Technology companies, no matter their industry or product offering, put a tremendous amount of focus into developing features and functionality. After all, it is often the features lists that win competitive deals when customers are comparing their options.
However, many companies ignore the aspect of their product that will get customers through the door and keep them using the product for years to come: the user interface.
As products become more complex and powerful, usability is everything. This makes a great user interface THE thing.
It is for this reason that Pardot has always tried to make our product UI as clean and easy-to-use as possible. With over a hundred new features added this year alone, it was time to update the UI for the next generation of Pardot. Here’s what’s new:
Faster Navigation
With so much to do and so little time in a marketer’s day, easy navigation within Pardot is key. To help simplify workflows and increase navigation speed, the main menu has moved from its original place on the left side of the screen to the top of the page. Certain items have also been reordered into more logical locations, with Knowledge Base, Training, Forum, What’s New, and Ideas now falling into the “Help” menu, Layout Templates into the “Marketing” menu, and Visitors into the “Prospect” menu.
This top navigation bar is also sticky, meaning it will stay at the top of the page as you scroll. No more scrolling up and down to make selections. Dropdown menus also unfold when you hover over them, saving you time and clicks.
Ease of Use
The new user interface makes it easy to understand functionality at a glance. Action steps are highlighted throughout the interface so you won’t have to search for the buttons or menus you need. The entire interface has received a readability makeover as well, making directions, data, and messages easier to locate and read.
Improved Workflows
Marketers are all about getting things done and at Pardot, we are dedicated to helping our users accomplish more, faster. With improved workflows, users will be able to accomplish more than ever before. With redesigned wizards, slick new icon sets, and ease-of-use updates, using Pardot will be faster and smoother for common tasks and projects.
Comprehensive Search
Searching capabilities within Pardot have also received an upgrade, with the ability to search multiple data types at once. As your database continues to grow, the ability to quickly and accurately locate data within your records is a huge asset of your automation platform. This update to Pardot’s search function will put your entire database right at your fingertips.
Agile Updates
Pardot’s new visual framework also allows for easy updates in the future, making us more agile and responsive to customer feedback. So go ahead and take the new UI for a spin and let us know what you think!
Specific Navigation Changes
- The links to the Knowledge Base, Training, Forum, What’s New, and Ideas can be found under the Help dropdown.
- ‘Visitors’ has moved to the Prospects dropdown.
- ‘Layout Templates’ has moved to the Marketing dropdown, under both Landing Pages and Forms.
Exciting news! Can’t wait to see it live!
Very impressed so far… I have been surfing around in the new UI for about a half an hour, and I find it much more intuitive, and the clean appearance is a refreshing change from the old, crowded interface… well done!
Thank you so much Doug. It’s definitely a change but as you said, after playing with it for a bit, you find that it results in less clicking and it is a lot more open (especially when creating emails, landing pages, etc.) than the old left nav style UI.
New Interface looks good. I started using it today and things are looking sharp!
Like every interface revamp it short circuits your brain for the first 10 minutes, but then you start learning where things are in the new layout and everything makes sense again.
Kudos to the team who made this transition. Well done!
Thanks Michel! Agreed about the short circuiting. We’ll put out an article about hot keys / keyboard shortcuts soon too. Those will be good for power users.
Well done on the new interface, the navigation is certainly faster. One gripe I still have is that when working in the new email wizard, the last three steps (test / delivery date / confirm) are still collapsed into a dropdown menu, even though anyone using a desktop machine will likely have more than enough horizontal space. An extra click is required when jumping between the “content” screen and the “testing” screen (which I find myself doing a lot). Please consider making all steps of the wizard visible at once.
Awesome work on launching the new interface. I am still getting use to the changes, but all in all, looks great.
And I also have one gripe…I used the ‘recently viewed items’ that was on the left hand rail ALL the time, if I could ask for one thing back, that would be my wish!
Here’s some feedback on the new UI.
