Product Update: BatchBook Interface Spring Cleaning
- Posted May 5th, 2009
- Filed under: Product Updates, User Experience
Last night we made some (mostly) cosmetic updates to BatchBook. Here’s how she looks today:
The highlights:
- We consolidated help text and screencasts into a context-sensitive footer that provides support options for the tab you are currently on.
- We reorganized the rest of the footer as well.
- We anchored the primary column to better establish the visual hierarchy of the main column vs. the sidebar.
- We removed redundant headers to make more room for the data that matters.
- We moved the search bar to the header, bringing other sidebar elements up the page a bit more.
- We used more subtle color to cater to those not in love with blues and oranges.
- We made an assortment of other minor tweaks.
When it was all said and done, we removed a lot more than we added. To me, that’s the sign of a successful redesign. 
We’re curious to hear what you think!
Looks nice! I noticed the color changes right away. I like the slight change in font too. Thanks for the cleaner look. Keep up the good work!
I like it! The sidebar improvements really make a difference.
It’s funny how little things can make such a big impact on an application.
Nice job. Less cluttered. Allow for better focus.
Thanks for the kind words, everyone! It certainly was a lot of fun to do.
On the forums, I wrote in a bit more detail about the cleanup if anyone’s interested.
I like the look of everything – it does look a lot cleaner!
Only suggestion is some of my coworkers and I found the search bar at the top a little awkward to use since it is pressed up right up against the top of the screen. Is there any way to move it down just a smidge so there is a bit of room between the top of the page and the search bar?
Thank you!
Katie
Looks good to meet too. I agree with Katie that the search bar needs a little blue above it. I keep thinking I can scroll up further or that it is somehow having an issue… just looks a bit awkward.
Thanks Katie & Cameron. Turns out I’m the only person in the world that liked the search bar style.
So, guess what! It’s going to be changing tonight. Thanks for the feedback!
looks good
..but contact details still take up a lot of real-estate and (on my laptop) require a lot of scrolling
also can I suggest aligning ‘edit’ buttons and/or including a global edit button that makes all fields editable?
only other thought is a preference area that allows one to choose font size so that I can get it all on the screen…
But excellent work. Well done.