Action oriented UI
This is a UX concept idea: Approaching interfaces and navigation with the verb first which might be closer to natural language.
Object oriented UI
I claim: Many user interfaces (UIs) follow an object-oriented approach. We see lists of objects (items), and by clicking on them, details and possible actions are revealed. This interaction prioritizes the object (the noun) over the action (the verb). Translated into language, it sounds like Yoda to me: 'My account, I want to cancel'. The exception is the concept of 'New', in this case, the UI phrasing shifts to a more natural language: "Create a new app.", but that is only because the object does not exist yet (and creating something new is often a sale).
Action oriented UI ™
Now, with our (new) dashboard, there will be many things to do. It juggles multiple object types and serves as the hub for managing collaboration settings. Here, I experimented with a verb-oriented entry point, which I believe enhances at-a-glance comprehension of available actions.
My aim is to be open about how a user approaches a certain task. When you want to edit a developer in a team, you can visit the team page and edit the relation from there, or you can go to the developer and edit the team relation from here. Now you can also think about editing the relation of these two objects in the first place.
'Edit a team developer relation' opens a multi-step form. You select a developer first, after that you can edit the roles in teams they are part of. But you can also start with the team first, then see a list of developers to finally edit the role. The last step is also directly linked from the developers list under the team overview, as we well as from the teams list with the developer.
Why we will not ship it
In order to ship a first version of our new platform (this year) we need to carefully consider the initial scope. This means prioritizing features and identifying those that can be deferred to later releases or dropped.
- It's a lot of work to maintain different forms and flows to do the same thing. We want to ship.
- There are some quirks with flows that don't really fit in the pattern well.
- Object oriented UIs are well known. All these options might be confusing.
I haven't noticed this concept anywhere else. I hope to come back to it one day to explore it more.