HanDBase Beautification Project
In our new HanDBase forums, we were discussing that we have received some comments from customers that say they love how functional HanDBase is compared to the competition, but wish it were as snazzy as some of the slick iPhone apps out there. I agree! Here’s what I wrote in that article:
At any rate, I am not too proud a person to take advice and input on this. I would much rather have a lot of happy customers that love the design than a bunch of people who say it’s ugly but has a great personality
So if anyone has any sort of design background and has any thoughts on how to make HanDBase look a little more snazzy, please let me know. In fact, I think I’m going to start a separate thread based on this!
In that spirit, I’d love to get some input from you on possible ways to make HanDBase slicker looking. Here are the things I’ve been contemplating and I’d love for your input on these as well as some thoughts on other possible changes:
1 – New icon. Our original icon for HanDBase looked like this:
When HanDBase v3 came out we were at our prime, when Palm was at it’s peak and we were one of the top selling products for it, we paid a designer to come up with something slicker for HanDBase’s icon. Here’s what he did:
While I don’t recall having any complaints on the look of this, the overall idea of the thumbs up became a problem for some countries that were using HanDBase. It turns out that the thumbs up was offensive in some countries:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/In_what_countries_is_it_offensive_to_make_the_thumbs-up_sign
We heard from relatively few of them, as since the program doesn’t really support arabic, it’s not really of much use in those countries. But in our effort to try to make something more universally unoffensive, I commissioned Brian Houghton, our email technical support guru who happens to be an artist and art teacher by day to make something to what I felt was more descriptive of HanDBase – that is a handheld size container for all your data. The icon he came up with passed the muster in my eyes, but I think when we shrunk it down to icon size, it lost much of it’s sheen and recognizability.
I hear often of complaints about the icon but really could use some input on ideas for an icon that will work well at low resolutions (Palm OS icons are only 31×21 and this same icon needs to scale up to 128×128 and even higher, so whatever it is has to be easily modifiable to work in hi-rez and low rez both. The standard icon design for a database is an ugly cylinder which I feel is a step back to the 80’s, so hopefully something else more exciting and yet still obvious!
2- New color scheme: When I first designed HanDBase, there was no app store yet, just the promise of one coming soon. The only apps we all knew and loved were the built in apps and they all had a similar business like grey with pin stripes. This is the look and feel I tried to emulate when designing the program, but I did experiment with a scheme with more black which I liked. It definitely looked more slick to me but I didn’t want to stick out like a sore thumb from the built in apps! In reality, almost every app that has come out uses different color schemes and it’s even invited by Apple, so I guess in retrospect this was a bad call on my part! I’m planning on implementing this again, but having an option to go back to the current scheme for those who prefer it the way it is.
3- Does anyone have any other ideas for ways the interface could be snazzier? I’m wide open to ideas at this point, but please don’t be offended if we don’t wind up using your idea. I don’t have a budget to spend on a designer right now- it’s tough economic times for us all, but if we can try to do the best with whatever we have, we may be able to something nice here!
Thanks in advance for all your input on this!
The current HDB icon *IS* fairly underwhelming. But of course, I’ve tried my hand at creating icons for Palm device screens and fully appreciate the VERY restricted canvas of the tiny format. Unfortunately it is the icon’s appearance on the smaller screens that’s most important. After all, the program’s use on handheld devices is its reason to exist. So, an icon that looks good and that differentiates the program on the small screens of smartphones and PDAs is most important. It will, of course, be a benefit if the chosen image pleasantly “expands” to PC desktop size — something “catchy”, “snazzy” that will attract new users.
Re sprucing up HDB’s interface. I would a think a relatively quick fix would be to offer the user the ability to change typefaces (field titles and field data being spec’d separately, etc.) and the colors of the overall background, text and screen elements.
A step beyond that would be the ability to specify those font and color options individually for specific databases. You could even go down to the “screen level” so the user could choose different colors, etc. for the “new record” screen, list view, etc.
Lastly, thanks for HDB! Jim
Greetings from Michigan my friend! Wow, you’ve submitted a tall order in asking us to try to add to your already marvelous design. I’ve spent months working and having fun with HB on iPod Touch, so let this be my humble input.
