launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Julian Edwards wrote on 11/08/09 15:28:
> 
> Hi folks, I've done a new mockup of the Distro Source Package page
> here:
> https://dev.launchpad.net/VersionThreeDotO/Soyuz/NavigationRedesignUI
> which addresses most of the issues raised, but with some experimental
> changes.

These comments are mostly about wording and low-level design, so feel
free to disregard them if you're already planning for a thorough rework
by a visual designer.

It's not really appropriate to refer to Ubuntu distribution series as,
for example, "Karmic 9.10" or "Jaunty 9.04". Ubuntu itself doesn't refer
to series that way, anywhere that I know of. Ideally, Launchpad should
render a distribution series .displayname as its codename until release
date, and its version number from release date onwards, because that
matches what distribution vendors do officially. (It would also serve as
a subtle visual hint as to which series shown in the page have been
released and which have not.)

In the "Get involved"/"Get Involved" action menus, it's not clear
whether I'm supposed to click on the text or the arrow. (And I wonder
whether people will often overlook the action menus as a whole, just as
they did in Launchpad 1.x.)

I don't understand what the icon next to "Other versions of 'iceweasel'
in untrusted archives." is for. Instead, I suggest including the actual
number of other versions in the label, e.g. "4 other versions of
“iceweasel” in untrusted archives". (Incidentally, first-level quote
marks should be “”, not '', and expander labels should not end in a period.)

In <http://people.canonical.com/~ed/dsp_mockup_no_linkage.png>, "This
package is not linked to an upstream product" is inappropriately
databasey: it should not use the word "linked", or the word "product".
Instead, I suggest: "Launchpad doesn't know which upstream project this
package comes from. _Do you?_"

It's not clear why the page disclaims knowledge about any upstream link,
but at the same time knows that the package in "Jaunty 9.04" is
associated with "Mozilla 3.5 series". Is this meant to be a mockup of
the page for a single source package, or is it a composite of multiple
situations?

Is removing an upstream link such a common operation that it needs its
own button, separate from the edit button? Instead, perhaps "I don't
know, but I know it isn't <current-value>" should be a radio button in
the dialog that is invoked from the edit button.

Is it deliberate that the table styling is different in
<http://people.canonical.com/~ed/dsp_mockup_no_linkage.png> vs.
<http://people.canonical.com/~ed/dsp_mockup_with_linkage.png>? If so,
what is that difference communicating?

In <http://people.canonical.com/~ed/dsp_mockup_with_linkage.png>, it
looks quite awkward to have the distribution icon and the project icon
competing in the top left. Instead, I suggest using the small (16*16)
version of the project icon here.

The "Latest release" box is a visual mess. The labels are bolder than
the actual data, the capitalization is inconsistent (headings should use
sentence case consistently), and it uses a footnote completely
unnecessarily. I know that it's always been like that, but you are
redesigning the page, so why not fix it? :-)

The "Bug subscriptions" box is not quite as bad (though it still
features an icon and italics for no good reason), but more to the point,
it shouldn't be on this page at all. It should be, but currently isn't,
on the package's Bugs page instead. <http://launchpad.net/bugs/193872>

As Jono alluded to, <http://people.canonical.com/~ed/dspr_mockup4.png>
is a typographical disaster. Even excluding the secondary column, seven
different fonts are used in the content area alone (monospace at 1 size
and weight, + sans-serif at three sizes ✕ two weights each). The main
heading is green, and subsubheadings are green, but subheadings are
unaccountably grey. There is no spacing under the main heading. The
binary package information is indented by an amount that is neither zero
nor the same amount as the package name that was expanded to display it.
And the versions in the "Publishing overview" have exactly the same
excessive borders and tints as bug comments, despite behaving completely
differently. Again, I know that some of these problems exist in the
current version too, but you are redesigning the page, so ... Please get
help from a visual designer for this.

If "Publishing overview" really was an "overview", it would belong at
the top of the page. It isn't, so it doesn't, but it should have a more
accurate heading.

It appears from the URL as if this is the page for a distribution source
package version, but the main heading suggests that it's the page for a
distribution source package. To clarify this, the version number should
be included in the main heading.

It's not clear what the icons in the "Binary packages produced" table
represent. Are they all supposed to be identical, or are they just
placeholders for purposes of the mockup? Does anything happen if you
click on them?

The mockup usefully demonstrates that the secondary column is too narrow
to display the full filenames of source code to download. So, probably
the download links should be moved into the main content area.

It's not clear why the person who uploaded the latest version is
mentioned in the sidebar, but not in the expanded package details
itself. Presumably this means that the people who uploaded previous
versions aren't mentioned anywhere. If you beefed up those expandable
package details to include most of the information that the "Latest
release" box currently contains, maybe you could do away with the box
completely, or at least reduce it to showing just the "Maintainer defaults".

Cheers
- --
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iEYEARECAAYFAkqNS5gACgkQ6PUxNfU6ecrMAgCgo6N9aw/M6c20kwi2gl9S3p0Q
NQMAn3Uf+6RALztvSrnmFJIehmVP7N7y
=c32z
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----