Reducing Clicks and improving productivity
Hi All,
Matt C's by line "Every click eliminated is good for the soul" has got me thinking.
Just wondering if there has been any discussion, and if so, where is the discussion up to, about possibly looking at a wholesale revamp of the front end of OpenVPMS. The HTML that the software is using is now, I gather, somewhat out of date, and there are some great examples of newer browser based software (eg: Reckon accounts on line ) that have some really neat features and performance improvements that I think could take OpenVPMS to the whole next level.
I am very well aware that such an undertaking and project would be massive, but I think the opportunity for the program would enormous if we can improve the front end user experience.
I'm not on the steering committee or a developer, so speaking a little out of my depth about things here but I'm keen to help and look and improving the user experience.
Development and improvement of:
- Drag and drop
- Use of the RIGHT mouse click functionality
- Reassessment of the screen real-estate and what do vets and nurses actually need to see on the screen
- Improved 'edit' functionality to reduce the need to always chose 'edit' before making any changes (just one more click)
- Improved investigation workflow
- etc
Happy to be involved as much or little as the community would like me to be with this, and am well aware that I am not a developer and as such don't always have a great concept of what can be done 'easily' or 'possible but with great frustration'
Many thanks
David Mason
PS; - I'll be at FASAVA this week if anyone wants to chew my ear off about this. Mostly in and around the surgery program in Rm 6.
Re: Reducing Clicks and improving productivity
David - I concur. Tim A has a new framework in mind (to replace the aging one [Spring] that we currently use) called Vaadin. You can have a play with a demo app built using it at https://bakery.demo.vaadin.com/login.html
There was some hope [on my part] that this would be part of the 2.0 release, but Tim A has been adding features at such a rate (see http://www.openvpms.org/documentation/csh/2.0/new-features) that work on the user interface has been put aside
Designing and building a new User Interface is a major undertaking. I suspect that rather that the current development process of shipping alpha-test releases to a very limited set of people, and them making a beta test available to a wider audience, it may be of benefit to put up a test/demo using the new interface and let people play with it. However, there is definitely a major trade off between getting a wide set of comments and getting informed & helpful comments on one's new baby.
There may also be some benefit in adopting a 'not all at once' approach as Microsoft has done with the Control Panel/Settings interfaces - levaing the old Control Panel in place, and gradually migrating stuff to the new Settings interface. That is the current OpenVPMS stays as is but a new login screen or option leads to the new User Interface which is initially populated only with the limited set of functions to do day-to-day stuff, ie schedules, worklists, customer create/edit, patient create/edit, invoice/credit/counter sale/payment.
To your wish list, I would add the ability to both handle large screens [ever look at the density of information on your GP's screen], but also be usable on a mobile phone/tablet.
NOTE that the above are the thoughts of Tim G, and are not to be taken as OpenVPMS policy or promises.
Regards, Tim G
Re: Reducing Clicks and improving productivity
Hi,
I suggest this is an important project and one that is worthy of, and an important part of a 2.0 release. Not only from a visual refresh point of view but as an opportunity to improve basic workflows.
It is in my mind what the development fund is required for.
Re: Reducing Clicks and improving productivity
Being old school, Simon & I use keyboard short-cuts, where possible, instead of the mouse. There are a couple of locations where short-cuts are not marked eg. estimates (Finalise, Copy, Invoice) or are ambiguous eg. Workflow Schedule where pressing Alt-O to check-out a patient takes you to Reporting (also Alt-O). Are these easy to fix?
Regards, Mary
Simon Slater
Registered Linux User #463789 @ http://linuxcounter.net
Re: Reducing Clicks and improving productivity
Hi Mary,
Keyboard Shortcuts
As an old Netvet user I also LOVE keyboard shortcuts and use the and train them as often as possible.
Could you spend some time cataloguing those functions without keyboard shortcuts?
eg. Patient->Medical Records-> Moving between Tabs
I also note that with the impending introduction of right click functionality that in some tasks, keyboard shortcuts will be outpaced by Context Menus (ie. I'm right clicking this item and the view is known, so give me a list of options specific to this context which I can enact with a single click). In some cases, keyboard shortcuts can sometimes struggle with the steps required to establish a context.
Other Possible Improvements to keyboard-centric users
A couple of other features I've been thinking about in this context.
- Have a configurable option that all dialogs without multitext entry, can be submitted from any input field with Enter press.
- Improve dialog initial focus and tab order
This just needs a cataloguing of going through all the dialogs and seeing which have "lost focus" issues that force you to reach for that mouse.
I'm planning to have both sorted before Fridays meeting :-)
Cheers,
Matt
Re: Reducing Clicks and improving productivity
Love the whole concept.
An opt-in, configurable implemntation is a great concept for gently introducing the changes and required staff training Tim.
Although new features that are opened up and future development which would be dependennt on the new interface would make eventual adoption of thwe new user framework essential I suspect.
Put my hand up with David as a user tester if needed.
Cheers,
Matt