I’d like to open a new thread regarding the “skin” of the new Avast.
I have seen various discussions about it scattered around the forum, but it’s a bit difficult to get a grasp of it. In general, I understand the feedback tends to be negative, but I’d like to understand whether it’s related to the size of the UI, the layout of the navigation, the color scheme, the font, the speed, … BTW One thing that we focused on improving were the flows, i.e. making the various tasks much more bullet-proof and user-friendly. I think we delivered on that one, but I haven’t seen it discussed anywhere.
So, can you please be a bit more specific in your feedback? Besides RejZoR’s suggestion on how to reorganize the menu bar, I haven’t seen much except for adjectives like “awful”, “unprofessional” etc which don’t really give much insight at all.
We still have some time to shuffle some things around, although obviously what you see is pretty close to what the final will look like.
Hi Ondrej, thanks for asking. Personally, I don’t care too much about the design (as long as it works), so I’ll leave it to others to comment on it. But, as you also mentioned the speed - it’s really really really slow (on XP) compared to build 2280. Some room for improvement…
Now, to the comments regarding latest BETA (17.1.2282):
THE GOOD
I absolutely love the new trey icon. Even so much that I’ve re-enabled the animation. Morphing of the amoeba into sphere and back is just so beautiful and since animation is rather slow, it’s not annoying or distracting at all like the whole fast spinning sphere before. I suggest you make animation enabled by default again!
Progress bar, even though I prefer straight progress bar and the thin one used during installation process looks beautiful, the new circular one looks nice as well.
Interface design is fluid and feels consistent which is nice, apart from few details I’ll talk about below…
THE NOT SO GOOD
The white interface layers however totally clash with beautiful purple top of the interface.
Custom install panel with all the components is all white and looks totally out of place against nice purple installer
The ads banner in the main interface is white and it looks horrid on the main interface.
Same goes for dropdown menus which are white and they stand out from the nice interface like a sore thumb.
Same for three scans under Protection tab, huge white buttons really don’t fit well into interface. And same goes for entire settings menu which is entirely a white menu. I know your schedule is tight with AVG and integration of Software Analyzer, but “Settings” panel really needs a redesign.
As per my interface re-design on link above, having 3 shields separate from the rest, I’d keep statistics page (Pi button) expanded there at all times and add Software Analyzer in there as well (see Shields_design.png image).
We really need real-time detection history like we have for On-Demand scans. Just having option in trey icon to see last detection is just not enough. Sometimes you want to see entire history when, what and where was something detected. It’ll help users as well as avast! team.
Also, because you separate shields from the on-demand scans, you can redesign the scans a bit as well and get rid of the ugly white layer from the buttons (see Scan_design.png image).
And because in my interface design, Virus Chest is accessible from any menu, you don’t need a separate “Virus Chest” button under scans or Shields page.
Thanks RejZoR, good feedback. Just for avoidance of any confusion, by dropdown menus, you mean the main navigation menu / the fact that the whole panel with the items is white?
The component settings (customize) should be available through each section or component of the sidebar and integrated in the main interface, not using additional windows.
Right now you have a new windows for the settings, and another one to customize the component plus the av windows, 3 windows. It’s not user friendly and it looks like avast is broken in pieces.
I’ve decided to innovate a bit and recorded a video with my commentary and direct live display of how things should be, why I like and what I don’t like. I think it will be more understandable than the forum post above…
While I mostly agree with RejZoR’s comment, I would add a comment about the size of the window.
It should be a bit smaller, especially each shield’s setting. It does not fit even with 768 height (see attached image). :
Yes, forgot to comment on the size. 768 should be the absolute max height of the dialogs and windows. Most laptops still run 1366x768 and that becomes a problem. Or netbooks with 1024x600 even though those are rather rare now. But 768 isn’t…
I also agree that the size of the UI is too big. It should definitely be less than 768 height.
I find statistics very important in an anti-virus (that includes history statistics) and it would be best if each shield had their own statistics.
