My name is Jacquee, and I’m a User Experience Designer on the SketchUp team.
At SketchUp, we are constantly striving to improve our products by understanding the needs and preferences of our users. To this end, we are conducting a series of user interviews, and we would love to hear from you!
We are particularly interested in:
Your panel interaction preferences and layout customization
Your strategies for managing panel interconnectivity
The differences in panel use across various expertise levels and devices
Your insights would be invaluable in helping us enhance the user experience. The interview will take approximately 45 minutes and will be conducted via Google Meet.
Please click on the link below to schedule a meeting at a time that is convenient for you: Calendly - Jacquee Rodden
Thank you in advance for your time and participation. We look forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences.
Sorry to be negative…
But back to basics…
What do you think a ‘panel’ is ?
How do these panels ‘interact’ ?
How do you think others might use these mysterious ‘panels’ in their day to day use of SketchUp ?
It’s 2 out of 10 for your initial question.
Please explain yourself more succinctly …
So we might understand and help you…
I try to make Html Dialogs act like ‘Trays’ and use accordions to act like Panels on trays. Here is a basic utility ‘Tray’ with no panels (made to look somewhat like the Create Component prompt and panels in general):
In this example the Select Folder ‘Panel’ is open on the extension ‘Tray’. It’s not a perfect fit but I can see the interaction of the Tag & Folder Tools extension with the SU Tags panel:
So, what’s the point? I guess it’s that extensions can’t really create Trays and Panels (with a couple of exceptions), so we have to try to do workarounds to make extension ‘fit’ SU’s layout.
Also, Trays can have Tabs while Html Dialog extensions have Minimize and Restore (but extensions restore down to the bottom left). This isn’t a good feel if you’re Trays are docked to the right.
One more point is that users have been asking for Dark Mode. One work around for that is using a darker background in the model space. But the SU UI is still bright and trays take up a lot of space. So interacting with Trays and Panels in Dark Mode and features for ‘aging eyes’ and even color blindness (font size/color) might be nice to have:
The title of the post doesn’t make it obvious you’re asking about user interface.
I overlooked this at first, though may be interested in participating.
“Panel” in my world usually means plywood or steel sheet, or photovoltaics
I found this Blurb in the invite, which is helpful:
Join me for a 45-minute user interview to discuss your preferences and strategies for panel interaction, layout customization, and managing panel interconnectivity. We will also explore differences in panel use across various devices. Your insights will help us enhance the user experience.
Is this input to Pro or Free? (and why is there a completely different user interface for each?)
Here’s a screenshot of my interface with the two-tray system (very efficient for the larger models with lots of tags and scenes). I moved to this arrangement both for SketchUp and LayOut approx 3 years ago and it’s made a definite improvement in my workflow, and that of my Team.
I marked up some of my ideas. Main issue is the space that things take up, since the SketchUp modelling area isn’t all that large compared to the rest of the interface, and there’s a lot of scrolling needed.
For Pro users I think we can withstand a bit of compromise in visual harmony for added efficiency. Trimming a few pixels here and there would make a big difference when added up. A Compact mode would be ideal.
Extensions could benefit from being launched into a singular default location, eg a Tool/Icon Bar which is docked along the top of the screen. Right now they launch in various random locations and are difficult to track down or organise. This is probably the biggest issue with the trays/icons/bars at the moment.
Other than that… some more consistency between SketchUp and LayOut I think would be helpful. The user experience jumping between the two programs isnt great…it should be completely seamless.
Oh and finally the actual biggest issue at the moment is the BUG that means we cannot Copy & Paste from the Entity Into tray. (Windows 11 and SketchUp Pro 2023 and 2024). this is a very very frustrating and potentially damaging issue.
Hi Justin!
Good question! We’re curious about how you prefer to layout your trays and windows, etc. Additionally, which do you have open at what times? Do you like to see multiple trays at one time because you use the tools or information in both (interconnectivity). An example of this might be scenes and tags.
Best,
Jacquee
A nice feature for Sketchup would be to have the scene tabs make a double row (or more) rather than having thee tabs run off the right side of the screen. Many programs have this feature.
I think if anything needs help in the UI, when working on multiple screens, the menus need to open under the buttons first, instead of the 2nd screen. Then you can talk about UI improvements.
Here’s simple feedback that I shared when trays and panels were first released: allow plugin developers to develop their own trays and panels for users to dock alongside with the native ones.
The need for a unified UI across native tools and extensions has always been an unserved need. I don’t understand how this has never been addressed (i.e. a full UI developer’s toolkit with controls, widgets windows etc) given SU’s dependance on third party extensions.
With the recent switch to QT, this might not be as heavy a lift and would pay huge dividends to the end user.
ETA: this was meant to be a follow-up to @JQL post above.
Panels are a missing feature for us macOS / Mac users. We live with an antiquated and honestly inferior tool window scheme. I really wish Trimble could come up with a breakthrough, within the confines of Apple code, to make these windows behave as if they were panels. Materials window is also an inferior experience on macOS / Mac relative to Windows. So, for what it’s worth, please consider putting some resources into improving the experience us Mac users are trapped within. Thank you.
Thanks Cathy. I have a Wishlist but would LOVE to be able to nest scenes in folders natively without using an extension. Folders for tags was a game changer. I probably couldn’t offer 45mins but 20 would be ok.
@3DxJFD thanks for your post - the inability of extensions to support trays/panels is definitely a known issue and one that has been flagged by the Extensibility team here at SketchUp too. As a product team, we’re always looking for opportunities to more closely integrate with our development community so that SketchUp user’s have a unified, frictionless experience. We’ll be sure to bubble this back up to the team.
Dark mode is definitely on the horizon as we go through our UI modernization process for the desktop editor (we have accessible color combo’s mapped out and already in use in our iPad and 3D Warehouse products).
Thanks again for sharing! Are you planning on attending DevCamp later this year in Westminster, CO?
@AK_SAM - thank you for sharing your thoughts and existing pain points! Apologies if the description wasn’t clear … I’ll update for clarity-sake!
We are seeking to understand our user’s interactions with our user interface panels across any of our platforms - we’re part of the Pro subscription team, so desktop is obviously our first love but we know that a number of our users have dabbled cross-platform and would love to hear what works, or doesn’t.
Thanks for the feedback on your current workspace layouts - consistency is definitely top of mind (within SketchUp Pro but also with LayOut too). And I’ll check into that bug.
If you’d be willing to chat more, we’d love to pick your brain some more! Please snag a spot here: Calendly - Jacquee Rodden
My biggest frustration with the existing interface for Outliner and Tags is the crude implementation of Expand and Collapse which appears to only work at the model top level.
I would like to use E&C on a branch basis e.g. I can [Collapse All] and then drill down without clicking on the expand arrows and finding everything that was previously expanded reopens.
If I have a branch parent highlighted then clicking the branch arrow [V] to collapse should collapse all the child branches. The expand arrow [>] should just open the next level.
You could consider applying Expand All to the parent and all child branches below.
