User Experience Blog
User Experience Blog
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Salesforce Browser Support and Configuration Doc
Mar 18, 2009We recently released a new document listing the official browsers that Salesforce supports. As noted previously in the User Experience blog, Internet Explorer 6.0 is still supported, but we recommend Firefox 3.0 for the best performance. If you want to continue using IE, we strongly recommend that you upgrade to IE 7.0 and apply all Microsoft® hotfixes. IE 7.0 is faster, more reliable, and better supported than IE 6.0. Salesforce also supports Safari 3 for both Mac and Windows platforms.
The new Browser Support and Configuration tip sheet also includes configuration recommendations to maximize browser performance for both Firefox and IE.
As new browsers and versions are supported, we'll update the Browser Support and Configuration tip sheet with all the details.
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IxDA Redux this weekend in San Francisco
Mar 12, 2009Earlier last month, 460 interaction designers converged in Vancouver to discuss, debate, and share a spectrum of topics that are important to our community of practice. The Interaction09 conference featured three days of tactical workshops, smart sessions filled with practical advice, and a fantastic collection of inspirational keynotes.
Many of the contributors to the event came from the Bay Area so the local IxDA group is hosting a redux of the conference featuring several of the local speakers. If you'd like to attend here are the details:
Time: March 14, 2009 from 12pm to 5pm
Location: Adaptive Path
Street: 363 Brannan Street
City: San FranciscoI was honored to be selected this year to speak at both the full conference and the redux. My presentation was called Postcard Patterns: An Agile UI Pattern Creation Process and focuses on using Agile methods to improve documentation efficiency, efficacy and productivity.
There are a number of speakers contributing at the half-day event and it promises to be a fun and informative event. If you're interested in attending, the details can be found at the IxDA-SF site
If you'd like to read more about the parent organization visit their site.
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Video tutorial for the Enhanced Page Layout Editor
Feb 2, 2009With the Spring '09 Release, we created a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) version of the page layout editor. Administrators can quickly customize page layouts with an improved drag-and-drop design, Quick Find, Undo/Redo, the ability to save a copy of a layout, or switch to another layout directly from the editor. The enhanced page layout editor includes functionality for creating blank spaces!
To help our users learn how to use the new editor, we also created a video tutorial. Look for more of these video tutorials in upcoming new features.
We’d love to get your comments on our enhanced page layout editor!
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Salesforce and Internet Explorer 6, Part II
Jan 31, 2009It's been a while since we've posted about browser usage, specifically regarding Internet Explorer 6.
Well, IE 6 - and Internet Explorer in general - have been in the news a bit lately. First, Internet Explorer overall is losing browser market share. There are now several great alternative browsers available. Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome are all excellent options that are being pursued by other customers and web users in general. In the last four years, IE's market share has dropped from over 90% to 68%, with the rate of decline accelerating each year due to the introduction of these excellent alternatives.
Second, Google (with their Gmail application), Facebook, and a host of other Web applications have either dropped official support for, or did not release any new features supported in, IE6 in the last year. These recommendations reflect what we at salesforce.com are seeing as well: as a "last generation" browser that will be 8 years old in a few months, IE 6 has fallen far behind other browsers with regard to speed, stability, and security. Of the browsers we support, IE 6 provides the worst user experience for our users on all of these fronts.
At this point, we want to urge all users who are still using IE 6 to consider one of the following changes (in ranked order):
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Option 1: If you have the necessary permissions on your computer, install and use a browser other than Internet Explorer
Salesforce officially supports Mozilla Firefox 3.0.x and Apple Safari 3.x. And while not officially supported, Google Chrome 1.0 seems to work extremely well with our service. All of these browsers are much more standards compliant than Internet Explorer, all are much quicker, and new releases of these browsers - overall - have historically had minimal issues.
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Option 2: If you have the necessary permissions, but you don't want to give up on IE, upgrade to Internet Explorer 7
IE 7 is faster, more reliable, and better supported by Microsoft than IE 6.
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Option 3: If you don't have any control over the
programs installed on your computer, talk with your IT department about
switching to a different browser
We know we have a wide variety of customers - everything from 3-person companies in a garage to multi-national corporations - and understand that many of you have no choice in which browser you use at work. Start engaging the appropriate people in your company now to improve your user experience with Web-based applications.
Please note that we still fully support IE 6 for the features we have today, and will continue to support it through 2009; we will give ample notice to all of our customers before we pursue officially de-supporting IE 6. However, as we release more functionality and features this year, you will begin to see new UI enhancements that will not be fully supported on IE 6.
We want our users to have the fastest, most reliable experience possible every day, and transitioning from IE 6 to a faster and better supported browser - as soon as possible - is a great way to ensure that.
Share and Enjoy.
