Pop-ups vs. Web UI Design in the Times of Web 2.0 and HTML5

[Kurt Schumacher]

Modern browsers and well adopted users depreciate the usage of any pop-up windows. I _hate_ all these pop-up windows called while maintaining the SG200. A professional Web management UI behaving like a marketing-overflown cheep Web site...

More confusing are the functions, where the config is done in the pop-up only, and is not refelcted in the main window. Back to card reader technology level from 1975 - but not a Web UI of late 2010.

No, I don't ask for an Ajax/Web 2.0 and HTML5 user interface - but there is nothing, absolutley nothing in any of the pop-up windows, that can not be done in the main Window scope, too. A good example is the (buggy) password-change pop-up...

Worse: It's not even possible to open the Help on demand within a new tab (by CRTL-click on modern browsers...).

Then, the actual IE9 Beta is crashing while opening the Administration -> User Accounts -> Add pop-up. Looks like it does not like the JS code, or specifically the Password Strength Meter.

[ddiep]

> ... there is nothing, absolutley nothing in any of the pop-up windows, that can not be done in the main Window scope, too.

Not sure how complex to implement this. But your opinion will be heard. I'll relay this msg to the team.

>Worse: It's not even possible to open the Help on demand within a new tab (by CRTL-click on modern browsers...).

Good idea. Will ask for this function.

>.. the actual IE9 Beta is crashing while opening the Administration

Interesting! Not sure if this IE bug or the switch. Will look into it.

Thanks!

[Kurt Schumacher]

There is an additional powerful argument against the pop-up: All pop-up are fully locking the main window! In a multi-tabbed browser* the ability to switch the tabs is disabled. As-is, it is not possible to open i.e an internal infrastructure domcumentation page, or another switch to compare the settings, or configuring adjacent switches to set-up or extend a trunk.

And that can not be the sense of a Web application at all.

* Other tabs are locked on IE8, Firefox 3.6.9, Safari 5.0.2 (these representing the majority of browsers) and the main browser window can no longer be resized or moved, but not on Chrome 6.0 - but that alone does not help much - see below....

While doing a quick test using these browsers (all on Windows Vista, should not really make a difference), we spotted some more browser related issues:

1. Safari 5.0.2: The pop-up windows are not rescaled dynamically to the size required - only a very small brick of about 100px is visisble.

2. Chrome 6.0: Except of the Getting Started page, the main panel is never populated, so this is a bug in the Sx 200 Web UI (Sx300 is ok).

This is all on C.9.17.2.

I think Cisco should hire me...

-Kurt.

[Brian Bergin]

Kurt,

I couldn't agree more with you.  Popups stink. They're, IMHO, lazy coding.  RV082's had similar configuration options ~8 years ago when they were first introduced and they have ZERO popups (strike that, they do open a new window for logs, but that's acceptable given you'll often be refreshing them while doing something else).

Don, given Cisco's insistence on a common and consistent GUI (even though that GUI is terrible in almost every respect), no where in any other recent Cisco small biz device are popups used like this.  If for no other reason than consistency the popups must go.

[kspharler]

If the pop-ups stay, I have a specific experience to report.

When upgrading my firmware (which went smoothly), it popped up a window to prompt me to reboot the router.  This pop-up was not sized properly, as it was maybe 50 by 50 pixels.  I was able to drag it larger though, which enabled me to read the text within.

If I encounter the same sizing issue with further pop-ups, I'll make note of it here.

[Kurt Schumacher]

kspharler wrote:
...
This pop-up was not sized properly, as it was maybe 50 by 50 pixels.  I was able to drag it larger though, which enabled me to read the text within.
...

Hi Kevin,

Yes, we have een similar "small square sized" and resizeable (!) pop-up - when I remember right, never on IE(8 or 9Beta), but on oll other indudstry standard browsers like FF, Safari5, Chrome, ...

-Kurt.