Overall I like it a lot regarding to the way content is laid out on the page. Some very subtle and obvious changes to the interface. I need more time on it to give more thorough input.
Here are 5 things out of the box:
1. Disappearing Navigation – having been around pardot since the beginning, I’ve become accustomed to seeing the left navigation. It’s the sub navigation which was always displayed that I liked. Making it easy to jump from Segmentation to Email, etc. without having to mouse over the main heading to get the sub nav to appear. There’s something to be said about keeping a toolset open while you working in a section. This is a personal preference (so no data to defend my argument). I am not a fan of hiding elements. For example, imagine a keyboard that only had the main letters/numbers. Then when you wanted a function key, you had to “finger” over it to show it. Then when you want the number keypad, you’d have to “finger” over it. I’d rather just show the keypad, function keys and letters because that’s my toolset.
2. Recently viewed items — Agree 100% with Colette — I like (and used) that feature. Need to find a way to get it back > (a) Possibly a sub-horizontal menu under top nav and (b) include a way to pin favorites to this area for top pardot areas you frequent to.
3. Tools sub-functionality (e.g, in Reports fucntion for csv exports and other things) — http://screencast.com/t/FtXlAqeqvG
Seems silly to force 2 clicks to get to an export for a csv file if that is the only option. I am not a fan of “hiding” everything. Creating a sense of mystery for what’s behind the tools option (or other areas) will start to become out of sight out of mind. Rather see the options right there so I know my options without having to investigate.
4. Daily Email Reports (e.g., Daily Visitor Report) – bring back the left justified report. The new report is centered and fixed width (like a early 2000′s website at 800px wide). The date field is all scrunched up. Most emails are left justified. This was a step backwards in my opinion.
5. Drop down Navigation — I recommend giving the drop nav items a little padding (breathing room)… Because you added slide out (drawer) style sub navigation, mousing to those sub nav areas now becomes a precision mouse movement. This is a page out of the fat finger approach to mobile design to make getting to your destination easier. Wide roads, not narrow ones are easier to drive on.
http://screencast.com/t/eegPdSnM6K
That’s it for now. Love the fact that Pardot continues to drive their platform an welcomes feedback > Makes you a great, five star company!
Thanks so much for the feedback.
We’ve added some hotkeys that we’ll be discussing more in-depth soon, but you can see your recent history in a ‘modal’ window by pressing the h key on any screen.
Press shift + ? to see all the current options.
I like the new navigation, although I do have to agree with Chris on finding it difficult to get to the right navigation element with the drawer-style sub navigation – it seems too sensitive right now and I am frequently not precise enough to get the right element without it popping into a new drawer.
I just have one other recommendation for now, and I haven’t seen it mentioned yet, so maybe I’m the only one. The header on each page is HUGE (large font size). I’m not sure if that was an issue in the previous UI, but it seems like overkill now and a bit of wasted real estate. It forces all the content on the page further down than it needs to be, which results in excessive scrolling. It’s even worse when I’m demonstrating or training Pardot off my laptop in a meeting, because I have less real estate. It becomes especially problematic when I’ve drilled into specific content that has a long name, such as a landing page or email template. My header/title on those pages ends up taking 2-3 lines in a huge font.
Hi Sarah. Thanks for the note. I agree on the header size. We toned it way down (60px to 44px) yesterday. Look better?
Also, I agree on the nav being pretty sensitive. We are still playing around with it to figure out the best possible level of sensitivity (maybe adding a tiny bit of padding around the hover helps).
Keep the feedback coming!
Hi Adam
Love the new reskin… Just one piece of feedback- I’m finding that each page is starting to look alike and its hard to tell at first glance where you are in the system. One thing I liked about the old UI was that I knew where i was in the system since each “area” looked distinctly different. I am finding im needing to look around to see where I am before I start to work. Its not a deal breaker but it definetly has slowed my workflow down a little bit.
Thanks
Gina Price
One other thing.. can we have the breadcrumb trail back on forms once in edit mode? Hard to tell where you are if you clicking through quickly.