Right, so I was bored the other day and found myself clicking around my all my open windows (virtual desktops, how do windows users live without them!) - and I thought to myself, Skype has way too many tabs! I like to keep my Skype window as small as possible, but I always end up having to scroll around to get to the different tabs.

So I thought I'd make some suggestions. Please excuse me if this is stuff that is already in the windows version or is planned for the Linux version - just some thoughts that occurred to me. All in all, I think we could do away with tabs all together without losing much functionality.
[list]
[*] The "Start" tab. This is mostly fluff really. There is already a Search icon and a login icon on the toolbar, and the users/contacts online stats are statusbar material at best. First thing I do when I start Skype is to switch over to the Contacts tab.
[*] The "Contacts" tab. This is where I spend most of my time in Skype when I'm not in a call. Let this be the main window, possibly with a larger status-area at the bottom to accomodate statistics and other fluff.
[*] The "Call List" tab. Usually squeaky clean unless I missed a call. Also, not very interesting. Let there be a log of incoming/outgoing calls in a separate window accessible through the menu - complete with any SkypeOUT charges when that goes online - not unlike the one on the "My Account" web page. Missed calls could be indicated with a flashing red "Skype" symbol in the status area. Clicking this icon will bring up the call list, filtered to only show recently missed calls.
[*]The "Call" tab. This tab pops up when a new call is made/answered or you join/create a conference call. Not a lot of useful info here either really, but kinda necessary. I suggest this be made into a "popup" window, like most IM clients do when a message is received, complete with a toolbar to do the relevant operations (like hangup, profile, put on hold etc). Let it actually be a part of the standard IM chat window, so instant messages could be sent from the same popup.
[list]
Come SkypeOUT, a dialpad is also quite useless really. It's a lot easier to use the numeric keypad or similar - except for the PocketPC version of course. Let the dialpad be a tool-window that can be expanded/contracted with a "more/less" button or a combo-box like interface.

All in all, I think this would make for a much tidier interface - even for the Windows version (those stacked rows of tabs look terribly confusing). More information in a single window, and less clicking around on tabs. Relevant information at your fingertips, less relevant information no more than a click or two away.

Well those are my €0.02 on the subject; feel free to disagree/discuss/etc. I am no UI designer - not even remotely creative - so this may not be the "proper" way to do it at all.

You have a number of very valid suggestions and ideas. The Skype UI is improving constantly and we keep redoing things, so it's possible that in a year Skype will look different (even better) from what it is now. Just a few reactions.
[list] the "Start" tab on Linux does not yet contain all the stuff that it should. One example is that when we will release paid services like SkypeIn, SkypeOut and others, the Start tab lets you immediately see how much balance is left.
[*] the dialpad becomes useful when you think of interacting with voicemail systems and other such things where you need to send DTMF tones.[list]

Good points - I have not used the Windows client much apart from installing it for some of my less fortunate friends, so there might be things there that I have missed. I know the UI - like the rest of Skype - is under heavy development and a lot will change. Upon re-reading my post I realise that it may come off as overly critical - apologies for that.

I understand your point about the Start tab - question is, will it contain enough information to warrant a separate tab? Could this be incorporated into a multi-line status field? Is the information important enough to be so prominent in the interface? It might be - I'm just asking =)

As for DTMF tones - apart from the # and the * keys, those can also be generated with the numeric keypad. Note also that I did not suggest removing it completely, but making it optional or possible to hide. It takes up a lot of realestate (currently an entire tab) for a feature that might not be used all that much.

Again - I'm just airing ideas here. One of these days I might fire up QT Designer and do a mock-up to better illustrate what I mean =)

That's not true - we like to have this sort of feedback and ideas, even if not all of it might not make it into the UI right away.


Yes, it will contain enough info, sometimes even too much. One thing important about Skype is that we want to make it easily comprehensible by people who are not experienced PC users. So while you and me might be comfortable with compressing lots of information into a small space, the novice users might have a hard time getting around that. So we have to communicate important info \"in their face\".


One feature that we are yet lacking on Linux is that you can actually toggle a number of interface elements on/off, including toolbar, addressbar (the freeform entry field), statusbar, dialpad. We will have that on Linux too.

But I don't need to see that all the time, put it in the status
bar, (And prehaps decriment it in real time when using skypeout?).

Put an "Account" menu item, so I can get to it when I need it, and then there is no need for a "Start" tab at all. (Its mis named anyway, because nothing "Starts" from there.

My additions to Futt's list:
Don't pop me to the call-log window when a call is done.
Do Close the Call-tab upon completion (with one click rather than two

These are all good points IMO.

We'll just sit and wait for some releases to come.

One more suggestion (if I haven't missed it while scanning through the points above) would be to use the tray icon (M$ term .. sorry) more extensivly.

- Add a answer call action.
- Maybe put submenus for all online buddies to make call, write im, etc.

Greetings,

Martin

I agree with an earlier poster that the start panel is rather irritating. With SkypeOut now available, there's one useful thing on the panel at last, but the other thing, namely the number of contacts online, is utterly useless. Why would I want to know that? I want to know who I can call!

A Skype staffer made the good point that you're trying to make Skype easy to use and not cram too much info into one panel. However, it still seems to me that, as all the IM clients I have used do, the most useful thing to have on the default panel is a list of your online contacts. Having your SkypeOut balance is useful too (and presumably if there is any sanity adding SkypeIn won't change things, you'll just have one balance?), but it's not the most important thing.

Again, as with Gaim or other IM clients, you could have the list of online contacts on the Start panel, with an option to display offline contacts too, and also to fold the whole lot away if there are too many.

Summary: it's not enough to be simple, it has to be useful. Also, having too many tabs is not simple, it's just complex in another direction!

I'd be interested to know why the design of widely-used IM clients like Windows Messenger wasn't adopted, namely to allow online contacts to be assigned to a group (e.g. Famly, Friends, Colleagues) which are then shown on the main panel, and can individually be folded away. This is familiar to many users, logical, and useful.

Finally, calling the "Start" tab "Start" is a bit odd. Sure, it's where you start, but that's only once. How about "Main" or "Summary"? Something that describes its function or content a bit better? Of course, if you could arrange things so Skype didn't need tabs, that would be even better: Dial and Call list are both (for me) rarely used features that I'd be quite happy to have in separate windows, or possibly have as optional features in panes on the Start tab.

I think it's possible, with a bit of thought and imagination, to have your cake and eat it in this particular UI design challenge.

This point has been raised before I think, and contact grouping is as far as I can remember a planned feature.

One thing worth adding though, something that becomes very usefull now after the addition of SkypeOUT, is meta-contacts. Kopete has them, and I believe other IM clients do to. That is, for any one person you know, you create a "meta contact" that holds all relevant contact info for that person (home phone, business phone, cell phone, skype name etc). As it is now, I have the same person listed 3-4 times in my contacts list, one for each phone number/skype name.

The meta contacts should collapse/expand much in the same way groups do of course; optionally one could set a default action for double-clicking a meta contact (try skype name first if online, then home, then cell etc).

We probably won't have metacontacts, but what we will have is that you can locally edit the fields in someone's user profile, and this way put in the missing numbers. So even for people who don't actually have a Skype Name, you can make a "fake" Skype contact and put in their numbers.

Hm, didn't even think of that one - good call (no pun intended )! Actually that would be a lot more tidy than my suggestion.