On 10/07/2015 12:29 PM, Stephen Michel wrote: > In the context of our recent discussion > <https://lists.snowdrift.coop/pipermail/design/2015-September/000096.html> > about the home page... > > Here's a pretty common thing that happens in communication between a > user (Bob) and a designer (Alice). > > *Bob's Perspective:* Bob wants to give Alice some feedback about an > email application he uses. Bob keeps hitting the delete button when he > means to hit the save button. He wants to give good feedback, so he > brainstorms a bit, and finally tells Alice that he thinks the > application would be better if the save button were bigger. Alice > replies, saying she won't make the save button any bigger. Bob is > frustrated, and argues back with Alice. > > *Alice's Perspective:* Bob emailed Alice with a suggestion to make the > save button bigger. However, if Alice did that, it would break the > aesthetic of the application, and moreover, she's not sure if it would > actually solve Bob's problem! Alice is frustrated, because she's arguing > with Bob, and because Bob has an unsolved issue. > > *Analysis:* When Bob sends Alice only a suggestion, Alice is left with > only two actionable options: implement (bad because Bob's suggestion > introduces new problems) or not (she can also follow up with Bob, but > Bob's still attached to his solution and upset it didn't happen). The > problem is twofold: in his zeal to provide good feedback, Bob is > actually providing a suggestion -- essentially, doing design work -- > rather than feedback. However, he can't be expected to know what would > be most helpful without Alice letting him know what kind of feedback is > helpful. As it is, Alice is stuck trying to work backwards from Bob's > suggestion to exactly what his problem is. > > What should really happen, is a discussion between Alice and Bob to > figure out what Bob's issues is (for example, the 'save' and 'delete' > buttons are too close to each other and have icons that are too > similar). Then Alice has the flexibility to design a solution that fixes > Bob's problem without introducing new issues. > > It's also worth mentioning that if Bob provides only a suggestion, then > even if Alice follows up with, "I'm not going to implement that > particular suggestion but let's try to figure out a better one," Bob is > still left with a sour taste in his mouth because he has a tendency to > become attached to his solution. > > With that in mind, I'm going to try to give a bunch of feedback such > that we can have a discussion about what should change, rather than > arguing about whether the scene needs more trees. More indented --> more > specific suggestions --> more change-able as long as the higher-level > stuff doesn't change. > > --- > > *I believe that our landing page should provide a 1-second emotional > explanation of why we care (or, why an arbitrary internet user should > care) about Snowdrift.coop.* > /"Together, we can uncover this awesome thing that's currently being > suppressed."/ > - They'll get a longer explanation of why they should care deeper into > the site, but I think this is important as a hook, to get them to be > invested immediately and keep them reading. > > *Thoughts on how to achieve this.* > - I don't think a sense of "path" is important. > - I think a sense of "barren wasteland" is important to *keep.* > - HOWEVER, I also think there needs to be a sense of "If we cleared away > this snow, it'd be a vibrant place!" I think this is the sense of > vibrancy that Aaron was missing. Unlike Aaron, I don't think it needs to > be explicit. > - I think having something like a streak of green on a tree could have > this effect. > - I think version 27 > <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mray/Snowdrift-Design/master/mray%20website%20mockups%20/older%20exports/export27/landing.png> > is the worst offender in this regard. It feels like if you cleared away > the snow, you'd still be standing in the middle of a tundra. > - Bonus points if there's a sense of the awesome thing being communal / > a community. > - I think the houses in the background in version 1 do this well. > - I think the latest, version 33 > <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mray/Snowdrift-Design/master/mray%20website%20mockups%20/export33/landing.png>, > does this better than version 32 > <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mray/Snowdrift-Design/master/mray%20website%20mockups%20/export30/landing.png>, > because the mountain in the background is a little more prominent. > - I also personally like it because there's less of that blue strip > next to the path. I really don't like that strip of blue. > - I'm talking about visuals. I think it's supposed to give a sense > of a snowbank, but only because I've seen previous iterations. As it is, > it just looks like a flat shape on the ground. It barely even gives me a > sense of depth. It's really hard for me to look at the picture because > it's *SO* flat. v33 does help with this, but only a little. > > Cheers, > Stephen >
Thanks for the thoughts, Stephen. While the meta discussion stuff is sensible, the issue boils down to making sure we communicate productively. To the point: I agree that without context from seeing previous iterations, the strip of blue is just not clear enough what that is, what's going on. Even with the new version the sense of real deep snow is lacking. It feels just like there's snow on the ground at all. Ignoring the issues of destination and trees (because each of these items is independent), the core issue is that the sense of the thickness of the snow and the sense of a bank of snow or otherwise just the immediate visceral clarity of "think snow blocking the road" is lacking in the recent iterations. I agree that lots of subtle things are better from iterations just before to iteration 33. What I can say clearly is: https://snowdrift.coop/static/img/intro/snowdrift.png and the earlier iterations from Robert feel more clear visually. Like I can flash the image by someone and they get it instantly: there's a road, it's blocked-by/covered-in heavy snow. The new illustration merely achieves "it's snowy, I guess there's a road or something, not sure what that blue strip is." Now, do I know what the solution is? No. My speculations involve things like better outlines, better shadows, somewhat longer visible part of the road… I suspect a harder sense of clear-road up to a point where BLAM there's heavy snow in the way… that would help. So maybe the point is to show it more partially cleared already — that could mean a little longer cleared road and higher snow banks and snow piles on the side of the road framing it and indicating some work already accomplished, but then you can see there's lots more to do. I'm not strictly tied to any particular suggestion, I'm trying to describe the inadequacy of the current status, and yes, speculating with some ideas about what might help. Cheers, Aaron -- Aaron Wolf Snowdrift.coop <https://snowdrift.coop> _______________________________________________ Design mailing list [email protected] https://lists.snowdrift.coop/mailman/listinfo/design
