People!
I need your opinions. InvoicePlane never was an example for good design and perfect usability. I upgraded the software to Bootstrap 3 without touching the layout and design. Some time later I changed the look of the invoices and quotes but that’s it.
But for InvoicePlane 2 I want to provide the best design, layout and user experience that is possible. But I’m not a designer and not an UX specialist and here your action is required. The community should decide about how the app should look like.
As we will still using Bootstrap it will be very easy to develop a good user interface. Here are some pretty nice examples for application dashboards and I think we could adopt some styles, ideas and so on.
Please leave a comment about everything that needs to be made easier. If you are an experienced designer / UI developer with some time to spend please feel free to contact me directly.
Please notice: we are not able to buy any high-cost licenses for commercial design packages or resources.
Nice. I like the fact that we can remove the sidebar - I don’t like it. Other people won’t like the top menu, so this should all be configurable so we can make invoiceplane look and feel the way we like it to.
Next, I think there’s nothing quite wrong with invoiceplane the way it is right now, except for nice dashboard statistics/gadgets which I would like. These could be provided in a plugin-based manner and be fully configurable.
E.g. Client growth last month (class and period configurable). You could use the same module to display “Average invoice excl. VAT last 3 weeks”, just by changing some parameters. That would be great!
I like how quick and smooth invoiceplane works right now, so if anything changes, I hope this won’t!
Well, I like the current dashboard as it is, sure some views need improvements on how to display what. I would give it a try, and may be posting a wireframe or so for the dashboard view first, since this is the one, that definitely needs a bit more information/widgets.
I hope I can find the time to do it as soon as possible, since you want to release the new version - I guess 2016?!.
I would prefer to switch from the horizontal menu to a bigger sidebar as desktops are usually have a 16:9 format. We could move the navigation to the top bar on mobile devices.
The biggest point where I really need some help is the invoice / quote edit screens. At the moment these screens look very overloaded and we need an interface that looks simpler but does not block any actions or make e.g. adding a discount more difficult.
I partly disagree with the sidebar idea. The reason I like the top menu option instead of the sidebar, is because I use invoiceplane on the road with my small laptop and that way the compactness of the top menu doesn’t compress the main view as a sidebar does.
I’d at least make it an option where the menu goes: top/side. Just my 2 cents.
As @Kovah already said, there will be no problem for small screens. The sidebar could be moved to a top navigation. I’ll investigate these kinda stuffs.
In beta we could also add a Feedback button, that could help the alpha/beta process going.
Gentelella themes looks like a good fit, How easy is to make this theme change?
All the links to be touch friendly for mobile & tab views 3.In future releases if menu items are going to increase then side menu would be a better direction
4.Dashboard requires bar charts, donuts, pie & graphs. I guess these are available in most of these templates.
5."Invoice/Quote edit " try giving common titles for tables,field width can be reduced (eg:qty)
I also couldn’t remove a line item.
@Kovah Can you help me locate feature lists for v2. I have worked for similar project Ux in my firm www.neointeraction.com. I can assist you with these design issues.
About the Gentelella theme: I talked about this theme with a fellow developer and even if it looks pretty good it is written pretty bad. And we need resources that are well structured, documented and easy to implement. So another theme like SB Admin 2 would be better which does not mean that we could make it look a little bit like we want. Maybe it should be more like a template than a theme.
A method for users to back up the database via the web interface would be a nice feature, and very valuable for plans to offer SaaS - users can maintain data preservation (and migration ability) independent of any hosting.
I think the current design is nice (v1), you can say that i am a classic person, but it’s true, i like the actual design. I think that, the composition of the panel can be better, like graphics stadistics.
IP is the one I tried different open source or free billing system. Although IP is not a full function accounting system, it only provides the invoicing but it is quite good enough for small business or some who do the selling in exhibition or roadshow. Using a Tablet will be their only choice, so wide screen design may not the first priority.
Responsive Design theme is pretty nice as well as SB admin v2. What is the possibility of maybe having 2 or 3 admin themes and during setup have user select which one they want to us? This could also be a setting that could be changed after installation by a config value.
