Quick editing and submitting for goal settings
When editing the settings for my goal, if I switch between "Basic" "Reminder" and "Advanced" on Chrome v14.0 , I lose the information I had submitted in the other tabs. Thus, I'm forced to click submit before switching to another tab.
My intuition tells me that I should be able to fill out all three tabs and hit submit on any of the three to see changes. I'm not sure that's happening :)
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Hugo Ferreira commented
Just used the Disqus "Edit Profile" right now and it's a good example of what I meant by switching the tabs for a menu (option b. below).
Found an illustration reference here:
http://blog.disqus.com/post/785848236/new-user-settings-at-your-fingertips -
Admindreeves (Cofounder, Beeminder) commented
I think I'm sold on this now. Thanks Mike and Hugo!
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Hugo Ferreira commented
I agree 100% with @mimercha… it happens to me every time I edit a goal. So much, it drove me to go search for the feedback button.
I disagree though that is a "matter of intuition". Tabs are supposed to show an alternative view of the same context. That's how they're used through out all the OSes settings panels (Windows, Linux): switch tabs to see different levels/groups of settings, confirm or cancel all in the end.
What I'm saying here, is that the tabs and the submit button behaviours are giving conflicting messages here:
a) to behave like *real tabs*, you cannot drop the changes when I switch tab or "nag" with confirmation/warning popups… the user needs to be able to freely explore and switch tabs while making the changes.
b) to have independently "submitable" sections, then you should drop the "tab" metaphor for a left side menu (for instance) or some other sort of metaphor that indicates a complete page change.
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mimercha commented
Hmm... I see what you're saying...
Well to use another interface as a comparison... Something that I like about Gmail contacts dynamic editing is that each of your changes is automatically recorded when you go into edit mode. As the changes are saved, you have a notification as the top that tells you how many changes were saved and allows you to undo the changes if you wish.So the changes necessary: remove submit buttons altogether, use dynamic saving (commit on javascript click away), create undo capabilities, and add unobtrusive notifications when changes are committed.
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Admindreeves (Cofounder, Beeminder) commented
I'm not certain about your intuition about essentially a single submit for all the tabs, but maybe it should at least warn you before dropping your changes if you click away without submitting. Though that could be annoying if you're not hitting submit specifically because you decided not to submit those changes. I guess it's a question of how likely is it that you'd make changes and forget to hit submit. Back in the old days you always needed to hit submit so users were used to that -- maybe less so now...