Usability Spotlight: Kohive Part – 1
Kohive, a cloud-based tool that creates an online social desktop for users to share, communicate and collaborate, recreates the interface design of a desktop computer’s graphical user interface which, being familiar to all computer users, is a unique way of engendering the learnability of the tool. It essentially allows users to create workspaces where they can invite collaborators to share a ‘Hive’. Users can then upload whatever files are pertinent to their particular hive, be they pictures for friends and family or work-in-progress for a client. Users log in to a capable browser to access an application that supports file storage and sharing, task management, note taking and instant messaging among others.
How does Kohive recreate the desktop interface design?
Although the feature-list is long, Kohive’s interface design makes it relatively easy to learn how to use the application. The interface design is made to look and operate just like a standard desktop user interface. To be precise, more like a Mac’s desktop (but I guess that might make it more appealing and usable considering the kudos the Mac OS has received over the last decade) but the concept will be fathomable to the average computer user. Furthermore it looks like the interface design of a new computer without clutter and icons on the deskspace. The sparse environment (to begin with at least) is clean, clear, and not intimidating to first-time user, therefore lowering potential usability barriers. The tool eschews the use of menubar options (those are left for manipulating the web-browser), and a replica of Mac OS X’s Dock interface design accesses the various functions of the tool. Unlike the Dock’s default setting on Mac OS X whereby it is found at the bottom of the screen, the dock on Kohive is found to the left of the interface. The bottom of the interface design is left for the different Hives a user has access to, allowing for easy and fast switching between workspaces. Hovering the mouse over the icons on the left of the interface design reveals an overlay that names the highlighted app. The familiarity of the desktop-like interface, the ease of use and the fast access to important options speak much in favour of the usability of Kohive.
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