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Option 1: If you have the necessary permissions on your computer, install and use a browser other than Internet Explorer
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Google Docs and the Collaborative Power of the Cloud
Jan 20, 2009More powerful than a PowerPoint. Able to unite multi-disciplinary teams in a single environment. It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Google Presentations!
At Salesforce we're obviously big fans of cloud computing so it should come as no surprise that we're also big fans of Google Docs, the online office productivity suite from Google. Introduced into our work environment late last year, Google Docs has rapidly supplanted Microsoft Office as the solution of choice for office documents. Since its arrival it has been unclogging inboxes and facilitating collaboration across the organization. To demonstrate the power of Google Docs, let's imagine a fairly typical office document scenario: You're working on a big presentation for the executives. There are multiple contributors and each person is assigned a portion of slides in a large slide deck. One "lucky" person is elected to merge all of the slides together. As the project progresses, managing the edits and the merge process soon consume a huge percentage of the team's time as they email multi-megabyte files back and forth.
Recently, the Salesforce User Experience team was faced with the prospect of just such a scenario. We began a large collaborative design effort to create an extensive set of "paper" prototypes. When all was said and done over 200 slides were produced by 6 primary contributors (and at times we had up to 10 contributors). Using traditional software this multi-contributor document would have been a recipe for disaster but, thanks to Google Presentations, we had the power of cloud computing on our side. With a Google Presentation all contributors were able to edit a single document online at the same time. No merging of slides. No emailing multi-megabyte files back and forth. One central location to collaborate, contribute, share and capture feedback in real time. We were even able to allow multiple key stakeholders to view the document while it was being edited by multiple contributors, providing an unprecedented level of transparency and collaboration.
Through the course of the project we put some extreme demands on Google Presentations and it performed well beyond our expectations. Thanks to Google Docs and cloud computing we were able to spend more time innovating and less time wrestling with technology and logistics. Hooray for the cloud!
Do you have a success story you'd like to share? We'd love to hear it! How is your company leveraging the power of Salesforce in combination with other cloud services?
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Do you use a screen reader with Salesforce? We would like to talk to you!
Aug 20, 2008Do you know someone who accesses Salesforce using JAWS, Window-Eyes, or other screen reader software? Are you such a person? The User Experience team seeks to connect with individuals who use screen reader software to interact with Salesforce. We are interested in gathering more first-hand knowledge about what makes the experience of using Salesforce with assistive technology (AT) as productive and enjoyable as it can be.
We would like to schedule in-person observations and interviews with qualified participants to see and hear about what's working well and what we can improve. Each participant will receive a gift certificate in appreciation of their time.
If you or someone you know would like to be contacted, send a note to tester@salesforce.com.
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Agile2008 Conference Recap - Postcard Patterns
Aug 19, 2008Last week, while Craig was in Aspen, Jason Winters, myself, and over a dozen Salesforce.com colleagues were in Toronto, Canada at the Agile2008 Conference. Jason and I were there to present some of our process innovations around the agile, and rapid, production of an interaction design Pattern Library. Don't know what we mean by "Pattern Library"? To quote wikipedia:
"In interaction design/HCI, an interaction design (ID) pattern is a general repeatable solution to a commonly-occurring usability or accessibility problem in interface design or interaction design."
Essentially, a library is a collection of documents designed to help you create usable and consistent software.
Our session was titled "Postcard Patterns: An Agile Pattern Creation Process". Traditionally, creating and maintaining a pattern library has been a daunting task requiring extensive resources and, sometimes, dedicated full-time employees.
In keeping with our development team’s agile transformation we revisited the process and invented Postcard Patterns – simple, visual documents that allow us to effectively drive consensus across teams with a lean communication tool. In contrast to our previous pace of 2 patterns in six months, we recently produced 43 patterns in less than three months.Here's an example of one of our patterns.
For the session, we had a fantastic group of 25 attendees who made the session entertaining, enlightening and educational. The main thing we learned? Most User Experience teams, when taking on the challenge of documenting their interaction design patterns, encounter the same problems we did.
If you'd like to see our presentation, or those from my Salesforce.com colleagues and the rest of the Agile conference, check out slideshare.
Do you have any experience creating an interface design pattern library? Have any tips you'd like to share? Let us know!
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Enterprise UI Summit Recap
Aug 12, 2008
Last week I had the good fortune of participating in a series of thought-provoking discussions at the Enterprise UI Summit in Aspen, Colorado.