I’d agree with Rejzor as to the how the GUI should be laid out with Scans and Shields in different tabs. I also like to see the Virus Chest there since in previous versions… it’s navigation to find it is difficult.
On top of that, the settings UI font doesn’t make it very easy to read. The current settings in the stable version are fine imo in terms of font, width and sizes.
I too believe that size matters, personally if the window was resizeable. Not just smaller then it would be better for those with small screen (netbook) systems and also good for those who may be visually impaired.
At the same time talking about the UI, should we also not talk about the installation window, in old avast versions this was bigger than the UI window and exceeded the screen size on a netbook (800X600), this meant some buttons were off screen. This required a screen resolution hack to trick the system you had a larger resolution.
VLK - While I don’t like it, I don’t have the strong disdain for the new GUI some others do. Here’s my thoughts, in order of importance to me:
Sizing seems off. Too large, too much wasted, empty space IMO. I much prefer small, compact GUIs. Part of my issue can be due to the fact that I only install the file, or file & web shields. Maybe if I did the default install, the GUI wouldn’t appear so open.
Something about the colors seem a bit drab. Maybe the gray is too much in conjunction with the purple/orange? Just seems a bit ugly to me. I like colorful GUIs, but cheerful. I think this color combination is a bit dark.
The menus of the current version of Avast seem to make more sense than how the beta is laid out. I have not looked at them in a while, but I think some of Rejzors suggestions made sense. It could be a matter of familiarity rather than the beta being “bad”. For instance it seems most GUIs have the 'settings" icon in the upper right. In the beta settings are moved to the bottom left.
The new GUI is not a deal breaker for me. As long as the new programs functions as well or better than the current one, I would still use it. But hopefully the new gui can be tweaked a bit to make it more appealing.
With this beta UI layout it makes sense to me that the settings option is on the left, the same orientation as the other program options. In the current avast version the program options are across the top of the UI with the settings at the end of the other options.
Based on what I have seen, yes, the menus are taking up way too much screen space. Yes, the Virus Chest should be more easily findable. Yes, the colors are bland, but this seems to be the trend now (which is going the wrong way - we need some color)
Isn’t the virus chest option still available from the avast tray icon (right click) menu, that is quicker to get to the chest not having to go through the UI to get there.
On the subject of the context menu from the avast tray icon; we have been promised numerous times that is to be revamped to provide quick access to common functions. But still very little in this direction.
RejZoR hit it right on the button. I like his GUI layout. His design is what I have been wanting for years.
Looks nice and very user friendly. I also agree with the others, size is disproportional to its needs.
A smaller GUI with the ability to re-size according to the users preference would be a step in the right direction.
@ Vlk My main concern with you starting a thread like this is, “does this mean you are finally going to listen to avast! users?”
I ask because in the past we have made suggestions only to find deaf ears.
I might sound a tad harsh but people don’t like to spend money on something they don’t like.
Please ask yourself one question…“Which would you buy a great looking car that runs fantastic or one less attractive that just gets the job done”
"You only get one chance to make a first impression."
Avast had a nice UI unfortunately it was some years in the past. (Avast 2015)
Instead of expanding on it, it was simply dropped.
So were the plans to expand the right click menu.
First of all, I would like to say thanks to Vlk for opening this space to share our thoughts about the new Avast skin. As I said before, I think we all agree that the real important thing is what Avast is on the inside, but it is also important how it looks on the outside, because we want our security software to be effective and visually attractive.
Also, I want to thank RejZor for his great job, giving us excellent ideas on how the new version of Avast must look like. I totally subscribe his suggestions for the new Avast skin.
Finally, I would like to submit some additional ideas. I’m sorry I’m not such a good Photoshop artist as RejZor ! Even so, I hope you can grasp what I mean.
The thing with the 3rd example is that the given panel is meant to accommodate more icons, that’s why it’s so big. Personally, I’d get rid of the white and extend it all the way to the right. So it would slide out through entire main interface and not just over part of it. It would look a lot nicer, consistent and also allow more icons.
