My analysis and conclusion about the current two drafts

[Neil Stevens]

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On Saturday October 19, 2002 08:18, Datschge at gmx.de wrote:
> Now Neil and Jaseone's modified version of Sebastians design, one side
> menu on the right, currently (as for 20.10.02) shown at
> http://usability.kde.org/newdesign/
>
> Pros:
> -> Since the only menu is on the right all menu links are next to the
> scroll bar and thus easy to reach.
>
> Issues:
> -> The first line is rather crowded and thus may look ugly for some
> people (like me).

Well, we could remove that stuff on the left.

> -> No clear distinction between the menu and the actual content due to
> usage of blue and underlining in both of them and that not even only for
> links.

We were already planning to change the colors to something with a bit more 
contrast, yes.

> -> No clear distinction in the menu which links are local links related
> to the site and which are leading to other sites of the KDE family.

That's a false distinction with no value.  Users have no reason to care 
about technical matters like that.

"Internal" Links will have their own heading, as they do on the usability 
newdesign site.

> -> No clear usage for the search box (what will be searched at all?).

We can label it as search KDE.

> -> Additionally the whole page gets cut off by the left browser window
> border even in screen resolutions over 1024x768 due to the bad size of
> the text field.

"Left browser window border?"  And nothing gets cut off here.  You must be 
experiencing a browser bug.

> -> The menu as well as the search box are basically invisible for
> visitors due to its placement on the right (which is unusual). Focus is
> solely on the content, which makes it possibile that the visitor won't
> look at the menu and try a search at all when the page's content doesn't
> give what he was looking for.

Yeah, right.  So you're just super-smart and saw it, but most users won't 
notice?

Please abandon the hyperbole and distinguish between your personal tastes 
and problems.

> -> Even worse the menu might get completely obscured when the content
> needs more width than the brower window gives.

You must have a terribly buggy browser.  The whole notion of a float is 
that the main body is wrapped around the side.

> -> The menu is far too long. Maximizing the window in a screen
> resolution of 640x480 already gives a blank space of three pages with
> given content. And the amount of wasted space is increasing in higher
> resolutions while the text gets broader. which does not only look bad
> but also makes the text in the content more unreadable overall.

Well, all those sites are important.

> -> The menu being so long and not split in a "related" and a "KDE
> family" part makes it harder for visitors to notice similarities in menu
> designs even though there might actually be a consistent part at the
> bottom of it.

Again, this is a technical matter which is irrelevant to the user 
interface.

- -- 
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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