screenshot of usabilitykde.org using new design

[Jason Bainbridge]

First forgive me for not going through and addressing quotes through the email, I'm at work and using web mail and it's just too much trouble.

I will experiment with merging the two menu's together as you suggested sometime tonight, although don't you think it is more natural for them to be on the left? Although come to think of it, it would probably be more usable to have them on the right as the user's mouse is more likely to rest their due to scrolling.

I can see your point now in that a user won't know or shouldn't even need to know the difference between the purposes of the two current menu's. In your prototype do you see the 'KDE Facts' being where each site specific menu will go? 

What I will try tonight is adding a 'Usability' entry on top of the menu on the right, adding the links on the left to it (all within the same area and not broken up like they are now) and removing the left menu all together. 

I haven't really gone through the categorising of the family links yet, I just ripped that out of the kde.org/testing proposal, I'll make the changes you suggested in this regard and a few others as I see fit tonight.

Is there any other suggestions or comments you have?

Regards,
Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: Neil Stevens <neil at qualityassistant.com>
To: kde-www at mail.kde.org
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 19:46:03 -0700 
Subject: Re: screenshot of usabilitykde.org using new design

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On Sunday October 13, 2002 07:36, Jason Bainbridge wrote:
> >-----Original Message-----
>
> From: Neil Stevens <neil at qualityassistant.com>
>
> >http://members.ozemail.com.au/~jasonandkate/kde/usability-newdesign.png
> >
> >Please, if that's going to be even the remote >possibility that users
> > will be able to navigate the site, you're going to have to >condense
> > the three widely spread menus into one.
> >
> >How is anyone supposed to search everywhere for that >stuff?
>
> By 'three widely spread menus' I am assuming you mean the bread crumb,
> the main site's navigation menu and the  family of links on the right?
> Personally I don't have a problem with them all being seperate as they
> all serve seperate purposes as explained below.

I mean the links on the top right and the two long lists of links.

They don't serve separate purposes.  In the mind of a user, particuarly a 
non-developer, KDE is one monolithic thing.  When they want information 
about KDE, they start at www.kde.org, and look from there.  If you go and 
hide the links in different places on the page, all you're doing is making 
that user work unnecessarily.

This reminds me of a classic usability issue brought up with applications:  
Developers sometimes will organize things based on how they are 
implemented, not on how they are used.  That's exactly what's happening 
here.  The "family" sites are being separated out because somehow they are 
different in their maintenance, even thought that's completely irrelevant 
to the user of the site.

>
> The bread crumb menu is an additional navigational aid just to allow
> people to see where they are at and also to go back a specific level if
> they desire, although most people won't even use or notice it, it is
> still a nice feature to have. Note this menu is not used for locating
> content it is more for informational purposes and just happens to
> provide a way to navigate back to a certain level.

I'm not objecting to that.  I left that in my site draft:

http://www.freekde.org/neil/kdetesting/

I merged the other three sets of links into the one bar on the right in my 
draft.

> The main menu on the left is the menu for the site in question (in this
> instance Usability) containing links specific to the Usability site,
> when the user traverses this menu through the submenus then their
> current location is also indicated by making the links bold.

But there isn't a different set of sites in question.  From the user's 
perspective it's one site.  *Especially* when we're talking about the main 
www page.

For the navigation you mean, I'd add a site-specific section where "KDE 
Facts" is in my draft.  Same effect, less work to the user.


> Getting back to your suggestion into making the three menu's into one,
> firstly integrating the bread crumb menu wouldn't really work and do you
> think it would improve the layout if the family of links were just
> dumped at the bottom of the current menu on the left? I think having
> them on the right is a much cleaner solution and given their purpose I
> don't think you could mix and match it into the main menu with any luck
> especially as each site will have it's own main menu.

I agree that the "Bread crumb" is separate.  I'm interested in seeing your 
comments in that light, and in light of my draft at organizing the links.

More known bugs:

* fonts too small
* Games should be under apps, not development
* Downloads should be renamed to "Acquiring KDE" or something

- -- 
Neil Stevens - neil at qualityassistant.com
"The nearest I can make it out, 'Love your Enemies' means, 'Hate your
Friends'." - Benjamin Franklin
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