I'm evaluating Visual Site Designer and came up with these
Suggestions
1. Make the Properties Window show properties for the object selected (i.e. follow context). Example: Instead of “Show Properties Window/Page Properties, Object Properties, Link Properties,...”, Make it just a Properties Window and have it show the properties for whatever is currently selected. So, if I click on the background, then the Page Properties are shown, and if I click on an image object, then image object properties are shown, etc.
As it is, the properties window is grayed out until an object of that property class is selected. For instance, if the Object Properties Window is showing, and I click on the Page, then all of the widgets in the window gray-out making it useless. I have to know to select Page Properties before I can edit page properties. Quite un-friendly.
For things like Fill Properties, change the paradigm: just call it Fill and have it be a separate thing from “Properties” (i.e. separate window). OR, even better, make it a property in the Proptery Window that only shows up when the selected object has a fill property. This is, actually, an industry standard: Properties pertain to Objects (like an Image, or a Page, or a Block [i.e. div, p, h1, form, etc.], or a Hyperlink, etc.). A “fill” is not an object, it's a property (i.e. its a “Property” not a “Properties”)!
The way it is now, the User has to go hunt for the correct “Properties” window to do what they want to do to the object. If you want this program to REALLY be easy to use, you will present all of the possibilities up front in a context sensitive Properties Window, so the User doesn't have to learn where to find them! This removes yet another level of training by making the process transparent and thus far more intuitive.
If you're concerned about presenting a Window that is too cluttered, or complex looking, then, perhaps hide some of the features, such as making the object a hyperlink, buttonizing it, adding Mouseover Effects and adding Shadows/Bevels/Glow. These are Transformations, and thus it makes sense for them to be separate processes. But, things inherent to the object, like size, rotation angle, border, alternate text, title text, fill color, etc. should all be in a Properties Window that morphs according to the object selected (i.e. when a Shape is selected, the Properties Window wouldn't include a way to load a new image [which WOULD be displayed when an Image is selected].
2. There is no Image Properties Window (that I can find). What if I want to put a border around my image, or give it Alt text or Title text?
Addendum: I discovered that I can use “Object Properties” to add Alt text [what about Title text???] – VERY unintuitive (at least to the audience this program was designed for – the term “object” is a bit abstract for the average “Visual Editor” User [I mean, isn't the point of a visual editor to hide such 'techie' terminology and concepts])!!
3. I added a rectangular shape and then while trying to size it, I accidentally rotated it. Then I learned why I accidentally rotated it – that's the freakin' default action of clicking and dragging a corner handle!! That is VERY nonstandard and thus highly unfriendly!! The standard way of doing this is to have a center handle with a rotate bar coming off it. Or, have rotate be a secondary function of a corner handle that is accessed, either by moving the mouse pointer next to the handle (rather than on top of it), or by holding down Crtl or Alt while dragging the handle.
Not being able to use the corner handle to size an object is a deficit because I am SO trained to do it that way, I'm going to forget over and over!!!
But, if you insist on doing it this way, then I implore you to add the ability to morph it into a sizing feature when either the Crtl or Alt key are pressed! BECAUSE having to do a bi-dimensional resize in two steps (i.e. horizontal, then vertical) is tedious!
4. I can find no way to add a border to an object. Shouldn't this be a feature of the Object Properties Window? Or a separate Border Properties Window? [Or if you adopt my suggestion of a Context Sensitive Properties Window, then add it to that!]
5. I added an image with a transparent background, yet it was given an opaque background. I created the image, specifically, to have an alpha-antialiased graphic that would blend into the page background (saved as a 24bit PNG with alpha). In other words, none of the alpha info was preserved!
When we look at the things around us, we only see them as they were in the past. We really have no perception of reality, at all!
