplish this with a four-pane design. When clicking on an item, the current three panes would work as they currently do (except the right pane would show the abstract along with the other meta-data), and what is now the currently displayed web page would automatically display item data (e.g., the pdf). (I realize items can have multiple contents, but that's a different interface problem.)
Because Zotero is part of the web browser, however, it can't just take over this display area for the fourth pane -- hence the clunky "View Snapshot" button.
I don't have the solution, except that I think for Zotero to be as elegant displaying data as it is in capturing it, it will probably have to take over the web page area.
Here are a couple of recent blog entries on interface design that emphasize reducing the number of clicks to the absolute minimum:
http://tantek.com/log/2007/02.html#d19t1813
http://daringfireball.net/2007/03/deal_with_it
Despite what I consider to be a few minor interface glitches, Zotero is amazing. Thanks again.
For collecting academic data from the web, Zotero is unmatched. Here, the integration with a web browser works brilliantly -- a single click in the location bar and I usually have everything I want from the web page, including the pdf, with all meta-data entered into the correct fields. Fantastic! My only suggestion would be to always have a Zotero icon available in the location bar -- the snapshot or 'create item' icon when Zotero doesn't detect any meta-data, the citation or folder icons otherwise.
For displaying items in the library, however, Zotero feels a bit clunky, and, in my view, the integration with the web browser becomes, perhaps, a liability. The problem is that it usually takes several clicks to view item content.
When I click on a item in the middle pane, for example, the item data is not displayed (e.g., no pdf), and only some of the essential meta-data is displayed in the right pane. To see the item data -- the pdf or page snapshot -- I have to click on the reveal triangle, click on the pdf, and then click the View button. That quickly becomes tedious. Further, the abstract is missing, and to see it I have to click on the Notes tab and then click on the note (and then the tabs at the top of this pane disappear!) Or I have to click the reveal-triangle, and then click on the note.
Ideally, I would be able to view both the essential meta-data, as well as the data itself (e.g., the pdf), with a single click.
If Zotero were a standalone application, then it could easily accomplish this with a four-pane design. When clicking on an item, the current three panes would work as they currently do (except the right pane would show the abstract along with the other meta-data), and what is now the currently displayed web page would automatically display item data (e.g., the pdf). (I realize items can have multiple contents, but that's a different interface problem.)
Because Zotero is part of the web browser, however, it can't just take over this display area for the fourth pane -- hence the clunky "View Snapshot" button.
I don't have the solution, except that I think for Zotero to be as elegant displaying data as it is in capturing it, it will probably have to take over the web page area.
Here are a couple of recent blog entries on interface design that emphasize reducing the number of clicks to the absolute minimum:
http://tantek.com/log/2007/02.html#d19t1813
http://daringfireball.net/2007/03/deal_with_it
Despite what I consider to be a few minor interface glitches, Zotero is amazing. Thanks again.
The abstract field has been moved to the right metadata pane (instead of being a separate note) in the upcoming beta version.
> At any rate, I don't know that two double-clicks to view a snapshot is too
> unreasonable.
If I want to collapse the parent item tree, then that's another double click (or is there a shortcut to collapse all trees?). To quickly peruse 10 pdfs, looking for that graph I remember seeing in one of them, and then leave my library in the same state I found it, I would need 30 double-clicks instead of what I think should be 10 single clicks (or, at most, 10 double-clicks). Content on the web is available with one click (on a link). Content in iTunes and iPhoto is available with one double-click. Perhaps my usage patterns are uncommon, but I want smooth, quick access to my data, not just my metadata. This is something the new OS X app Papers gets exactly right.
> Remember that a snapshot could be a PDF or other type of file, which depending
> on the user's system may not display in the browser, so loading snapshots
> automatically wouldn't really make sense in many cases.
Is there a way for Zotero to detect whether the browser can display a child item? If so, the UI could potentially inform the user (via, e.g., color coding or shading).
Suggestion:
Next to the Toggle Fullscreen Mode button, how about a Toggle Snapshot Pane button? The so-called Snapshot Pane would simply be a dedicated browser tab that Zotero automatically updates with the (first) snapshot of whatever item is currently selected.
One difficulty with this suggestion is that sometimes the "content" of an item is not a snapshot, but is instead an attached file (usually PDF I assume). I would suggest that part of the solution to this would be to acknowledge that an important metadata field for items is Source material. For some items, like most books, Source material is a blank field. For other items, like most journal articles, it is an attached PDF or a snapshot.
On a related note, I would also agree with Ed that Abstract is an important metadata field. The Set Note as Abstract option is adequate, but I do consider it quite unintuitive that the Abstract metadata field can only be set via first creating a note.
The question is, how to enter a content browsing mode while preserving a modeless interface style as much as possible?
1. A dedicated browser tab toggled with a button, as Andrew suggested.
2. A key modifier (source material automatically displayed in the current browser window with, e.g., a single control-click on an item).
3. A double-click on an item automatically displays source content in the current browser window instead of expanding the parent tree. This is consistent with the standard OS convention that a double-click opens a file. It's also how iTunes works. This would be my preferred solution, I think.
Most (all?) child items are accessible via tabs in the right-hand pane. Switching the function of a double-click on an item would thus be a relatively small sacrifice in order to quickly view items' source material. But does it violate the standard behavior of these kinds of hierarchical list views? If so, because child items are easily accessible via tabs, I would be willing to sacrifice the ability to expand parent items in the middle pane (although many Zotero users would probably not want to lose this capability?), or simply live with the violation.