[libreoffice-design] Re: [libreoffice-website] Re: new features page ...

Hi!

Since Christian already jumped in for the technical stuff ... let's
focus on the UX part :-)

Am Dienstag, den 18.01.2011, 12:15 +0000 schrieb Michael Meeks:
[...]
> > http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/O-PELAb4LD61S9RPTFIW8Q?feat=directlink
>
>       Ok - it is a nice graphic. Unfortunately, not all our features are
> graphical in any way. "More familiar keybindings" eg. ;-) do you think
> your layout works well for that ? Also - who is going to provide this
> extra body text (in addition to the short description ?).

Everybody is free to add some text here. I would even appreciate, if the
developer teams (devs, QA, ...) would have something they use anyway.

For example, we've created:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Printerpullpages#Summary

And by the way, isn't this also a new feature for LibO 3.3?


Concerning the graphics - you are right that some features are not
graphical. But since you want to address the people to quickly go
through a list, a picture helps. If nothing suits well, then it may be
possible ...
      * join some feature descriptions that fit together
      * use a placeholder graphic / handmade graphic (Design Team?)
      * add these features "at the bottom" of each category (full width)

Second iteration done ;-)

[...]
> > All but the last category should only present a few improvements to
> > avoid boring people to death ;-) Pre-prioritizing helps them to quickly
> > decide "yes, that's worth to download". Let's say 3 ... 5 items per
> > category like Writer. And, one highlight item (e.g. "More familiar
> > keyboard shortcuts") might sum up some individual features (by the way,
> > more familiar to whom ...).
>
>       *but* here is the problem - we need someone to do this prioritisation
> work. Thus far, I did some fixing and better ordering of the categories,
> clearer explanation, and slightly better prioritisation of the data, but
> it needs more work.

I think Sophie worked on something like that evolved within the FR
community - as far as I know.

[...]

> > <fun>Of course, there is a need to include that great new printing
> > dialog [2] - whoever helped to shape that.</fun>
>
>       Oh - did we miss some key features ? [ that seems highly probable ], if
> so what ? again we need the work put into the list there I guess.

Well, it depends if this list is LibO unique, or if OOo features may be
added as well. Since I've did the most of the UX work, it would be
somehow inbetween ;-)

If yes, I can try to provide something...


> > Ah, so he is the one to prepare for a huge mail with feedback [3] to
> > keep him busy ;-)
>
>       Caolan is plenty busy.

I know, good people are always busy. Just wondering why I seem to have
that much time to write emails ;-)))


> > > >        Of course, I'd love to have the relevant files linked as well, so
> > > > people can try that out quickly ( cf. the obsolete
> > > > http://go-oo.org/discover ); IMHO that adds a lot.
> >
> > Mmh, seems that this list already considers a lot of my suggestions
> > above ;-) Cool page!
>
>       Glad you like it; the discover page was created by applying pure
> common-sense by developers.

That's good to know ... but I assume that there have been some
iterations until the page was finally made up. I hope we will come to a
state, that more people step in and apply their common-sense.

[...]

> > Last thing: Could you please keep the "New Features" (New Highlights) in
> > one place - currently it appears under "Download - New Features", and
> > "Features - New Features". Clicking on the latter "jumps" between
> > different categories - without the user's intention.
>
>       So - I appreciate these jumps are ugly, and I asked expressly for this
> myself and David kindly added one. We already had one for the Developers
> tab - it was a personal requirement that we have a top-level
> 'Development' tab.

I know, the second time already :-)

>       Here is the reason for this jump: I won't bore you with a great long
> user scenario - but existing OO.o users will hit the site, and -before-
> downloading, will want to know what new features they will get: as in
> "why bother".

As I stated earlier, you requested to retrieve the information quickly -
but it might be something different in terms of solution.

>       Which tab will they hit ? - they are interested in "Features" - they
> hit that; and immediately get presented with a long (and lovely) blurb
> about things they already know about suitable for new users but not
> them.
>
>       Adding the "New Features" link - (personally I would have had it on the
> left of 'Writer' since I believe it is far more interesting to most
> people), allows them to find what they are looking for.
>
>       Do you disagree with the user scenario or use-case ?

No, just fine!

>       Of course; we have another user scenario, of people who are signed up
> for LibreOffice, and wish to post-rationalise their decision while they
> download, explaining the existing location: this is also a common use
> case I suspect.
>
>       So - I am not a UX guy, but I'd like these two scenarios to flow
> smoothly. The tab/link seems to (partially) do it, at the cost of some
> jumpiness in the tab metaphore. Perhaps there is a better way.
>
>       Ultimately I think you're going to have jumpy tabs if you use explicit
> web-style links to other pages, and also force readers to read
> lower-down too: perhaps not what we want. Potentially we could put the
> content in two places [ not sure silverstripe will like that though -
> may be very manual ].

Okay, so I understand you want to avoid too much reading, but we assume
that the use cases are important.

Adding the links in the menu - where we already have numerous items -
will also slow down finding the information. Instead, I'd propose to
group the most important information next to the download.

The purpose of the Download page (usually) is less to provide a lot of
information, but to quickly provide visual navigation. So the already
stated "action links / buttons" may make sense. The help to provide a
visual anchor, limit the number of information in the menu, and group
the page structure.

--------------------------------------------------------------

                   (upper part of the download page)

Short introduction text, short         What's new?
introduction text, short intro
duction text, short introduction       Installing Instructions
text, short introduction text, 
short introduction text, ...           Computer Requirements

                    (The rest of the download page)

--------------------------------------------------------------

These additional links (here: "What's new?") might be less obstrusive,
but well visible buttons rest of the page.

If required, I'm happy to draft something ... but this might take some
time. Or Ivan, do you have another / an additional idea?

Thanks for reading!


Cheers,
Christoph


-- 
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+help@libreoffice.org
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/
*** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***