I think we should focus on integrating with Pinax before worrying about these details. Pinax will provide a bit of a framework for things like dashboards and news feeds, so we should let it guide their design.
-- David Winslow OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org/ On 07/19/2010 11:56 AM, Sebastian Benthall wrote: > Just had a great discussion in #geonode about the role of the User > Dashboard. Wanted to raise it in email so that some of what we > discussed can get on the plan for post-1.0. > > As the User Dashboard's been envisioned so far, it's been seen as an > alternative view of the user profile, as seen by users when they are > logged in. The dashboard is a place where users can find news, keep > track of their cartography projects, and access controls related to > their user accounts. > > (Compare: > http://geonode.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/GeoNode_20100209e.png > http://geonode.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/GeoNode_20100209f.png > ) > > However, it seems like a lot of sites use the user dashboard as an > alternative Home Page for logged in users. (GitHub and LinkedIn are > like this). > > There's been a lot of back and forth about the home page (I've had > long conversations with both Galen and Rollie about it...) and what > the functionality for it should be. For 1.0, we've got a sort of > intermediate UI planned out, largely because so much of the potential > for these areas is so new: > * The home page cleanly exposes access to a lot of GeoNode's most > important functionality, but in a general way. > * The profile shows user contact information and an avatar, but > doesn't show much else about that users' activity > * The dashboard provides a minimal set of controls over and above > the profile (edit profile, links to create a map). > > > I think a roadmap area we should try to anticipate better is the > refinement of these views and the additional features that would be > valuable for them. To be more specific, these are things I can think > of off the top of my head: > * Notifications. What events are notified? Are they done via > email, or internal to the application? What sort of 'news' do users > need to know about? > * We've thought about the relationship between users and data/maps a > bit. It appears that both the metadata standard and the demands of > the security system suggest a complex relationship between users and > these resources, one that is mediated by roles. Beyond access > control, do should these roles have any significance for software > functionality? To the relevance of events related to particular > resources and their presence on a users' dashboard? On a groups' > dashboard? > * So far, we are not tracking the history of changes between maps, > styles, and data. We know that versioned data editing is a long-term > item on the roadmap. What about versioned map editing? Should we be > tracking/displaying this history in a way that is targeted to > individual users (i.e., a list of the user's actions, where actions > are data and/or map edits)? > > Ok, I'm going to stop now because this line of inquiry will get out of > control fast. And I think the right answer to these questions is > "Just scope out small, concrete changes, build them iteratively, and > lets not get ahead of ourselves." > > But I wanted to bring these questions up not because I think that they > all need to be answered now, but because I think the roadmap may have > blindspots around many of these usability issues and yet the tips of > some icebergs are poking out of the water. > > Does anybody else anticipate other complex problems coming up that we > should have in mind as we plan out post-1.0 features? > > > -- > Sebastian Benthall > OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org >
