Stuff that needs fixing

[denise]

I'd like to make a list of things that need some design work: things that could be improved, workflow-wise or visually, for better usability or accessibility.

Things I can think of, off the top of my head:

* The reading/subscription filters management interface
* The access/posting filters management interface
* The Manage Circle page
* The Upload Icons page
* The Directory Search

What else can people think of that needs work?

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

If you mean besides what's already in Zilla, I agree that Select Style and Customize style could use a little redesign. The top sections (titles and current theme) take too much space and have little to do with the primary function of the page, which is to select a style. Also, each link current theme has is also repeated somewhere else in the page. I'm against removing it entirely because knowing which theme you currently has is very useful but making it much smaller would be awesome. As for titles, I think they should go to the Presentation options (with Mood theme, Nav Strip and such).
I would move the drop-down menu next to Features and actually print the numbers on a line instead of having them in a drop-down menu (one less click \o/).
As for the theme boxes, well no lines would be great for me because they make everything blur and it would nice to have the 'Apply Theme' buttons aligned. Crediting takes too much space and will take even more when bug 1845 is fixed. Would it be possible to have an info link which would expand when you click on it?

What else? Recent Comments? It's not very nice, I think.

Manage Communities? The page could be more compact if notifications would be moved to Notifications, Create would be removed (it's in the Nav menu already) and Manage Invitations would be moved elsewhere (to me, it has nothing to do with what the page is for and seems like it has been put there because nobody knew where to put it).

Another thing that bugs me a lot are the design inconsistencies between pages. Edit Profile has one way of designing the Jump To section. Manage Circle and Recent Comments have another. Edit Profile has one way of doing headers, Manage Communities a slightly different one, Read Profile mixes the two, some pages have none. It would make the site neater and nicer if it looked more globally designed.

[denise]

The reason for the inconsistencies is because all of the pages were done at different times, usually by different people, and often by completely different owners! I'd love to standardize design elements and create a consistent visual interaction vocabulary -- it's been bugging me for years.

[ninetydegrees]

Yeah, I know! And it gets worse when you look at the code and see that elements with the same style (or what should be the same style) have different names. But that's what you get when nobody takes the time to write guidelines/documentation (which now seems like a crazy, will-take-forever project :/).

[denise]

It always does, alas. But we can at least do bits of it as it comes up.

[ninetydegrees]

But we can at least do bits of it as it comes up.

Well, tbh, from what I've seen so far, it doesn't work so well. To me, one reason for that is that there is no clear model so that when a dev works on redesigning a page they lack a reference. As things are now, I think moving towards a unified style could be doable if the style of each functional element was clearly defined/named/screenshot. This way, one could make sure a very specific elements looked the same across pages. That would make for lots of easy, small projects instead of a mega one. But you need a reference for that.

[denise]

Building the reference was what I meant, actually. It's something I've been looking for someone to take point on for a while.

[ninetydegrees]

Sorry then! Hmm. I don't think I could do it (as I don't know what the site is supposed to look like and am a bit unfamiliar with it as I have a custom site scheme) but I certainly would help if needed.

[auroraprimavera]

Finally getting a chance to read through all this and this caught my attention. Would this basically be going through every page and labeling and/or assigning appropriate names to each item? Or...?

[denise]

No, it'd be more like writing up guidelines for when we use headers, bold, italics, standout boxes, etc. There's a wiki page for it, but I've never gotten past a bare outline ...

[auroraprimavera]

Ah, I see. So basically it's going through and making sure that the essential elements are consistent on every page.

[denise]

Yeah, exactly, and writing them up so that future developers can have the guidelines as to what visual elements to use.

[auroraprimavera]

Right, that makes sense.

I'd be willing to start on this. I have a pretty good idea of what most of the elements are on the pages (from the mock ups I did) and if that's fine, I just need to know any specifics or whatnot.

[denise]

Oh, that'd be awesome -- go ahead and work on the wiki page. I'm envisioning things like "Page title should be repeated on the top of the page, in heading tags" and "If there are standout boxes they should apepar on the right side of the page", that kind of thing. You don't need to do colors, since those are defined by the CSS files for each scheme.

[auroraprimavera]

Oh, awesome \o/ I'll start work on that. Do I need a separate log in for the wiki?

Also - I've been working some more on those mock ups I did. Different pages and such. Do I just go ahead and make a post to the comm whenever I want? I want to get opinions/thoughts/etc on them.

[denise]

You can log in using your DW OpenID -- the link is down the bottom. And yup, I'd love to see other people posting to the comm!

[auroraprimavera]

Even more awesomeness! \o/

Great, I'll probably be making one later tonight or tomorrow. YAY :D