My confusion had to do with the fact that many pages are more "programs" than they are "pages" and what seemed like navigational links are actually ways of entering parameters to the programs. Hope this isn't vague; I'll give an example:
I enter the site and click "Power Search." I'm presented with a search page sandwiched between what appear to be two sidebars full of navigational links. But they're not navigational links; they're really lists of possible parameters to the page. That is, they are form elements disguised as links. All my web browsing experience tells me that if I click a link in a list of links in a sidebar, it'll take me to "another page." But in this case, clicking a link is really a programmatic way of setting a parameter to the search. I may not immediately realize what has happened: the link doesn't "send" me anywhere like I expected; it just sets a variable that updates the "Module to search" text. There is no functional difference between this and an HTML form <select>, but the latter reminds people that this web site is acting like a program and they are about to "ask a program to do something" rather than "tell the browser to go somewhere." I think both lists could be condensed into one <select> tag positioned right where the "Module to search:" text is currently. This would make the page more compact and eliminate the confusion when clicking a link doesn't make you "go" anywhere. It reinforces that this intermediate page exists only to collect parameters for the ultimate destination and keeps the user from being distracted by "all these other options."
The same is true of the "parallel translations" screen. It's frightfully confusing that I can be in two different mini-"programs" (from the user's standpoint) and I have what seems like the same static list of options on the left and right, but clicking "A Conservative Version" on this page means something completely different from what it meant on the search page. There, it meant "set a variable to be used as input in the form I am about to submit to get my results." Here, it means "add this module immediately to the list of modules I am viewing, refreshing my screen with the new list of parameters. Again, I think this is much better represented by a single module picklist at the top of the screen and a button right next to it that says "add module to active list" or some such.
There is a redundant screen. What can I do in "Passage Study" that I can't do by selecting a single text in "Parallel Texts"? (Sorry if I'm missing something obvious.)
"Tools and Things" should be labeled "External Links" or "Other useful resources" to indicate to the user that they'll be leaving the current interface if they click there. Clicking any other link on the site just loads a different page with the same navigation bar; these links do something very different. The user has a right to know this in advance. This also helps to explain why these links disappear when the user goes elsewhere in the site: because they are not part of the fixed navigational interface.
The "Search" box is on every page--that is, it is a fixed navigational element. But it is positioned in the left sidebar, which sometimes changes content and usually changes meaning between screens. It is then unclear to me what "search" means. Is "search" part of the current application I'm using (e.g. the Parallel Translations app)? That is, will searching for "Jesus" from the Parallel Translations page bring up passages about Jesus on the Parallel Translations page? I tried this; it doesn't. It switches pages on me, and I end up in what appears to be the Passage Study section, viewing passages about Jesus in the Matthew Henry Commentary (the last module I had selected in that screen). Now I think I've got it figured out. I enter "John 1" from the Parallel Translations page, expecting to be hurled to Matthew Henry's commentary on John 1. But I'm not. I stay right there on the Parallel Translations page, and now I'm looking at John 1 in parallel.
I think the search function should be either universal or particular to the screen. If universal, it should not be in a UI area that is used for screen-specific input (but then I don't think sidebars are a good place for screen-specific input in the first place). If page-specific, only functionality relevant to the current page should be exposed on that page. So if searching for "Jesus" doesn't mean anything in a parallel passage search, don't give me the option to do it, and definitely don't take me somewhere else without giving me any cue that's what will happen.
This may be a technically non-trivial thing, but it would be a lot more user-friendly if the intermediate search results from a commentary looked more...well, intermediate. If I do a search for "Jesus" in the Matthew Henry Commentary, I'm going to get thousands of hits, and seeing the full text of the commentary for every verse where Matthew Henry had something to say about Jesus (that's a lot) doesn't narrow things down much. Ideally, you'd return just the sentence where Jesus came up, maybe with the word highlighted. But again, I assume this is not a technical cakewalk or it'd be done.
Nothing says "You Are Here." I click Passage Study and up pops what, I assume, must be the passage study page. But say I've been doing a lot of research, I have several browser windows open, and I've just gotten up for some coffee. Ick, coffee. Now where was I? Where's that page I was looking for? Nothing's labeled. (Yes, it's in the browser title bar, but I certainly never think of this as part of the UI of the page--it belongs to the browser and I largely ignore it.) It should be fairly simple to make "Passage Study" unclickable white text when I'm on that page, and I think it would help tremendously. Changing the background behind it or drawing a box around it would help too.
These are all just observations and suggestions; hope they don't sound overly critical or pushy. Other people may disagree violently.
Time for bed--g'night
Andrew
p.s. I will get sleep and think through what time I have for tinkering tomorrow, when I've tended to the duties of the day.
On Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 06:18 PM, Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
Andrew,
Both (pretty, and expressions of what confused you) are very valuable. I've demo'd it to a number of people and watched as they pondered what to do. It makes you want to yell, "Just click on....!!!". But I don't know how to visually lead them to the controls pertinent for each screen. We've had suggestions, for example, on the passage study page, to surround: "Passage Study", the current Bible and where to change it, current verse and verse navigation, with some kind of swoosh graphic-- kindof saying, "On this screen, these are the important pieces of navigation"
But I don't know. I don't think anyone would say that I'm a very good UI designer.
So, please suggest! And any contributions would be greatly appreciated. There are a number of us with 'sandboxes' set up so we can play with the pages and show our ideas. Let me know if you're volunteering to have a go at some stuff.
-Troy.
Andrew Vardeman wrote:I think it looks decent (nice and clean, maybe not flashy but certainly not ugly). I agree it can be a bit confusing on first use. Which was their priority--colors and graphics or functional UI improvements?
I can do pretty, but slower than any "real" designer. If they're thinking more functionally, I could at least express what confused me and offer suggestions for improvement.
Andrew
On Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 03:00PM, Troy A. Griffitts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Just what should be an obvious correction:
-and are not looking for people to make it look pretty +and are now looking for people to make it look pretty
Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
Hey guys. We've finished up about 80% of the functionality for the web tool and are not looking for people to make it look pretty / work more intuitively.
ABS is happy with the functionality, but they are about to go out and pay someone to redesign the user interface. I'd hate for us to have spent so much time on the real meat of the project to offer this as a free gift to them, and then they have to go pay someone to add colors and graphics.
Any volunteers would be greatly appreciated by ABS and me, as well.
Here's the link:
http://www.crosswire.org/sword/biblenew/
Thank you for your consideration.
-Troy.
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