Doh! issues
Dianne Rees recently posted a thoughtful article on Slatebox and I thought I would offer a couple of reactions.
SlateBox relies on HTML5 and Javascript, which means that slate creation is fast. You start off with a prompt to get you on your way and you really can probably figure out most tricks to SlateBox just by clicking around, but I’ll point out some of the doh! issues I experienced.
I am so grateful to actually hear of the Doh! issues, especially being a small fish in a big sea — it’s great to hear what issues users are actually running into while building slates.
Decidedly, one of the big Doh! issues is the silly welcome bar when you first create an account — it hides the menu, which includes the save button!
Another problem that Dianne noted was the need to manually save slates. With the intent of giving users undo/redo capability, I decided this manual-save-my-slate approach was decidedly 1997esque. Now, slates will always be auto-saved, any time you make a change.
Soon, I will change the welcome screen to provide more useful information and remove the obscuring top bar altogether. Thank you for this great feedback.
Many thanks to Dianne for her excellent post. Please check it out if you’d like a great overview of Slatebox: http://bit.ly/xNaHqu
