Affino Beta Labs - Live Editor Updates

10 February 201011:48

Markus Karlsson

seo

We’re very excited about the enhancements we’ve made to media uploads and selection in the next release. The whole process is fast and simple. The improvements are so dramatic that we decided to look at the whole Live Editor interface and see if we could make it more intuitive and more contemporary.

We’ve had a lot of conversations internally and externally over the years about the form of the Live Editor. We’ve also tried out lots of interfaces which frequently look great on the surface, but as soon as you actually need to use them, they turn out very clunky.

The typical examples of ’modern’ publishing interfaces mean that you click on some text and it flips into a form entry field. This looks great, but you tend to get bogged down as soon as you go beyond the basic on-page text and images. Where things fall down rapidly are when you need to:

Schedule the publish start and end for fixed points in the future
Add in Meta Data
Enter the navigation elements, e.g. thumbnail and teaser
Manage the SEO / URL data
Setting Geo Blocking
Applying Security
etc. etc.

The inevitable result is a load of pop-up screens, or multiple tabbed interfaces that involve half a dozen clicks to access all the settings. Frequently they’re simply not available.

We decided, and continue to affirm that the simplest interface is one long form with distinct panels where groups of entry fields are clustered, e.g. Geo-blocking, Security, Navigation, Main Body.

The Live Editor itself has been a great success in terms of delivering on the promise of publishing live on the page. However, over the past couple of years a number of niggles have come up:

Some fields are too short, some too long
The form is stretched where it doesn’t need to be
The presentation is a bit messy, field lengths inconsistent
Too much information in the same space, not enough distinction
Entry fields are not as obvious as they should have been
Not enough focus on the Title
And of course overly complex image uploading and selection

The new look we’ve designed will overcome all of these, whilst making everything consistent and easier to scan. By introducing uniformity the whole experience will be much simpler and more approachable.

The biggest change will be the ability to switch between advanced and simple forms where Workflows have been applied. It means that new Editors will have the simplest entry forms possible and can easily switch over to the full entry forms when they want.

If you have any thoughts on further enhancing the Live Editor then please post them in the Comments below.

How will the new media upload process improve user experience?What features enhance the intuitiveness of the Live Editor interface?How does the new form design address previous user frustrations?In what ways can users switch between advanced and simple forms?What benefits does uniformity in field presentation provide for editors?

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