UI Changes for Malwarebytes 2.1

[SuperTommy]

I like it. Also glad you got rid of the "shadow/ghosting" in the menu tab (scan, settings buttons.)

[plodr]

I love my MBAM and will keep using it no matter how many or how few colors/colours you use.

 

Thanks for the great program.

[mynorgeek]

Although the proposed UI change is cleaner, as long as the incredible Malwarebytes research and dev teams keep doing an outstanding job, I don't care if the UI is pink with black and white zebra stripes. 

Amen to what Corrine said!

[Hoov]

I have to agree with others, the smiley bugs me. I also have to disagree with Corrine in one regard, if you make it pink with zebra stripes I will have to drop you, simple because I would have to suspect that someone had been experimenting in modern pharmacology at work. Other than that, Good job!

[SCR4514]

The way I feel about the GUI is if the program is running as it should then my interaction with it would be limited to the installation, initial settings, occasional on demand scans and if there is a problem. Basically I don't want to see the GUI I want it to sit down there in the system tray and just do it's job which is to tell me it started, updated or found a problem. I don't want  to watch it work. I don't want to keep messing with it. I have better things to look at and do.

 

To me, what's not seen is more important then what is seen. For example I really can't remember the last time I had to look at my Eset Smart Security GUI. Updates notify me with a small pop up and fades away. If it finds something then a bigger popup occurs and I deal with it straight away at the pop up. I see the start up logo at boot, my choice, I kind of like that idea, sort of reassuring me that it's there.

 

Providing that you are practicing smart and safe Internet policies, the better the security software runs the less you see of it in my opinion.

 

So in the end my request of Malwarebytes is to pay attention to what's running in my tray and behind the scenes this should be the number one priority. Not the smiley face, colors or anything else for that matter. No, I don't care what the tray icon looks like either.

[Sirawit]

The new UI looks good. I didn't have bad experience with 2.0 but this is better.

[Staticguy]

Great, awesome, fantastic, brilliant looking of the new MBAM 2.1 GUI. Thanks for letting us know Sir Marcin and the whole team of MBAM team. Keep up the good work. I am really really really really really liking the smiley face on the new MBAM GUI. Loving it  . Can't wait to use it 

[NickT]

Looks good, real smooth, but as long as Malwarebytes works the same I really don't care how it looked.

[rappleby]

Just to point out, the happy face resonated very well with the novice users, which make THE MAJORITY of our userbase. Can't keep everyone happy, as you can see already in this post .

The UI in 2.3 is absolutely fine - nothing wrong with the check marks.  PLEASE ditch the smiley face - this isn't social media, it's a security program and should remain business like.  (note the lack of emoticons at the end of this post)

[mynorgeek]

PLEASE ditch the smiley face - this isn't social media, it's a security program and should remain business like.

 

Ever hear of doing business with a smile?

[daledoc1]

SMILEYS:

 

If the "novice" and basic users cannot discern the meaning of a Green Check-mark (the norm throughout the software industry), and if they need a cartoon to tell them that their computer is safe, then it's likely that not even MBAM can protect them from themselves.

 

While cartoons on the company website and in marketing materials may be the new "brand", I respectfully suggest that such an approach degrades the professional image the company wishes to create for its products.  This is especially so when this dumbing-down reaches the software GUI/UX.

 

There is a disconnect --  one team seems to be catering to (and patronizing) the "lowest common denominator" for marketing (and now the GUI), while another team simultaneously represents the products as the serious, robust, well-respected and well-engineered security tools they are.

 

 

STRIPPED-DOWN GUI:

 

The abrupt reversal from garish to bare-bones may have over-compensated.

It conveys lack of clarity by the GUI team (especially since much of the negative feedback about the 2.0 GUI was provided very early in the beta-testing period).

In any event, the new font is too small and too fuzzy.

While the 1.x GUI cannot be reconstituted for 2.1, there needs to be a balance between "overly loud", and overly simplistic and poorly legible.

 

 

SUMMARY:

 

As I mentioned in my previous reply, it's always true that what's under the hood matters most.

And my critique is not directed at any member of the hard-working and dedicated MBAM product team.

As just another home user, however, I find the use of emoticons in the GUI to be a childish condescension.

