Doodle redesigned and even easier to use
Yesterday, we set up a new Doodle release and are proud to present Doodle’s new look today. Most importantly: All existing polls remain unchanged. And the complete Doodle functionality is still available. But Doodle has undergone a major redesign and is even easier to use now — if this is possible at all.
Why the Redesign?
Doodle had been online for years without a substantial redesign. At the same time, we’ve added feature after feature with each update. Today, Doodle is used by 2 million users each month and also needs to cater to our advertising customers. So while Doodle was able convince many users with its “retro” charm, the need for some design work was obvious. To that end, Doodle has undergone extensive usability testing in order to reduce its functionality to the max again — always keeping the user in focus.
What’s New?
- Creating a poll: “PowerDoodle” disappeared and replaced by a simple options step during the setup process
- Accessing a poll: All poll-related functions available right beneath the poll, where users need them
- MyDoodle: Users can now log in on every Doodle page without losing the info on that page
- Improved visual design
- Still no introductory videos explaining the service on our home page — we think Doodle is easy enough to make this unnecessary
Read more about the changes introduced by the redesign. Or read some background information written by Information Architects.
November 28th, 2008 at 8:57 am
[...] date au sein d’un groupe pour fixer un rendez-vous, et dont nous vous parlions il y a peu, annonce aujourd’hui une évolution tout en [...]
November 28th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Your redesign has at least two major flaws I encountered immediately and actually made it worse to use than before:
1) if names are longer than the width of the Name column to the left, the Name columns slip down a line and are no longer aligned with the data rows.
2) you now edit your entry at the bottom of the table, which is very annoying, because you do not see the column headers if enough rows on the page exist
Sorry, but this update seems very half-baked to me and/or you should fix such problems rather fast.
Otherwise, always liked Doodle, so I hope you get the fixes done soon to keep it as good an experience as it always was!
November 28th, 2008 at 11:17 am
[...] was asked to redesign Doodle’s interface and brand identity. We began by evaluating the previous interface with a series of usability tests. [...]
November 28th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Florian, thanks! Both issues are known and will be resolved ASAP.
November 28th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Maybe I’ve missed something, but it seems like everybody can use the administration options at the bottom of the “normal” link (not the admin one). I’m not logged in, and I can edit a poll I created a few weeks ago, by using only the normal link. Or does it use some sort of a cookie to know I’m the creator of the poll?
November 28th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Hi,
in the previous design it was possible to enter HTML-statements to format the poll. I often used ” ” and “” to format the time-slot of a poll. This is not longer possible and the existing polls now look terrible.
Can you allow the use of HTML again?
Best regards
Sven
November 28th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
apparently the possibility to use HTML is indeed possible within here
In my previous comment I meant the tags and ;-))
November 28th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
damned … it is the and tag…
November 28th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
In the previous design as far as I remember the vertical scrollbar of the window was used if a poll got to many entries.
Now it looks like you are using an iframe or a div to display the poll-information.
This makes it really hard to use as the actual size of the entries within the poll gets smaller and the user needs to scroll a lot
Can you change this back to the original functionality?
November 28th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
The light blue (I think there’s some light blue there) is far too light so the page looks like it hasn’t loaded correctly because on my screen I cant see it.
24″ Intel iMac, Safari
November 28th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
You’re imposing Javascript on your users now but it’s a shame you don’t use it to adapt the width of the calendar to the viewport. Hence a more limited view (less columns displayed at a time) and more horizontal scrolling.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Im really, really angry!!! Are we discussing about…about what??? So many promblems in life and we care a about this??????????????????????
November 28th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
[...] Posted by: Jeffrey Keefer in Technology, community of practice Add Comment My favorite online event scheduling program, Doodle, has just released a new interface: [...]
November 28th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
The fonts are really big in the polls, so except if you have a huge screen, it forces scrolling to fill it in. And I’d prefer the horizontal scrollbar of my browser to the one of an HTML “div”.
November 28th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I’m just a user. I hate the scrolling device that displays the response table. It makes it impossible to view the whole table at once when the number of columns exceeds some number. A major inconvenience when one is trying to find the best time for a meeting: it totally defeats the whole point of using Doodle!
Please, go back to the drawing board!!!
November 28th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
hello,
I like the scrolling (left - right) since I have a pool with more than 40 dates. However, I would like to know if I could repeat the title Date (on top) at the bottom as well . I have more than 20 participants, and when I go to the last one, I’m not able to see the title anymore.
thanks
November 28th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
what is exactly the problem you have? they were asking for feedback. So they should not wonder about what people think how the new design is…
November 29th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Putting the table into a scrolling div is a major step backwards in my opinion. It should expand to fit the available viewport, using the browser’s horizontal scrollbar if it extends beyond this.
November 29th, 2008 at 1:10 am
We just fixed two issues:
1) Row heights should now always be correct in all browsers.
2) The table heading will now be repeated at the end of the table once the number of participants exceeds a certain number. That way, you’ll always be able to easily recognize which option you need to tick.