The event was hosted by Jive Software and attendees included user experience experts from companies like SAP, Google, Adobe and RIM. The group shared design challenges, best practices, and visions for the future of enterprise software with an emphasis on the influence of the consumer Web and social software. Agenda items included:
- Show and Tell: Design Challenges, Process and Inspiration
- Microsharing in the Enterprise
- User Profiles: Best Practices from the Consumer Web
- Panel: Making Enterprise User Experience BetterTwitter was a surprisingly hot topic at the summit. Many attendees discussed how they have used Twitter to improve communication in personal and enterprise settings and the group debated the potential benefits and pitfalls of introducing these kinds of communication tools within a corporate environment. Personal (employee) profiles was another hot topic. In particular, the group discussed the questions of data portability, ownership of content, and integration with consumer sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
Many thanks to the friendly folks at Jive Software for hosting such a terrific event!
p.s. Get my take on enterprise software UI in this Enterprise UI Summit attendee profile.
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Salesforce.com User Experience Team to Present at Agile 2008 Conference
Jun 30, 2008
If you’re heading to the Agile 2008 conference being held in Toronto from August 4th to the 8th, look for members of the salesforce.com User Experience team. We’ll be sharing our thoughts on Agile software development from our unique perspectives as interface designers and usability analysts.
Be sure to check out these sessions:
- Postcard Patterns: An Agile Pattern Creation Process
Presented by Ian Swinson and Jason Winters
- The Doctor is "In" - Using the Office Hours Concept to Make Limited Resources Most Effective
Presented by Andrea Leszek and Catherine Courage
- The UX Graffiti Wall
Presented by Peter Roessler and Anshu Agarwal
About Agile 2008
Agile 2008 Conference, Toronto, August 4 to 8, 2008
http://www.agile2008.org/About the salesforce.com User Experience Team
Usability is of utmost importance to salesforce.com. The User Experience team at salesforce.com is responsible for making sure that our features are easy to use, understand, and learn. We rely on the expert knowledge of our team of usability analysts, user interface designers, and graphic designers to accomplish these goals.
Are you a user experience professional?
We’re hiring UI Designers, Usability Analysts and Visual DesignersGoing to any interesting conferences?
Let us know about them.Want to learn more about salesforce.com’s design and usability processes?
Post a question and keep an eye on the User Experience Blog for more news and information.
Subscribe to the User Experience Blog
- Postcard Patterns: An Agile Pattern Creation Process
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Salesforce and Internet Explorer 6
Jun 17, 2008Today's release of Firefox 3 seemed like a good time to re-raise the issue of browser support and Salesforce.
Back in August 2007, I posted about Salesforce browser usage. At that time, Internet Explorer 6.0 usage represented about 65% of total browser logins, or just about 2 of every 3 users.
Since August, we’ve seen browser usage of our service change fairly dramatically.
You can see that IE7 usage has grown to around one-third of all users. And Firefox 2.0 usage has increased dramatically, to 14% of all users.
You can also see that IE6 usage has dropped a fair amount as users have upgraded or switched browsers. But more than half of all users still use IE6 when accessing Salesforce.
Why do we pay attention to browser usage? One reason is that recently we embarked on efforts to build the next-generation UI of Salesforce, which will include using JavaScript and other technologies that are, frankly, a challenge for IE6 to handle.
In addition to working on next-generation UI, we frequently wrestle with random, difficult-to-reproduce, hard-to-fix bugs in IE6. And while we admittedly love a challenge…working around bugs in older browsers isn't really how we want to spend our time. In fact, investigating and coming up with solutions for bugs that appear only in IE6 robs us of time we would rather spend on new feature development, which is what we love doing and where we believe our customers would also prefer we focus our efforts.
Rest assured, we are not planning to de-support IE6 any time soon. IE6 is still far too heavily used by our customer base, and upgrading to IE7 or switching to another browser is too much to ask in the short-term.
However, as time goes by and more of our users upgrade to IE7 or switch to other browsers like Firefox and Safari, we move closer to the day when we will drop official support for IE6.
Another factor to consider is that Microsoft has already released a beta version of Internet Explorer 8, with a generally available release some time in the next few months (who knows?).
Given all of this, we at salesforce.com have been contemplating how we can move away from IE6 support.
Are we going to de-support IE6 in a single release? No, absolutely not.
But our current thinking is that our next-generation UI enhancements, to be released starting later this year, will not be supported on IE6.
This does not mean you could not use IE6 with Salesforce. However, it would mean that you would not have access to UI enhancements unless you upgraded to IE7 or switched to another supported browser like Firefox or Safari.
Thoughts on this post? If you use IE6, does your company have plans to upgrade its users in the coming year? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.
Share and Enjoy,
Jerry Sherman
salesforce.comP.S. With regard to Firefox 3 support: We usually target official support for major browser releases within 90 days of the initial release. Overall, we rarely see critical issues with Firefox, even from one major release to another. (I'm actually using FF3 right now to type this post and am logged into Salesforce in another tab.)
If you decide to try out Firefox 3, you will probably see some minor issues here and there--usually small cosmetic display problems. But in general it should work well with Salesforce. If you see anything more substantial, please tell us!
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