On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 16:35:38 +0100, ":murb: [maarten brouwers]"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> Hi,
> 
> I hope the discussion can continue in this manner... I will only adress 
> the issues not addressed by Miika who I agree with. The login box will 
> indeed be replaced by a search, maybe even accompanied with a little 
> icon... but Christian hasn't made it work yet...
> 
> >Those three boxes are the entire extent of the information available on the 
> >page 
> >on an initial screen. That, and links to the components. But there is no 
> >link to 
> >tech support, contact, mailing lists, documentation, latest news (unless 
> >that's 
> >what that green box is supposed to be).
> >  
> >
> There is this usability 'rule' that one should minimize the ways of 
> getting somewhere. Make these ways logical and a user will more quickly 
> understand the structure of the site, therefore find information better. 
> This is why the design focusses more on access via the horizontal 
> navigation bar. Can't point you to literature without searching for 
> myself (where timing test have occurred), but I've read it more than 
> once and believe this is not more than logical.
> 

No comments other than that's true. The front page should be as 'front
page' as possible, a quick entrace to the website. We're not building a
web portal here.

> >Users may or may not realize that there is stuff below the screen. It is 
> >certainly not evident when I first load the page.
> >  
> >
> The 'philosophy' behind this is the fact that the lower part is simply 
> less important for the average user. Furthermore I think the suggestion 
> made by Jacqueline; namely removing the News box and placing the In the 
> media box to the right of the article excerpts would help a lot. I just 
> designed around the requested content, so if this is allowed to be 
> removed, I will.
> 

And as I have said many times on this and the SC40 list: The bottom of
the homepage doesn't look good at all. There's no reason to occupy all
that space with some news articles at the center.

As much as I don't really support the design proposal I made early this
month (http://www.safelyinrussia.com/tmp/miikka/ooowebsite/1.1/) I would
still like to see something like that at the bottom. A few columns of
information, then the footer. No need to scroll too much.

> >If you do scroll down, you find a tiny bit of information. Not much though. 
> >There 
> >is nothing that would tell the user how to get help, or where to get a 
> >manual 
> >(which is often requested on the users lis), or how to even report a bug!
> >  
> >
> Wouldn't you click on support or new user if you were looking for help 
> or a manual? Bug reports should not be made by newbies, so best way to 
> report them is via some other person who is giving support... this is 
> the new user situation. Experienced users should login first by clicking 
> on 'My Pages' and they can report a bug from there.
> 

I would click on 'About', bypass all the loads of text I encounter and
look for some help links there.

Regards,
Miikka Leskinen
miles_fin

> >The best I can say about this design is that the picture in the centre is 
> >pretty. 
> >But that doesn't justify the removal if imortant information, or introducing 
> >ambiguity, or discriminating against users with low-contrast vision.
> >  
> >
> I would really like to know if you can follow my way of reasoning about 
> the menu bar... and in what extend you agree to this...
> 
> >>Has any of these problems been fixed in Maarten's recent proposal
> >>(http://www2.hku.nl/~maarten/external/OpenOffice.org/proposal3.0/)?
> >>    
> >>
> >One of them. He replaced "new" by "new user".
> >  
> >
> ;-)
> 
> g.,
> 
> 
> Maarten
> 
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