Move over Picasa - PXN8 is here

After putting Sxoop Technologies' online photo editing service through its paces it's clear that it can do for photo editing what GMail did for email. PXN8 is an online image editor which allows you to edit photos without installing software on your PC. The PXN8 user interface is written using standard web technologies: HTML, CSS & Javascript so no browser plugin is required. PXN8 is an example of the new breed of rich web applications in that it makes heavy use of Javascript.

Visit PXN8.com and the beautiful photo that greets you is the first indicator that there's something special going on here. The welcome photos change but each one is more beautiful than the next and the temptation is to get stuck right in to see if you can produce a similar work of art from your own collection. And there's no 'but' here because the fact is that you can get stuck right in, such is the amount of thought that has gone into the usability of the interface.

The default setting for the menu system in the left hand margin is for the Tools and advertising modules to be open but you can simply collapse and expand whichever menus you like. How many Web 2.0 services allow you to close the advertising box if its annoying you? The other menu items are Help and Toys. Each Help item is in turn expandible and collapsible, inline. As any fan of outlining (like me) will tell you, this is a very intuitive system. It avoids clutter and protects the newbie from information overload, yet provides all the necessary information within a few clicks. Other software-as-service providers would be well advised to visit PXN8 to see how a help system should be implemented.

Tools icon buttons are big, colourful and intuitive. Floating your mouse pointer over a button pops up a description of what it does and how to use it. One criticism would be that they don't have an altogether consistent style. The Red Eye and Whiten buttons in particular are slightly jarring in the midst of the other cartoonish buttons. A second criticism is that the all important Save button has been relegated to final position on the the second row of buttons. I'd move that up to top left where I intuitively look for the save button, and it appears in most desktop apps. Then I'd move the Flickr upload button up beside it and leave the Undo and Redo buttons where they are. This would separate these file manipulation buttons from the photo touch up ones that follow.

Even the logical division PXN8 makes between Tools and Toys demonstrates just how laser focused Sxoop are on usability. Information overload is a problem with way too many online apps but not here. The user is shown the bare minimum necessary to get them going and everthing else is within easy reach.

See Web2.0Ireland.com for the rest of this review.