The problem
Built-in panels are meant to not be fully customized; that's a principle. However, they do need to be adjusted to be relevant, because its impossible to make something that is a good option for everyone. When we develop these panels, we think of catering to a majority of needs, and with some basic visualization and customization we aim to broaden the audience that will find it useful without compromising the concept.
Now, this for now has only be done in Overview, where there is:
- Hide/Show summaries
- Rearrange everything in the summary "sidebar"
- Add/Remove components to specific sections - Favorites and Shortcuts
- Reminder - to rearrange areas
Now, the problem is as soon as we expand to other built-in panels like Security, Maintenance or Climate, there is no pattern. We already saw this in Energy, when we discussed adding an extra icon for hide-show.
So the big issue is there is no design pattern that works for everything that we could potentially offer, and I don't want to end up having different visual cues and patterns in each dashboard.
The scope
We need a UX pattern that will work for each thing we want to offer in these dashboards, and then we can decide which specific features we allow as we grow. But we already know the types of options we want to offer:
- Hide/show parts of the panel - graphs in Energy, summaries in Overview
- Rearrange parts of the panel - only in Summaries right now, but its smart to consider it will expand to graphs at some point.
- Add/Remove + Customize custom information - Favorites & Shortcuts in Overview, later Alerts in Security. Might make sense to consider Favorites is something every panel will have at some point.
- Reminders - shortcut links to things you should be doing, like rearrange your areas, or tag your security devices properly.
- Filter - We need to unify how filtered views are done (not hide/show, not permanent) so you can filter the built in under 1-2 major criteria. For example, Maintenance - Unavailable + Low batteries. Right now we have it in tabs in Energy - Light, Water, etc. Happy to keep tabs, but to make it a statement.
As for the design scope itself, we need
- To find a solid pattern that works every time - I'd rather be generic than super accurate
- simple, findable, easy to access.
- works in all current built in panels: Overview, Energy, Climate, Lights, Security, Maintenance.
The delivery
Since this is a pattern, we would need to have:
- A definition of each pattern used, what for and why
- Hifi design of the pattern implemented in all the current built-in dashboards (when relevant)
Community signals
From the past couple releases I've been seeing contributions or recommendations that invent something new, and we need to offer them a pattern they can follow so they can contribute and be consistent.
The problem
Built-in panels are meant to not be fully customized; that's a principle. However, they do need to be adjusted to be relevant, because its impossible to make something that is a good option for everyone. When we develop these panels, we think of catering to a majority of needs, and with some basic visualization and customization we aim to broaden the audience that will find it useful without compromising the concept.
Now, this for now has only be done in Overview, where there is:
Now, the problem is as soon as we expand to other built-in panels like Security, Maintenance or Climate, there is no pattern. We already saw this in Energy, when we discussed adding an extra icon for hide-show.
So the big issue is there is no design pattern that works for everything that we could potentially offer, and I don't want to end up having different visual cues and patterns in each dashboard.
The scope
We need a UX pattern that will work for each thing we want to offer in these dashboards, and then we can decide which specific features we allow as we grow. But we already know the types of options we want to offer:
As for the design scope itself, we need
The delivery
Since this is a pattern, we would need to have:
Community signals
From the past couple releases I've been seeing contributions or recommendations that invent something new, and we need to offer them a pattern they can follow so they can contribute and be consistent.