While we all love the familiar iOS-like view, other than the familiarity and a dash of colour, it did not add much value. For users new to ERPNext, it did not offer any hierarchy or structure to understand ERPNext.
One of the biggest feedback we get from new users is that ERPNext “overwhelming” and one of the reason for that is the lack of a clear “information hierarchy” in the product.
The new proposal which will be merged in version 12, will have a hierarchical navigation and the desktop icons will be retired.
Hi, good move from my point of view.
What about some kind of sidebar hierarchical tree menu? Could be interesting in combination with utilization of full width of the screen… something like Desk 2.0
Finally! …something management level users can look forward to is coming to ERPNext. Dashboards are far more than embellishments… they are the ‘ERP’ itself as far as top executives are concerned. Please also include drill-down functionality or at least links to the most relevant reports
Just a thought, but perhaps Google Hire would be a good source of inspiration for a sidebar / mobile viewpoint?
Looking forward to seeing how this progresses. I’ll miss the days of onboarding people to ERPNext and say “know how to use Facebook on an iPad? Nice, you can use this tool”
I like the idea of a widget based modular desktop, maybe something similar to how the print customize works where users can drag and drop the elements they want:
Interesting. I actually think the users of the application are going to really dislike this change. They like the idea of having an easy to use icon that gets them where they need to go and it’s similar to the devices they have in their hands as consumers outside of the workplace (i.e. iPhone/Android). Looking at the revised UI looks more like something developers and techy people would like but not the actual business users that view ERPNext as a tool to do their job.
This looks much better than the proposed home page in my opinion. The fact that it’s also ‘widgetized’ is a huge plus. I think it deserves some consideration…
Too sad to remove this desktop view.
I have work with some ERPs and they all have this sad feeling of url list.
Icons in ERPNext is a good idea and I think people which don’t want it could be redirected in “Explore” menu as homepage.
Desktop could be improved with icons group and have the same feeling as your proposal.
The current desk gives you access to the required module in a single click.
I quite agree with @jodeq. You can group the icons into a folder as in iOS, there by retaining the module feature as proposed in v12 as well as have the direct icon as is currently used.
I strongly support the desk with the folder feature modification.
Although a sidebar or a bottom bar as in MAC OS also would be a nice feature.
It is good that you are changing the interface based on the feedback of the user and I am sure you must have gone through a due diligence on design. As a user of ERPNext on daily basis and based on how I have seen people in my organization using the ERPNext I believe it is not the experienced users that you have to worry about. For the items they use daily they know how to access them and have already created shortcuts for them. I have seen people putting links of document on bookmark bar for quick access.It is the new user that you have to be worried about. Any page that they will use first should be welcoming and easy to understand. I personally feel a lot of weblinks generally dissuades a new user.
The major problem even for the experienced user is generally finding documents or reports in the modules page which they do not use regularly. At time they are all over the place and can have ambiguous names. I believe you new design is already taking care of it.
Also at time new features are integrated in ERP, which are neither advertised, documented or any help is available. It is frustrating to know there is a feature that you need but you can’t figure out exactly how to use it.
