launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Martin Pilkington <pilky@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 1 Mar 2010, at 5:33 pm, Curtis Hovey wrote:

> Hi Martin.
> 
> Thanks for making this proposal.
> 
> The sidebar of global actions and current actions is missing from the
> design. Since it does not overlap with the proposal, restoring it will
> be easy. the sidebar contains Public/Private, Change details, Delete,
> Contact this team, and the team poll portlet for voting.

I don't believe it will be easy. From a technical point of view possibly, from a UI point of view it won't. The issue is that the page was designed without the sidebar as an intended design decision. Actions such as the team type and change details are moved onto the left. I may be wrong but I see deleting a team as being a rare action, one that doesn't need to be on the main page (it would probably be better going under change details). 

For the contact the team link, I forgot to make the email address a link. It just seemed odd to me that you would list an email address to contact the team, but then have a link that makes it seem you can't see the teams contact details. And as for the poll, I forgot to add it.

To add the sidebar in again would require another iteration on the design, which I'm happy to do, I'm just pointing out it isn't just a case of adding it back in ;)

> The 3.0 design requires that the see-more link be floated to the right
> of the portlet heading[1]. We place the (+) Add <the-object> kind of
> links below the list so that there is a connection to where the addition
> will appear. The (i) Show member photos link is missing, is that
> intentional?

That wouldn't be hard to do, just flip round the positions. As for the show member photos link, yes it is intentional. There are currently two pages showing different views of the same basic information: who is in this team. I was planning to design a page that grouped these two pages into one.

> The mailing list portlet is missing
> (https://launchpad.net/~launchpad-users). I think it should be below the
> team details because it is something that users and members look for
> often

Yeah, that's something else I forgot to add. The basic design for the mailing list portlet would be like the layout in my previous mockup: http://dropbox.mcubedsw.com/skitchpics/launchpadteam.png

> I like the recent activity. I think we need to see more information
> about the items in it. Such as Questions are there because they are
> assigned, but do their placement in the list change if I reply to the
> question? I think bugs are in the list because they are assigned as
> well, and do bugs move to the top of the list if their status changes
> (this is the behaviour I see in many bug listings)

If you reply to the question it would add a new item saying the question was updated. I designed it just to be a timeline of events, so any new event goes in at the top.


> As a team member, do I see a prioritised list of bugs and blueprints I
> need to work on? As an team admin, I can see the pending members on the
> left, but would it also make sense to see it in the right?

I don't think the recent activity list would be best for that. We would need a completely separate view to show what you need to work on.

> I think we also aspire to show branches in the list of events:
> https://code.launchpad.net/~cairo-dock-team

UI wise that shouldn't be hard to add. The hardest thing with the activity list is how it will be implemented. The reason I'm trying to make the design as simple as possible is to make the implementation as simple as possible, as I don't know how the internals of Launchpad are structured.

> [1] I do not link this rule, but users are quick to report
> inconsistencies in the UI. Dropping the floated see-more requires
> someone to change all the current portlets first.

I think this is an important point. You stated in an earlier email that you think it would take everyone stopping work for 2 months to improve the UI. I think if users are willing to live with a little inconsistency, that the UI could be improved gradually, one section at a time. Personally I think improving the UI gradually over time and having some temporary inconsistency is better than waiting for a time when the UI can be completely overhauled. It is simply a case of release early and release often. The other advantage is that is allows for laser focus on a certain area. I've found when you try to focus on too many things with UI design, you end up starting off well, but trailing off into the mediocre, so concentrating on just one area at a time would lead to a much better Ui in the long run.

Thanks

Martin