Eric Riebling wrote:
I hope this is the proper channel for providing feedback.
I favor Option 1, for this reason: by attempting to provide
as much information on one page as possible, it is more
straightforward to inform novice user's initial navigation
choices.
I like it better, also, for similar reasons cited in Eric's thoughtful note.
Regarding some other things:
1) The design at the top with mouse-overs for trades off instant
visibility of all options (fully expanded menus + submenus) for less
clutter. I think I prefer the less cluttered look, where the submenus
show up on hover (I assume there's an equivalent for non-mouse users :-) )
2) The title fonts look very elegant (nice).
3) The color scheme is a bit surprising - it kind of works for me,
though. I'd be curious about other's reactions to it. I think I would
like a bit more contrast, if possible, among the various elements (for
instance, we have dark gray letters on a lite gray background in the
Welcome box).
4) I like the overall grouping of the page into visually distinct
sections. I'm not clear on how the various sections would change (or
stay the same) for different parts of the website.
5) The forum is a good idea. I think it would be good if it was a
"view" of the mailing list(s) - I think there are ways to do that -- so
people who are more comfortable using a forum interface could talk with
people who are more comfortable using a mailing list interface.
6) I think we need a "links" page ? to repositories, other sites that
are making "creative" use of UIMA, etc?
These are just some initial thoughts.
-Marshall
With the linear flow of frames in the carousel Option 2,
you place a cognitive load on the user to remember what was
presented in previous frames of the carousel, before they
are informed enough to make their ultimate choice.
In fact, they've already spent one or more clicks spinning the
carousel without yet having arrived at their desired (we hope!)
content. And they may have to navigate *back* to a previous
carousel frame to get to it.
Of course, this presumes the user is trying to get to a particular
link, when in fact they are being educated as to which links are
available, in which case the carousel view may offer a better
organizational metaphor, and reduce learning curve rather than
incur cognivite load. I.E. it aids the discovery process at
the expense of navigational efficiency.
I would like to forward a random user inteface feedback comment
from a project recently:
"Could you give it a more trendy user interface, like Macintosh?"
