Cancel Search Button

This is the general UI pattern of canceling the search results view.
The general UI patterns to cancel search is to have the X button inside the search box to the right end.

Cog walk through - Accounts

New ... Buttons Missing - Since the icons to create new schedules, accounts, institutions etc may not be very clear/convenient, we should have New ... buttons for each screen "consistently". Here is a picture that shows this -

Type of Accounts Having some information text/label on the screen, about the kind of accounts that exist(credit, loan, debit, checking etc) will help users understand what are the requirements in opening that account. ( See image below)

Opening Balance for a credit card ? Is it a dead field in a Credit Card context ?

Preferred Account New Users may not have an idea of whats a preferred account. Any informational label can help here too.

Help The help button on the New Account wizard, does not take me to the current topic but to the KMyMoney General Help. Context sensitive Help would really help :)




Parent Account - Asset, Liability are type-of-accounts than an account itself, they should not be named as parent accounts . Income and Expense are categories and shouldn't show up in Accounts screen (They should show up in Categories view only). IMHO, Hierarchies in accounts and usage of term "Parent" account is confusing.




















Edit Account Dialog The Disabled 3D control (drop down lists) have unreadable text, it would be nice to have them slightly darker .

Edit Account Limits Tab Absolute limit does convey clear meaning and Credit Limit exists for all type of accounts.


Edit Account Tax Tab Lots of free screen area could be used to explain what is VAT etc. as an informational label.

Features that need to surface out

Online Banking - KBanking Plugin should be better exposed(than mentioning it in the release notes) to user when they are getting started.

Configuration Screen - Encryption option in the configuration screen should be upfront to allow users to create login IDs and Passwords. The Encryption screen is disabled to work with.

Cog walk through - exploring the toolbar

Screen 12
1)quit is right under the "file' menu, not a safe placement visually. This maybe a personal opinion so feel free to ignore. few question in this case...
(i)is it necessary there?
(ii)is it a standard according to KDE? I am not too familiar with KDE UI
(iii)it didn't even prompt before closing... now that is scary

2)new "file".. now is that for a completely new financial management? the file concept for a personal "account" is confusing.. login might be a better metaphor. few question in this case...
does new file =
(i) new finance management file?
(ii) new user?
(iii) Why would same user want two different files to manage his finances?

Cog walk - Bug report

Nice to see "report Bug"
(i) Will it gather information about the current context user is in?, would be good as the user may not be very descriptive or specific while filing a bug
(ii) if collecting such data care should be taken to not breach and privacy or gather any sensitive financial information. just the screen landed or path to the screen could be sufficient

Cog Walk through: Getting Started - part 4

Screen 11
1. Why did this show up when I deselected the opening balance?
- About the dialog: lengthy, the wording is confusing when indirect... click yes to Cancel, No to Save and Cancel to return, cant it be direct?

2. After click cancel why is it not allowing me to select the transaction back?

3. Couldn't get the screen capture with the dropdown when ppp is selected. why? ppp was set as an asset account. Is that default, wasn't sure it was explicit while taking details of ppp? Define asset account. How do I change it?

4.For the "Search" how about setting sample data in grey in the text field to give users a clue as to what is expected?

5.Number a column is present. But there is no numbering

6. 'c' ? What is that column for?

7. Fiscal year does that mean financial year? define term Fiscal year
- is that different for different countries? Are localization issues handled?

8.Payment? Deposit? how r they different from expenditure, income? explain terms clearly.

9. Cleared 0.00... what does that mean?

10. Never reconciled.. whats that? how, why, what and everything about Reconcile? Define term

11.On Selection of 'new' - why is default set to withdraw? the tab usage to select type of transaction here is confusing and isn't very intuitive.

12. "viewing details of transaction' and editing them should be separate. good example to learn from is of the interface of yahoo mail beta. You have a list of email, of which one could be selected. And the details of that particular email is shown in the lower half. and only actions related to that email are listed there. To create a completely new email... a task unrelated to the current email in viewing, set these actions out of this tab layout... the "new/compose" are out of this layout of things

13. How do we go back to the Account Summary page? Back navigation fails here. Consider a universal back and forward buttons like in a browser.

14.Status? (i)tried "cleared" and the entry got deleted - this is little scary - there is no prompt and no way to undo. (ii) but then I set the status to not marked and the entry was back in place (iii) the reason for this confusion could be the fact that, the affordance of a drop down on right corner is not that of a "selection" criteria (iv) still not clear on how to set the status.

Cog Walk through: Getting Started - part 3

Screen 8
1)Finish button is disabled? How do I save? Why is it pointing to a default location at which it is not able to save and later recall, remember at Screen 1 wasn't able to open recently created files?
2)More thoughts, why doesn't the application have some login name and passwd... account based rather than "file" based. login and pss offers better security which is important for finance aps
3)Finally could save it on changing both name and location, this time as I consciously decided the location I could find my file easily on logging in next time.




Screen 9
1)Scroll could have been avoided
2)Layout needs more work,
a.use color code,
b.work with a grid- follow a consistent grid visually across pages.
c.Typography needs work building proper visual hierarchy in Title, labels and data
These small things allow user to perceive information in an organized and intuitive way.
3)How about defining the technical terms in the first time viewing of them? could be done on hover or select and right click or a simple section at bottom of the page that is allotted to a dictionary.




Screen10
1) Why did clicking on PPP take me to Ledger instead of Account (since PPP is an "account")?
2)No direct way to go back to "Summary page". First time user will not know Summary page = home
3)Page layout need to parse meaning into it well. The current view doesn't have a clear task division. The 2 panel selector pattern can be used more clearly.