[Imc-uk-useability] new startpage: moving on

[wietse]

Hi everyone,

Later today me and Dave (who's been working on the new startpage design) 
will come up with a revised version. In this email I would like to 
respond to the issues some people raised. However, both me and Dave have 
very limited time to spend on this redesign. The implementation of it is 
likely to take up a lot of time too, so I would hope we can get a new 
startpage up and running asap, with the idea that it isn't gonna be 
perfect (or permanent) but definitely better from what we have at the 
moment.

I really appreciate peoples input, but maybe this discussion should 
focus on functionality rather than design..

I can work on this another couple of months, after that I will be unable 
to continue work on it.

Cheers, Wietse

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* Maqui wrote: (1)

" It worked very well with firefox and mozilla (although with a very big 
size font), but it displayed very badly with Safari (a mac application) 
The boxes were all on top of each other. "

Once the design is agreed on (as it works in firefox) I guess we will 
look at bugs and making it work in all browsers.

" I am not sure how the boxes for topics and regional sites would work. 
The design does not display all of them. I understand that because there 
are 'too many' topics and regions to fit in the startpage, but did we 
decide on how these would be chosen to appear on the front page? I mean 
will it be randomly? Or is it that it will only show those that are most 
active? (sorry I can remember what was decided) "

Just reading through the minutes from the network meeting it looks like 
no decision was made on that. It reads: "Include functionality for user 
to be able to pick region and topics and use cookie system for user to 
implement. Passed." So I would propose that there is a box on the 
startpage in which people can choose their regions/ topics.

For the default view it could work out that: Regions (and topics) with a 
newly published feature move to the top of the 3 regional (or topical) 
boxes on the startpage. This encourages regions to publish features and 
will show different regions on the startpage at different times.

* Simon wrote: (2)

" Dates don't need to be quite so large, it's the headline not the day 
that is the draw. "

As mentioned above, bugs will be fixed once the design is agreed on.

" Both to save space and to include more of the local newswires, would 
it be possible to have a single 'regional' ticker which swaps through 
the various sites' feeds periodically, rather than having several set 
ones for London/Birmingham/Sheffield etc? "

There is already an 'all regions' page. From what I understood the 
redesign of the startpage was about giving the work from regional IMC's 
(who have whole collectives behind them) more prominance. So I would 
think it is about giving people the option of having the headlines from 
'their region' showing up on the startpage.

" Would there be a major difference between 'feature' and 'major' 
reports? Could they be integrated and maybe run an Indymedia world box 
or Infoshop feed as a replacement? Mainly thinking about avoiding 
duplication in the wires and expanding the scope of what's available. "

Features are the articles which are collated from newswire content, 
Major Reports are the collated reports from larger events and have their 
own page. For example during another Dsei, Climate Camp or G8 people 
will want to look for specific stuff from that event and that's what the 
box is for. We did discuss the option of showing that box right at the 
top when a large event takes place.

" Just a personal thing, but is the banner open to change? "

Not as far as I'm aware. The idea was to make small but neseccary 
changes only really. But you're right, it should be changed. Maybe after 
all these changes are implemented, someone can have a go at actually 
changing the design of the site.

" Media pages logo has ragged white edges around a couple of the pics, 
also fading out the ((I)) would make the 'text' and 'audio' links more 
visible, it's a bit messy atm. "

Right, it looks good for me. It might only do that in certain browsers, 
but we'll look into that.

" Could the topics list run as a bar of links along the top rather than 
as boxes at the bottom maybe? I'm thinking along the lines of what the
Guardian, Times etc do – it'd make navigating by topic a lot simpler and 
again reduce the need to scroll down. "

I like the idea of some of the topics showing at the top, but not all 
can. Maybe the most active ones should just be moved to the top and only 
regions showing below. Then when people set their own startpage 
preferences they can get topics to show below too.

" Incidentally, in terms of the look and graphics being used, is it open 
to negotiation or fairly set atm? "

It's always open of course, but me and Dave (who's the designer) have 
very limited time to work on this. So maybe we should at least get the 
basics up and running and then hopefully someone else will get excited 
and step in to work more on the design.

" Actually, rather than faffing about with desribing what I mean, I've 
done a jpeg flatplan (actually attached this time) instead. It's not a 
working model or anything, just an illustration of some ideas [...] Some 
of this stuff may not fit in with what has
been discussed so far I dunno, just some thoughts anyways. " (3)

Nice one Simon. We're gonna work more on the design today and will look 
at your design too. I like some of the graphics in the boxes.

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(1) 
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-process/2008-March/0311-6f.html

(2) 
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-process/2008-March/0310-e3.html

(3) 
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-process/2008-March/0311-5f.html