November 29th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
[...] que Doodle nous annonce avoir procédé à une refonte de son interface générale disponible depuis le 28, donc hier et avoir apporté quelques [...]
November 29th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Why don’t you implement a range voting [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_voting ] option for doodle interface? Basically one would score every option between 0 and 9, and the option getting the higher average vote would win.
It is a superior system for making choices.
November 29th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
The poll does not use the page width. If you got many alternatives/dates you have to scroll sidewards, thow there is a lot of white space left on the sides of the page.
November 29th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
[...] Doodle: http://doodle.com Source: Blogue de Doodle Via: Jean-Marie [...]
November 29th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Un mot : BRAVO
November 30th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Hi, simple question: why isn’t the column width in a calendar schedule event constant anymore ? Columns have different widths now, depending on the column header (=the date). This wasn’t the case in the previous version. The new tables look a bit ’sloppy’ …
December 1st, 2008 at 12:57 am
Looks like Windows now.
Less sympa.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:24 am
It doesn’t work for me at all now. It skips january, i.e. when i click to get to the next month, after december i get february. Some random switching of languages and reloading can make january appear, but it’s pretty random. Also, i can’t seem to select more than one date. clicking on another date makes the first one go away.
In other words it’s unusable in my setup.
Firefox 3.0.4 on Ubuntu Linux (8.10 - Intrepid).
December 1st, 2008 at 12:39 pm
TAK, we also test with FF on Ubuntu, and we cannot reproduce your problem. Can you please send a detailed problem description to contact@doodle.com? Then we’ll look into the problem. Thanks!
December 1st, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I’m very sorry to say that I really don’t like the fact that I have to scroll the list of possible dates much more than I used to - the way this was laid out in the original design was much more practical. You need to be able to see as much information on the screen as possible for ease of use, and if you can’t, I would honestly suggest having some sort of “chart” at the bottom of the page showing what the top 5 most popular choices are. It would save tons of time which is presently spent scrolling back and forth under the new design.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:37 pm
PLEASE bring the old one back!! I’m on a mac- I don’t know if that makes a difference, but the names dont align with their possible availibility- and I have nearly made a mistake using a date that I needed one person for and got the wrong date! Laos it used to be easy, seeing which of the dates were the most popular. also it doesnt use the whole page, meaning you have to keep scrolling. Oh, my fav site…!
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:13 am
Juliet, please write an e-mail to contact@doodle.com and tell us which browser (and version) you are using. Please also include a screenshot. Thanks!
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:10 am
I would like to be able to use my mouse to scroll the event results.
This is an excellent tool because it works well and it is simple for people responding.
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:42 am
It looks like I can access the admin functions, like editing other people’s votes. I didn’t create the poll though.
It’s quite a fundemental problem if that is allowed.
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:02 pm
SaitM, what you’re describing is intended, since we assume the participants in a poll to behave in a cooperative fashion which is a save assumption in the vast majority of cases. And it allows to keep the service as simple as possible without requiring user authentication. However, if you want to protect your own entries, you can use MyDoodle. Then, other users won’t be able to edit your entries/comments.
December 9th, 2008 at 10:29 am
[...] iAでは、この度Doodleのブランドアイデンティティとインターフェイスのリデザインに携わらせていただくこととなりました。既存のインターフェイスについて一連のユーザビリティ・テストなどによる評価から着手し、その後数段階にかけてデザインの改良を重ねました。それぞれの段階において、iAのデザインチームとチューリヒのe&tの運営するユーザビリティラボの緊密な連携により、革新的にデザイン改良作業が進められました。ここまでユーザビリティテスト環境に恵まれた中で作業を進めることが出来たのは私たちにとっては初めてのことでした。既存のインターフェイスがすでに高いユーザ満足度を獲得していた今回の案件では、頻繁なユーザビリティテストは不可欠でした。 [...]
December 9th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
i can’t figure out to power doodle. argh!
December 9th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
excuse me … i can’t figure out -how- to power doodle. (argh)
December 9th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Turbot, you find the options under — well… — “options” in the last step of the wizard when initiating a poll.
December 12th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Thanks for the recent improvements and fixes. The design now deinitely is better, but it still has one flaw and two more behaviours which make it worse to use than the original doodle pages:
1) the counts at the bottom of the tables do not align with the columns above if the columns do not have equal width, which makes it hard to see which count belongs to where;
2) the functions for a poll should be above the table, not below - practically always you need to scroll down, because what you are looking for when you get to the page are usually those functions;
3) when editing an entry, the form fields are at the bottom of the table, but the window jumps to the top - that is confusing at least, if not misleading (because if the table has many rows you do not even see that you now can edit that row, because it is out of sight).
Would be nice to see those points fixed, I could imagine then the redesign would actually really be better and not just unneccessary… Sorry for more critics, and as always, thanks for the product in any case!!!
December 12th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Thanks, Florian!
Re 1: We’re not aware of this. Could you send a screenshot to contact@doodle.com?
Re 2: We’ll put this on our wishlist.
Re 3: That’s something that’ll be fixed before the year ends.
December 20th, 2008 at 5:06 am
god resource Continue also