[Imc-uk-useability] working on startpage changes

[Genny]

Hi

I've been having a look at the work that's been done on this.

Indymedia uk looks fantastic in Wietse's sketches (especially the photos) and I'd like to propose 
that the whole of the site should be in a hand-written/hand-drawn style. :o))

Here are my first thoughts.  Sorry if it's lots of questions - they are just things which occurred 
to me as I looked through the proposal - I'm not demanding answers!

Genny

I'll refer to the numbers on the current proposal sketch and accompanying notes...

(1); (9) What happens to older features?  Do they completely disappear or will there be a link in 
section 1 or 9 to take you to a features page with more features going back further?  I'd like to 
think there'd be an accessible archive of a fair number of recent features.

(2); (8) Does this mean that recent promoted items will appear twice on the front page, once on the 
open newswire 2, and once on the promoted newswire 8?  Given limited frontpage space, I'm not sure 
this is a good idea if that's what will happen.  But the obvious solution of unpromoted newswire in 
one column and promoted in the other doesn't seem like a great idea either as it will give 
unpromoted news a lot of prominence on the front page in a column undiluted by promoted news.

(3) Yeah, think this is important to keep near top of front page.

(4) Drop-down menu sounds like a very good idea here.

(5) Yeah

(6) This needs to go somewhere, but as a non-techie who took a long time to sort out secure browsing 
on indymedia uk, I'd like to maybe work with a techie to write more non-techie friendly instructions.

(7) Only today, I made the mistake of printing something direct from an indymedia page and realised 
just how long it is.  Drop down menu for this would be MUCH better in my view.

(8); (9): What I said already.

(10) Good idea, and maybe have a link on the next page/s to more examples rather than just linking 
to one feature.

(11) Does this mean that the regions/topics featured will be those which have most recently added 
new features to their pages?  Will there be a set number of regions and topics (eg 3 of each) or 
will it be possible that at a given time there might be six regions featured and no topics?  Will 
there be links to all regions/topics from here?  If not, then maybe section 4 should have headings 
"all regions" and "all topics"?

(12) Ah, think that answers one of my questions in 11 above.

(13) How will this be selected? Will it be automatic or need to be updated manually or is that a 
techie question?

(14) Is there a possibility that 1 and 14 will have the same content?  If it is, then maybe it's not 
good use of frontpage space, so can it be avoided somehow?  I may have asked this question because I 
don't know  the difference between features and major reports. :o)

(15) Selected, or just the most recent?


OK, that's my thoughts for now.

G