I do not like the Action Builder

[KavaKiwi]

I know this has been said on other threads. But I’m going to say it again in hopes that it will get through.

I’ve been trying to dive deep into the new Interaction Builder on the right rail. It’s ok for the most basic of interactions but as soon as you start adding logic and multiple actions it quickly becomes cumbersome and unwieldy. To be honest I don’t even think building basic interactions is all that intuitive. It was challenging before teaching new people how to create interactions, and this new approach is not making it easier. There are so many tools out there now for creating the most basic interactions and this new approach doesn’t even come close to measuring up.

There’s a lot in this build to love, but this is not one of them. For me, if you don’t fix it, it’s going to be a deal breaker. We have 20+ licenses where I work and right now I can’t recommend upgrading. It makes me sad.

[SNaushadS]

There are so many tools out there now for creating the most basic interactions and this new approach doesn’t even come close to measuring up.

Upvote for this one specifically. I read the forum discussion on what to expect in RP9 and some where to replicate Point and Click on Screens to make simple interactions faster. Nothing was improved on that area, or even touched.

[SifuDynamic]

Hi KavaKiwi,

I’m in the same boat. I get asked about recommending design tools all the time. Axure has been my go-to tool for years because of robust interactions. The awkward, tinkertoy interaction editor in Axure 9 ruins the point of the product, so I can’t recommend Axure 9, even though I love many of the other RP9 changes.

I wrote down my ideas about what I specifically have a problem with and need. I suggest you do the same. If we are specific in our requests, Axure is more likely to act on our feedback.

RP9 needs advanced interaction builder

The RP9 interaction builder must be fixed. It isn't as usable as RP8. I've been attempting to use RP9 to work on moderately-sized RP8 projects. I spend most of my day working in Axure and am frequently asked what tools I recommend for UX work. Interactions are the entire point to Axure. RP9 interactions have taken one step forward and 6 steps back. Interactions are what make Axure the choice to use. The RP 8 interaction builder was non-ideal, but at least you could see the results of what you…

Cheers,

-Bill

[SeanVienna]

I agree The New Interaction Bilder hast been Designer ny somebody wo never uses Interaction.

I was so enthusiastic about RP9 untill I saw and tried the new interaction Builder. It’s total crap and I immediately deleted RP 9 from my computer.

If this is not fixed I will never upgrade and switch to a different product.

The one thing I don’t understand is how a software company producing a prototyping tool could be so foolish not to first prototype the new interaction menue and test it.with end users. My guess is you wher focusing one new customers and trying to make an interaction version fir dummy’s.

Didn’t anybody tell your AXURE developers and designers you can try out with a prototype before you wast money developing a solution that is totally useless.

Simply can’t believe AXURE would be so un professional. WOW.

And I can’t believe you ever did testing with hard cour users who use many interactions because each and every one of them would tell you this new interaction dialog is totally useless.

Still hoping somebody will listen and be brave enough to make a drawback and make the interaction menue from RP8 available in RP9.

A sad AXURE user.
Sean

[HawaiianTime]

Case Study - Actual Scenario:
Granted this prototype is more complex that many, but building it in Axure 8’s Action Builder was, while tedious, fairly quick to build and riff on.

Action Discription:
Start Button runs thru a non-interactive game flow built around eight global variables.
Producer wanted 3 variations of the flow.
Prototype needed to be adaptive (phone portrait and phone landscape)

OnClick action comprised of
3 x 8 Else/If Cases
40+ actions in Each Case

I’m assuming that the people following this thread have already started to sweat or scratch their skin nervously.

I loaded this file up into the Axure9 beta to see what it would be like editing the actions and it clearly presented an untenable work flow.

Comments:
Usability Issues:
The Good

1. Being able to add or edit individual items in the Interactions menu is something I have wished I could do in the past and would be useful for adding/editing single actions which does cover a lot of scenarios.
2. Editing individual actions is particularly easy in the new app.
   The Bad
3. I couldn’t see my cases (case names) easily since they were each separated by 40 actions.
4. Scrolling was tedious
5. Managing actions where multiple targets were used (up to 15 in my case) was almost impossible to work with and when I tried to see what the process was like to add a target I seemed like I would have to do this step one at a time rather the the Axure8 process of clicking check boxes.
6. I kept searching for a way to collapse else/If arguments so I could more easily see all my arguments in a parseable list.

What I wanted:
To see all my else/If arguments without the actions. (I use the expand collapse functionality in the Ax8 Interactions all the time).
To easily select multiple targets when setting up actions.
A way to see a more compact list of all my actions similar to the actions list in the Ax8 actions editor.

Conclusion:
There is a lot to like here but in order to make the Action Builder usable for more complex prototypes there needs to be a few power features added to manage tedious tasks with as little tedium as possible.

[OtherMeans]

Not being able to add multiple targets to an action is unforgivable.

[josephxbrick]

Hi OtherMeans

The sad thing here is that you can add multiple targets to an action. But the UI for it is almost invisible. Notice the light-gray-on-white button at the far right:

I find it much easier to use the popup “Interaction Editor” than the side panel for editing interactions. You get there by pressing the light-gray-on-white button that looks like this:

[OtherMeans]

Hi fella - cheers for the answer but it’s not what I mean. In v8 you can assign multiple targets with the checkboxes, then define them all as true or false.

Whereas in v9 you have to set true or false to each one separately, vastly increasing the amount of work I have to do.