Suggestion for an improved workflow in Akregator

Here is my (updated) email to the lead developer of and the emailing list for Akregator, the KDE news feed reader.

Hi Frank, I am writing to you because I have suggestions on how the user interface of Akregator could be change to provide a better workflow for users. I am first going to explain how users work with Akregator, and how it could be improved by a few changes.

Follow the discussion at the akregator-dev emailing list.

I am using Akregator 1.2.5 in combined mode via the Debian repositories.

The current workflow users do is to first open Akreagator. Then he look at the left side list of feeds to scan/search for a feed with unread items. When they spot one they move the cursor over to the left and press one of the unread feeds. Then they read the top item of the feed. Then they discover there is more content below the first item. The user moves the cursor over to the right to scroll down using the scrollbar. When finished reading the user moves the cursor from the right to the center of the screen to press the ‘mark feed as read’ button. Then the user starts over from the start by looking in the feed list for unread feeds again.

This workflow is slow. It gets the job of reading the news done, but it could easily be improved by making a few simple adjustments. I am going to make one suggestion per paragraph from now on.

Reduce eye-searching/scanning time. By automatically hiding feeds and items that are already read; you are basically removing the need to search for feeds with unread items all together. You also makes sure the user is not reading the same thing a second time. (Since read items are hidden.) The process of selecting a feed with an unread item is significantly reduced! By adding a toolbar button to ‘toggle read feeds’, the user could see all read feed and all read items.

Marking items and feed as read. Nathan Bowers of Newshutch.com devised an engenious way for this. Each item in his application have a ‘read’ button in the top right corner when howevering the mouse over the item. Then he have a placed a ‘mark all as read’ button in the top right corner. Note that the user is already holding the cursor on the right to navigate using the scrollbar. So having the read buttons that hide items so close to the mice makes the buttons easy and fast to click.

‘Mark as read and open next’, the button. Again Nathan's idea. By having a such a button in the top right corner he has basically reduced the whole procedure of moving the cursor to the center to mark it as read, and having to selecting a new unread feed to a single button! The button marks the current feed as read, hides it, and opens the next feed with unread items chronologically. By having the button up in the right corner the user never has to move the cursor over to the feed list to the left! The two tools the user needs, the scrollbar and the read-and-move-on button, are all on the left side. The user could of course move the over to the left and select a feed manually (if something looked particularly interesting) too.

Let us look at the user's workflow again, shall we? Well the user opens Akregator and seas the contents of the first unread feed. To the left he sees all his fresh news for the day. (That becomes sort of a to-do list.) He scrolls down to read all the unread items of the day. (Read items are hidden so he is not interrupted or having to read something over again.) Then he moves is cursor upwards to presses the ‘mark as read and open next’ button. The feed he is reading disappears and a fresh news appear infront of him. The procedure is repeated.

But if the user wants to keep one item unread he will have to mark the other items in the feed as read (if any) and select a feed from the feed list. This becomes a little more tedious. However I assume most users just want to look trough the news, stop to read a few items, and go on. In that sense the workflow/interface I have suggested is perfect.

The solution to this is of course to introduce a red flagging button. Put it with the item's content down in the bottom right corner. (Because the user navigates on the right, remember) Then add a special view to the top of the feed list called ‘Flagged items’. Now the workflow is a little different:

The user scrolls down the feed using the right scrollbar. He reads as he goes and stops were he finds something interesting to read. If he wants to keep it for later he moves the cursor to the little flag-button and markes the message as flagged/important. He sees the button get pressed down and the ‘unread counter’ on the flagged item feed increase by one. Then he scrolls down the rest of the feed. Hit the ‘Read and open next’ button and sees the whole feed disapears and get replaced by the next feed in the list. The feed does disapears from the list of unread feeds, but the item he flagged will still be available in the flagged item feed.

This ‘Flagged item’ feed should go away whenever it is not in use. When the user have no flagged item there is no need for such a special feed. It should disaeapr like feeds with only read items. To avoid cluttering the left side feed list.

I have one comment in the end regarding the three fetch buttons. ‘Fetch feed’, ‘Fetch all feeds‘, and ’Abort fetches’. These should be combined into one button. ‘Fetch feed’ with the drop-down option ‘Fetch all feeds’ would clear up space in the interface. ‘Abort fetches’ should overlap the button whenever feeds are being fetched. Something like the reload/stop-loading button you find in most web browsers. The idea is that you do not need to fetch feeds wile you are fetching them. So the button can be used as a button for canceling the action while it happens. There is no need for such an abort button when feeds are not fetched.

« Planning | Home | I draw action-lines, not thought lines »

3 comments

I cannot see why I did not think about flagging yesterday!

Comment by Daniel Aleksandersen at 2007-11-19 @484.

Have you gotten a reply yet? I must say I'm a tad curious

Comment by Kent Vegard Evjen (Subscribed) at 2007-11-28 @494.

You can follow the discussion in the Akregator emailing list's web archive. There have not been too much going on. But if you liked my ideas that do send in your toghts! The address is listed on their site.

Comment by Daniel Aleksandersen at 2007-11-29 @458.

Leave your comment

Related entries

Stay informed

Get a free subscription to new entries in the Open Source Notebook!

Navigation

Runbox

10 GB email storage,
1 GB file storage,
100 MB attachment limit,
your own domain,

...and more! Get your own premium email for just 49 USD per year!

Categories

Archives

The archive keeps a record of all entries that have ever been published! Have a look back in time, and see what was going on!

License

This blog entry text is licensed under a Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 License. The license explained, and legal notes.