spreadubuntu team mailing list archive

[Thorsten Wilms <t_w_@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 2010-10-08 at 23:42 -0500, Evan Boldt wrote:
> Thank you very much, Thorsten, for the awesome mockup.
> I've already implemented it with a few modifications and additions.

You're welcome! It's nice to work starting from a decent base and seeing
changes made so fast is great.


Frames
======

I'm not so thrilled about the use of frames (Files, Legal, CAPTCHA),
though. They hardly ever do something for structuring the layout that
couldn't be done with spacing and indentation, instead. But they do
require their own padding.

You could get rid of the "Files" section title and just use "Print file"
and "Source file", perhaps.

I placed "Source" first, because it is required, unlike "Print".

The "M" of "MB" means 1000, being in line with Ubuntu policy?

"Allowed extensions" actually misses the mark, because what good would
be a *.pdf that actually isn't a PDF? It's about file formats, and using
a link allows to add information about associated applications. This way
we could reduce the required beforehand knowledge quite a bit. Simialr
for "create an archive".


Legal
=====

The "Legal" title does not do one bit to help the viewer understand what
is asked there, but adds to the noise.


CAPTCHA
=======

"Verification" was about avoiding the technical term "CAPTCHA". Also
because all uppercase is correct there, but risks standing out too much.

The line "Enter the code depicted in ASCII art style." is superfluous.


Title/Description
=================

"Title" above "Description" makes sense.

Could you get rid of the resize handle of the text field and make it
auto-expand if filled, instead?

The text about markup needs to be in grey like explanations elsewhere.
With the same line-height.


Required
========

Marking required fields with a star without explanation doesn't cut it.
In my mockup, I did away with any such differentiation, because you
really don't want users skipping "Description" or leaving "Language" or
"OS Version" on the default, if it's wrong. Actually, consider empty
defaults there, to force a choice.


Submit
======

What I should have mentioned before: The "Submit" button should be
disabled, until all required info is given. You could show on overlay on
hover, noting what is missing.


> I think the licensing will stay the way it is. Radio buttons let me
> include links and images. The only other CC license I think could work
> is just "SA", and I don't know enough about other licenses to be willing
> to support those so prominently.

The CC badge is just distracting.

I have to repeat that allowing custom license terms is asking for
trouble. You also loose the advantage you'd have, if everything had the
same license, so a user could go to SU and wouldn't have to check per
item what the license is. If you allow more than one license, search
should cover that.

CC license are incomplete without jurisdiction. I suspect that
Unported/International means losing quite some legal weight, but I have
no clue about the implications of various ported versions on
international collaboration. Well, the value as statement of intent
remains.


> I agree with you about a feature to post derivative works - this could
> create some really cool hierarchies and groupings, but at the same time,
> I also want to keep it simple.

Faced with "Original Author", the user has to think. You can only hope
they do read the explanation and then even understand it. To quite
simply ask "Is this derivative work?" or maybe better "Is this work
based on other work?" would make this simpler for the user. AT least if
the answer is no.


> I'm thinking about how to simplify the homepage like you suggested.
> 60% of people click a media type directly from the homepage, so that is
> clearly a good interface feature and placement.

Or this statistic just tells you that the media types are indeed placed
prominently ;)


> I think you're right about the download counter, but I don't want to
> just get rid of it, and I can't think of a place to put it - especially
> with the coming addition of graphs.

Sorry, but this sounds like catering to yourself, not your users. It's
something that's OK on a separate "About" page, but not on the landing
page.


> I fully intend to switch the header to the designs in your mockups once
> you have a finalized version.

Have to know if there will be an additional item for home/about.

If you can make a choice on
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/spreadubuntu-header-2/
we can call it finished and I just need to take care of exporting icons.

Do you already know how to handle the background for the current item?


-- 
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/