VB 6.x interface usability issues

[CaptainFlint]

I have finally tried version 6 (6.0.2, to be exact), and while there are some changes I do like, I was mostly disappointed by the new interface. I want to emphasize here that I'm not talking about things that affect only personal tastes (like new icons or flat style), but about those that actually decrease productivity which is measured objectively.

Here's a screenshot sample of the main window: https://i.imgur.com/CwiuMM4.png The issues I identified are:

1. The end of the group is virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the VMs list. In previous versions the groups were clearly separated and, well, grouped. Here it's just what looks like one big list of everything, and only when you take a closer look you notice the slightly larger indentation for the VMs within the group. And a title, of course, but it's at the top and does not help here. So, as the result, I have to spend much more time and attention trying to understand if the VM is in the group or not, while in version 5 it was immediately obvious from a merest glance.

2. More clicks are required for switching between VM configuration view and snapshots view. In version 4 you could do it in 1 mouse click. In version 5 it was changed, so that first you had to add the Snapshots tab to the interface, but afterwards you still could perform the switch in a single click. But now in version 6 the user always has to perform two clicks instead of one (open the VM element's submenu, then click to select snapshots).

2.1. And as if that was not enough, now the mouse ends up much further from the snapshot controls. Previously, they were just below the tab title, very close to the position where your mouse was at the moment of the switch, so that you immediately could perform the action, which was exactly why you did the switch in the first place. Now you have to move the mouse all the way to the left panel (in many cases to the very bottom of it) to switch to Snapshots, and then move it back to the top of the right panel to do anything with the snapshots themselves.

These changes do not bring anything positive to the UX (at least none that I could find), so the usability degradation is not compensated by anything, it just looks like the infamous "change for the sake of change". Maybe the aim of these changes was reducing the amount of controls on the main screen, but if they are not there it inevitably means that now I have to spend more time trying to interact with the UI, so simplification becomes a disadvantage in this case rather than an advantage. Please, don't aim at users who become scared of too many buttons, they are not VirtualBox's main target audience!

[CaptainFlint]

OK, looks like I'm the only one who sees these issues as a blow at usability. Oh well, thanks to open-sourceness, I've made myself some interface uplifting:
https://i.imgur.com/ydWgy2k.png (the left is original, the right is my version)

Unfortunately it does not address p.2 but that's too big a challenge for me, I'll have to try and get used to hotkeys instead. But at least now I can more clearly see which machines are in which group.

[Galactic]

I agree with your points, and have some of my own...

The devs have done a good job of improving the GUI over what was going on in the 5.2 version. But there are still a few things that could benefit from some tweaking. And it mostly just revolves around making things a bit more consistent.

Fundamentally, the GUI is a left/right split view with the left side showing general/overview information, and the right side showing specific information. This is one of the most usable interface types there is, so nothing wrong there. But that concept is violated in a few ways at the moment.

1. The commands in the drop-down menu that appears on each VM ("Details", "Snapshots", "Logs"), and on Tools ("Welcome", "Media", etc.) should be on the right half of the GUI. The way it is done now would be more appropriate to a mobile app that is showing either the left half or the right half of the interface, but never both at the same time.

In fact, the menu itself is of little value since it contains only 3-4 options. The proper interface for displaying such a small number of properties pages would be a set of tabs (or individual buttons that function in the same way) on the right side of the GUI. That's 4-5 tabs max, including the Details page. No menu needed. Version 5.1 was far superior when it came to this part of the interface.

In addition to simply being more logically consistent, this also prevents having to search for the VM on the left side that matches the currently displayed property page on the right side, just so the user can switch to a different property page for that same VM. This workflow makes absolutely no sense at all, and is extremely frustrating if you have a long list of VMs (and possibly many groups as well).

2. The Tools button does not belong in the list of virtual machines. As an app-wide group of settings, it should be above the list and visible/usable at all times.

3. The "New" button to create a new VM doesn't really make sense on the Details page for all existing VMs. In fact, all of the commands displayed in Tools->Welcome belong as their own buttons located next to Tools, with all those buttons being always visible above the VM list. A drop-down (Named "VM" perhaps) for Import/Export/New/Add would tidy things up. So, along with Tools and Preferences, that would make 3 buttons total at the top-left of the window.