Get out of my way, Scatter
Part of an ongoing series, created as a public design review. You can see previous installments here.
The last few weeks have been hard. The company that I work for as my day job has downsized. I, thankfully, was spared the axe but I feel for my comrades in the trenches as they endure this trying time. I’m grateful that I get to continue to work on Scatter in my free time. It is a pleasure and a privilege.
With a little help from my friends
So, since my last article I have been quietly busy. Most of my focus the last ten days has been on the redesign of Scatter’s desktop application. Besides that, we also launched a support site for Scatter, which I think will help alleviate some of the basic confusion about how to use the application until we can update the UI to something more friendly. More and more I am of the mind that a ‘user experience’ extends far beyond the application itself and into support and customer experience.
Since a large portion of our users are non-English speakers, I’ve gone out of my way to make sure that the support site is translated to Japanese, Russian, French, Spanish, Korean, and Chinese. The translations aren’t perfect, but they are absolutely better than nothing.
If you see something egregiously wrong with the translations, please make sure to contact me and let me know so that I can update them!
Desktop update
The most exciting news is that we are making huge progress with the update to the app itself. I can happily report that most of the flows are starting to feel really solid, and that once we get all the nitpicky details sorted out this new UI will be a big deal for those who have become frustrated with Scatter’s quirky current UI.
You can see the prototype here. My apologies for some of the links back and forth inside the prototype being wacky. There are dozens of artboards at this point and it is hard to manage all the links.
A few screenshots for those who are just passing through:
Popups that are leaner are better
A big part of the discussions that I’ve been having with people over the last couple of months has been around the complaint that Scatter gets in your way. It’s really in your face about what you’re doing, and pulls your attention away from the task at hand.
There is a fine balancing act here that I’ve been giving a lot of thought to because, as Nathan has underscored to me, when it comes to access to your funds you need to make clear to the user what is going on, who is doing it, and when it will happen. People are talking about it being like a printer driver, but you definitely don’t want your printer having access to your bank account. :)
After a user sets up Scatter with their EOS, Eth, and Tron accounts, we want it to be accessible, but also not annoying. Part of that puzzle are the popups which the user interacts with when a transaction takes place.
These popups need to tell you what is going on, but they also need to not be annoying.
Take a look at the prototype for what I’m proposing here
And again for those who just want to browse, here are some screenshots:
Having a collapsible sidebar gives us the best of both worlds: we have a clean, easy to use, clear popup requiring your attention. You also will have total access to all the details of the transaction you are requested to perform.
My goals are becoming clearer
So, to summarize, we have a solid onboarding flow which can help new and experienced users setup their Scatter. A lot of the gripes about EOS account creation have been tackled, and hopefully the UI itself will be friendlier and easier to use.
My main goals for this design have been:
- Clarity — at every point in a user using Scatter it should be clear what he needs to do next.
- Transparency — we don’t want to hide important information from a user. We need to trust that they know what they are doing. If they don’t, we need to provide them with clear instruction or direction to that information.
- Get out of the user’s way — we should never be a hindrance or an annoyance. If we can find a way to make the UI smaller or less obtrusive, we should do so.
As always, thanks for reading. I hope that you like the direction I am taking things and am very open to feedback and criticism.
