While we constantly develop features and enhancements to improve your work, we have also been rebuilding the user interface for Quanscient Allsolve. The new UI will be released soon and in this blog post, I will explain the story behind the update, what has changed, and how to use the new UI.
Since we are a relatively young startup, we have been building our product at a fast pace and with good results. That’s reflected in the fact that real customers are now using it for real professional use.
This also means Quanscient Allsolve has been growing with the UI structure from the proof-of-concept days as its backbone. We have been cleaning up the UI a lot and adding consistency to the user experience of different features. At the same time, maybe even oversimplifying, we have kept adding feature after feature on the original interface that has its limitations for meaningful use of all of the functionalities we now have in the product.
That also is the only way for a company like ours. We need to get our work out there and get validation from real professionals solving real problems, and get it fast, rather than sit on our work, making it look and feel flawless before releasing anything. Still, it’s better late than never to do a round of reset on the user interface with the knowledge we currently have of our customer use, and our own capabilities and features. Now is also a good time since we’ve gathered a lot of feedback from our customers, worked a lot with our own application engineers, and have a chunk of analytics to use.
Goals
The main goal of the redesign is to compartmentalize and restructure our current set of features and functionalities in a way that leaves room and serves as a new basis for future reiteration. Essentially, it’s about “these things will sit better in here” and “at some point, if we need something like that, we already have a suitable place for it.”
With a better knowledge of the workflows, we want to decrease the need to jump between views and make some tools easier to access from anywhere in the product.
Additionally, we’re also aiming for better use of space without creating different-size versions of components. Analytics show that our users mostly work on quite large monitors, which is great for us, but working on your laptop screen should be efficient, too. This adds a challenge: if things land in their place nicely on a 13” screen, we might reserve too much empty space on larger monitor sizes, and vice versa.
Our design principles
- Clean : A balanced and clear UI in the sense of less is more, with a clear hierarchy of different types of actions.
- Professional : A well-thought and consistent outcome for professional use.
- Concise : Avoiding UI clutter and putting everything out there on your face while simultaneously supporting full-on expert use.
Overall structure
When looking at things on a higher level, the overall structure doesn't change that much. There is a top bar for the top-level navigation and controls, and we will continue using the left-side navigation panel. The model view will stay the same. We will introduce you to the additional sidebar on the right side of the viewport, where you can work with different kinds of settings without losing your context.
As before, each panel can be horizontally expanded by dragging the edge of the container.
What will change
The biggest changes will involve regrouping and repositioning some of the settings. At the same time, we’re working to ensure overall consistency across different parts of the product, mainly by fixing component styles. This is also an ongoing process even after this release.
Section controls have moved
To make better use of the space, we’ve moved section controls to the top bar. Now, labels are also visible all the time. Even though there will still be jumping back-and-forth while working on your project, the horizontal positioning provides a sense of linear workflow, which is also our goal when we are digging in deeper to enhance and restructure the workflows.
Project properties are gone
Materials, shared definitions (such as expressions, regions, etc.), and the entity tree as a whole didn’t work for multiple reasons. It was a patchy group, and we also gave the entity tree too much importance in the sense that you might have thought it was a meaningful step in your workflow.
With the old properties section removed, we moved the Material settings to the “Physics” section since materials are closely related to the physics setup.
Sidebar on right
We’ve added the sidebar on the right for things you might need to open and close in different parts of your project workflow that aren’t section-specific. The main goal was to reduce jumping back and forth.
In the first release, you can access the sidebar by clicking the “Common” button on the top bar. This button displays your Common definitions and entities. However, we will use the sidebar for different kinds of needs in the future.
When the additional sidebar also gives you full focus on your workflow, it gives you the possibility to leave the important things open if you are working on a larger screen and easily access them if you have a reduced amount of space while working on a smaller laptop.
Shared definitions are now Common definitions
Under the “Definitions” tab you’ll find your Common definitions: Variables, Functions, Variable overrides, Regions, Files. They work as they used to before as project-level definitions, which you can add on your own or copy to your project from the library. This way, all of these things you might need are available at all stages of your workflow. Less jumping, easier access when needed.
We also decided to remove the term “Shared”. It was a bit problematic even before, but now we also have the Library for Variables, Functions, and Materials, which includes multiple levels, so Shared now has become too easy to misunderstand.
Settings display
The Settings display will now be opened when you need to work with it and it gets the space it needs. This way, you don’t leave settings out there that aren’t relevant to you anymore, and you get a sense of accomplishing a task when you click Save and move on to the next task.
We’ve also added consistency to the controls for different kinds of settings. All the main call-to-actions are cleaned up and placed at the bottom, while options for copying, deleting, and accessing documentation or help concerning the current settings are reachable in the top bar.
In the right sidebar settings display, you can find options for different ways to open the settings, which is helpful depending on the viewport size you’re working with.
Some things you might get in the future (The Bubbling Under)
Of course, the job is not done. This is just the first release, and there are a lot of things we want to make better, and have some concepts already. Here are a few things that may appear in future updates.
Running jobs -indicators
A better way to follow and control the jobs that you are simultaneously running.
Easier access to project settings
Accessing the project settings (name, description, sharing, etc.) while working on the project.
Unsaved changes
If you need to check a different setting in your project, you won’t always have to click the “Save” button. Simply navigate yourself somewhere else, and we’ll keep your unsaved changes there.
Project issues and alerts
A project-level place to see if you have some issues with your work you should address before running a mesh or a simulation. Is it problems with the geometry, the aforementioned unsaved changes, or something else.
This a new generation of the UI, and probably not the last, as is the nature of building a product. And, as it goes when building a product, we reiterate and fix our ideas and implementations when we see an issue. On top of that, we constantly move forward in making the product more mature.
We hope you love it, and if you don’t, please tell us. We also appreciate it when you tell us that you love it.
Thanks for reading!