RE: Snazziness factor
1. Loose the current icon. I’d suggest something that emphasizes the “database, information” angle rather than the “hand, thumb”.
2. Color scheme preferences would be a great idea.
3. I am still hoping for forms to be available. To me, would put the app “insane, over the top” in terms of cool factor. Being able to “design your own” iPhone/iPod app in this way is unique within this market.
4. How about an option to give icons to the databases we make? Perhaps we could choose the color, graphic, etc, or from a pre-formed selection. This icon would look like the iPhone icons, but would be displayed on the HB Categorgy View as a “startup screen” with white background. Perhaps we could even pull in a picture from iPhoto within (or as) an icon.
Hence instead of opening up to a list, one could have the option to open up to a user designed environment in the Category View, that is similar to the iPhone. Also, within the database view, perhaps there could be smaller icons we could select from as well.
I like this because the user interface could be customized, which adds personality. From pink flowers to medical to business, etc, the user gets to “design the app” around his/her personality more.
Hope this adds to the blog! Take care my friend, Bras
the new icon is terrible. it looks like a waste bag. please! design a new one that fits in the blackberry icon set. thank you
Okay! I cam in here to leave a comment and discoevered that I’d already done so WAY BACK in early July. lol I have to say that time has not improved my opinion of the current HDB logo. I’d welcome a return to either of the earlier versions BUT, agreeing with commenter Bras Deen above, would especially welcome something new — moving away from from the hand and thumb entirely.
I also agree with B. Deen re the idea of we users being enabled to “apply” icons to our databases. AWESOME! It would be nice for DDH to supply a “selection” of icons but especially important to permit us some way of “attaching” icons we’ve designed or downloaded elsewhere.
Loving HDB more than ever! Thank you, Jim
I’ve been using HanDBase for ~7 years or so! The name of the Database is HanDBase! Its appeal is its availability in the hand. The Logo design should reflect this uniqueness. Many companies have found that changing a BRAND NAME OR LOGO that has been successful, just to accommodate the winds of change based on the whimsical feelings of fashion or fads, changes the brand entirely. This would be a mistake, and essentially would be making a new product. There are other ways to continue to WOW the user and to get new business without changing the icon image! STAY WITH THE HAND! Just find a new way to display it differently IF you need to! Paul
The November newsletter prompted me to log on to the DDH Software website this evening and I discovered this “Beautification Project”. I laughed to myself because, when the current icon was released, I wrote ask why the change and made a plea to return to the earlier version.
It was not my intention to offend Brian, who I now learned designed it, but when khb describes it as a “waste bag”, well that’s being polite. My own analogies are scatological.
Bras makes excellent suggestions. If we could upload images here, I’d be happy to submit a few alternatives of my own. Apologies in advance if you’re a Rafa Nadal fan, but look at what Roger Federer has done with his RF logo. Wouldn’t it be possible to do something clean and politically correct with “HDb”?
Love HDB, use it 30+ times a day, but am sickened every time I have to look at the current icon.
Just started using HanDBase for the iTouch. I am porting over from SmartList.
The thing that really does not have a good look/feel is the view size slider bar. Too hard to get the number you want. I would suggest a wheel instead similar to the date and time wheels used.
Also don’t like how hard it is to flip between records. The fields highlight when selected, even though the form is in read only mode. This highlighting appears to mess up the flipping capability (slide touch from right to left or visa-versa). If the fields cannot be edited, they should not highlight.
Why does a popup list icon (plus on a green circle) appear for fields that have a null popup listing? Confusing to the user.
I think you have the action buttons backwards. The add entry and sync/tools buttons are not used as much as the cancel, save, edit buttons. The most used buttons should be at the bottom of the screen for thumb access. I would work to place as many buttons on the bottom of the screen for easy usage and place information at the top. Move the search field to the bottom when looking at the table.
An empty record could always be listed at the bottom of the view listing. Seems that simply scrolling to it and picking it should result in an add record action instead of having to pick the add (+) record button. Still need the add button for large listings, unless you add a scroll bar similar to the iPod Music App. Then scrolling to the end would be a snap.
May be able to get some good ideas from Tap Forms for look and feel. The capability to associate an icon to a table is slick.
It would be great to be able to customize the home screen / main tabs page either by colour or maybe have your own photo or logo