 

JMNSHO, as always.

 

Cheers,

[Xircal]

NOT AS GOOD:

Font is now too small and too blurry, even on 24" HD display

 

POSITIVELY AWFUL:

Smiley faces -- is this a child's game or a white-hat security application?  (Sorry, but playful and silly are not attributes I seek in a serious security program.)

 

 

This is the downside of high definition screens where fonts sizes become almost illegible. I have a 1980 x 1080 screen on my laptop and I struggle to read the font sometimes because it's so tiny. A means of enlarging it would be most welcome.

 

And yes, do get rid of the smiley face. It's a bit childish and hardly appropriate for a professional security application.

[Victek]

It also provided very little in the way of giving the user feedback on the status of the product, such as update status, scan status, protection status and license/trial status.

 

I see this as the essential difference between the 1.X and the 2.X UIs.  IMHO it's important for the UI to reflect the state of the system.  The icon in the notification area needs to change in response to problems, such as infection and out of date sigs, and I like to see pop ups above the icon as well to signal to the user that something needs attention.  Average users typically don't notice when the tray icon displays an error condition.  They need a fairly large pop up to catch their attention.  The current MBAM 2.X UI is a step in the right direction.  The main problem I see with it is the pop ups are not always in sync with the main UI window.  For instance I would like to see the pops close automatically after a scan has been completed and the cleanup performed, but right now the pop ups and main UI don't communicate consistently. 

 

In other words I'm interested in the functionality of the UI more than the appearance.  I really don't care if you use a smiley, whatever, just make the screens easy to read and understand.

[TeMerc]

SMILEYS:

 

If the "novice" and basic users cannot discern the meaning of a Green Check-mark (the norm throughout the software industry), and if they need a cartoon to tell them that their computer is safe, then it's likely that not even MBAM can protect them from themselves.

 

While cartoons on the company website and in marketing materials may be the new "brand", I respectfully suggest that such an approach degrades the professional image the company wishes to create for its products.  This is especially so when this dumbing-down reaches the software GUI/UX.

 

There is a disconnect --  one team seems to be catering to (and patronizing) the "lowest common denominator" for marketing (and now the GUI), while another team simultaneously represents the products as the serious, robust, well-respected and well-engineered security tools they are.

 

 

STRIPPED-DOWN GUI:

 

The abrupt reversal from garish to bare-bones may have over-compensated.

It conveys lack of clarity by the GUI team (especially since much of the negative feedback about the 2.0 GUI was provided very early in the beta-testing period).

In any event, the new font is too small and too fuzzy.

While the 1.x GUI cannot be reconstituted for 2.1, there needs to be a balance between "overly loud", and overly simplistic and poorly legible.

 

 

SUMMARY:

 

As I mentioned in my previous reply, it's always true that what's under the hood matters most.

And my critique is not directed at any member of the hard-working and dedicated MBAM product team.

As just another home user, however, I find the use of emoticons in the GUI to be a childish condescension.

 

JMNSHO, as always.

 

Cheers,

Dude   Dudette you say it so perfectly......thanks.

[RubbeR DuckY]

With regards to the font, that's just blurry because I shrunk the image. The actual quality software won't have that.

 

Aside from the smiley dispute of 2014, I think we've made tremendous progress on the UI and will continue to do so.

 

Of course, the engine will continue to get stronger .

[fivealive]

If you really insist on the smiley, why not give us an option in the program itself to turn them off and put the check mark back for those that like that better.

[Nesivos]

Looks like a program someone wrote in their basement and is available for download on Source Forge.

 

I rarely ever open the GUI so whatever.

[Staticguy]

When will MBAM team release MBAM 2.1?

[RubbeR DuckY]

We're hoping for very early next year. Beta way sooner!

[Larusso]

+1 to Corrine's statement.

For me as a forum volunter I have to say thank you to all persons who work on this amazing product.

What a lot of our german users complain is that some informations are cutted and I look forward that this will be fixed within the new UI

Keep going guys/gayls

[Hardhead]

I like this one and really don't care what color its looks like or the smilie face. In fact you can add the sad smilie face when it find detection.     

