Tuesday, August 9, 2016

OpenAM Console Legacy UI / XUI

So I have started playing with OpenAM 13.5 and I always have strong opinions on the UI as they undergo "progressive revamp". I do not personally like "progressive" changes as the user experience sucks... big time...


The legacy UI used to look like this...


The XUI now looks like this ...


Configure and Deployment in XUI are expanded from the Configuration in legacy UI.


Let's try navigating from left to right in OpenAM 13.5. (I would think 13 has the same UI experience)

1) Realms will bring you to the following screen. Looks pretty.



2) Configure allows you to modify Authentication, Global Services and Server Defaults. These used to be found in Configuration tab.




3) Deployment allows you to configure Servers and Sites. These used to be found in Configuration tab as well. Everything looks good so far.




4) Bomb! When you click on Federation, you'll be redirected to the legacy UI.




5) The same happens to Sessions.



Let's look further into what happens underneath Realms.

The following is from legacy UI.


In XUI, every sub-menu has been moved to the left. Looks clean!


Now, let's try to navigate from top (Dashboard) to bottom (Scripts), in sequential order.












This is one crappy user experience! The navigation journey sucks big time!


Now, maybe I'm just too picky... but what about this?

Let's say I'm right now at Dashboard in Top Level Realm.



I now want to go to configure Data Stores.. well, I'll be redirected to the legacy UI... ok .... so be it..


And let's say I'm done with configuring Data Stores, I'll want to go back to where I came from. From donkey years ago, I have been using "Back to Access Control", as this clearly implies to me that this is the way to navigate back.

Bomb!



Hello, I did not came from the screen above. I was inside Top Level Realm. I need to go back to this screen instead.



Enough? Not really ... I navigate to Deployment > Servers, as I know there is now UMA support in OpenAM. I want to know more about how it is being configured.






See anything interesting above? :)

Yes, Chinese language was shown in General, Security, Session, SDK and Directory Configuration. No issue with CTS, UMA and Advanced. 

I checked my browser language. EN-US. *strange*


This "weird" user experience will be here for a while... I do not know when the whole revamp will be completed. Meanwhile, what can you do? Nothing. 


.

2 comments:

  1. As a valued ForegRock Partner you will know this already, but 13.5 is just a stop on the journey to a fully responsive UI, so it is far from done yet.
    Thanks for some of the issues you raised, we'll get to them.
    So bear with us, we're getting there, and lots more goodness to come!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, more goodness to come! Thanks for the work so far! :)

    ReplyDelete