[digmorcrusher]

SMILEYS:

 

If the "novice" and basic users cannot discern the meaning of a Green Check-mark (the norm throughout the software industry), and if they need a cartoon to tell them that their computer is safe, then it's likely that not even MBAM can protect them from themselves.

 

While cartoons on the company website and in marketing materials may be the new "brand", I respectfully suggest that such an approach degrades the professional image the company wishes to create for its products.  This is especially so when this dumbing-down reaches the software GUI/UX.

 

There is a disconnect --  one team seems to be catering to (and patronizing) the "lowest common denominator" for marketing (and now the GUI), while another team simultaneously represents the products as the serious, robust, well-respected and well-engineered security tools they are.

 

 

STRIPPED-DOWN GUI:

 

The abrupt reversal from garish to bare-bones may have over-compensated.

It conveys lack of clarity by the GUI team (especially since much of the negative feedback about the 2.0 GUI was provided very early in the beta-testing period).

In any event, the new font is too small and too fuzzy.

While the 1.x GUI cannot be reconstituted for 2.1, there needs to be a balance between "overly loud", and overly simplistic and poorly legible.

 

 

SUMMARY:

 

As I mentioned in my previous reply, it's always true that what's under the hood matters most.

And my critique is not directed at any member of the hard-working and dedicated MBAM product team.

As just another home user, however, I find the use of emoticons in the GUI to be a childish condescension.

 

JMNSHO, as always.

 

Cheers,

 

Agree 100%, in my humble opinion smiley faces are for children.

[Zim]

Hello everybody!

 

In response to a bit of user unhappiness around the aggressive color scheme of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 2.0 (too many colors!), I'm here to give you a preview of what we're changing it to in version 2.1. We took feedback from our forums, reddit, and various other deep dark hallways of the Internet and put together a mock up that we then did usability testing on. As you can see, we removed all of the aggressive banners and per your suggestion we removed the marketing module from the dashboard.

 

I'm only showing you the dashboard, but we overhauled the entire scan flow to be simpler as well. Please note that this UI will continue to evolve over the next few versions as we get to everything that's been requested. Be gentle on us, we're working as fast as we can!

 

p.s. we know the smileys may look a bit cartoonish, but it resonated well with a lot of the early users we tried it on. It's a wonky idea, but that's just who we are . We're tired of boring checkmarks!

 

Let us know what you think, we hope to have this released around January.

 

MBAM-2.1-Mockup-Dashboard-3-675.jpg.png

 

 

Hi Marcin Kleczynski

 

Thanks for the news. Just wanted to help our very desired product to be developed in a right and effective way. I'm not a great designer but I can help with some scratch and concept. Here is the link where I've marked some areas where your team need to improve.

 

 

Another alternative link to the Marked Concept : http://s28.postimg.org/wr30uewql/post_1_0_72509600_1416257193.png

 

Precisely the areas are :

 

1. Align the Smiley  properly proportionate with License column.

 

2. Exclude the entire "Scan Now" area and place it towards the space at right hand side I've marked. You can use it for marketing purpose but it should be half of the size that was in version 2.xx. Also you can add an option to 'Hide or Show' the latest news.

 

3. After setting the 'Scan' button in right hand side side as marked add a little 'Quick Update' button for flash updates. Here at the Top Right Hand site you will find an empty space aligned to the dashboard area. You can just put a small 'Help' button there.

 

Please let me if that helps and I beg your pardon for very bad and ugly mark up ... ...

[Hoov]

digmorcrusher was spot on. I have no idea how Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware is actually coded, but you may want to take the GUI in a new direction. Write it so there are two gui's and let the user decide which you want. The way it is now for the new users, and then a more technical GUI for those of use that are more technically minded power users. To be honest, I would not mind a GUI where there were no different pages, cram everything on the front page. Possibly with buttons to take you to the settings page and to the logs.

 

The more simple you make the GUI the more you are going to drive the power users mad. I can't imagine moving away from Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, but years ago I said much the same thing about Spybot and AdAware. I have not used either in a very long time because they have made both tools useless for the power user in me.

[Phone Man]

A couple suggestions for the new GUI.

 

Add the product version back at the top per the current GUI

 

License: Show Lifetime or Expiration Date in that field.

 

Scan Progress: Show Last Scan also in that field like it is at the bottom of current GUI.

 

Jim