[p2pu-dev] UI commentary for new design

Stian Håklev shaklev at gmail.com
Fri Jan 28 17:52:39 UTC 2011


And as an additional comment, the development of the new site is just
gathering steam. The design that you might have seen should not at all be
seen as the "final final" design, but is one great example of a direction we
might go in. As the work develops, we definitively have to be better at
finding spaces where we can share design ideas and roadmaps, and get
feedback and testing from a spectrum of community members and users!
Thanks for your comments!
Stian

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 12:29 PM, Rebecca Kahn <bekka.kahn at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi BMT
>
> I'm not really knowledgeable enough to comment on the UI issues you raise,
> but I might be able to give some clarity on your concerns about where to
> post these ideas and the fact that you've received very little feedback.
>
> P2PU is, at the very heart of things, a community built on give-and-take;
> the vast majority of people are volunteers, and the only way the community
> and the project can survive is because amazing people put in as much time
> and effort as they can.
>
> We do have a small group of committed volunteers working on the UI. But
> they are all volunteers, and doing this in their spare time, out of passion
> for the project. From your mail, I suspect that you might be willing to help
> out in this way as well, and we'd like to welcome you to the community, and
> thank you for your effort and enthusiasm so far.
>
> As a group that is principally volunteer-driven, we've found that the
> community tend to respond to issues that they feel most strongly about - so
> a small group of people might cluster around a certain issue, offer to help
> out with any fixes or tasks, and generally get things done that way. It's a
> sort of "group filter" that ensures that issues that the community feel are
> most pressing get tended to first. Operating on the principle of rough
> consensus (ie: not everyone will always agree, but those who do have
> opinions will pipe up, and decisions are made by those who care) we tend to
> also take slightly longer to get to issues than might otherwise happen in a
> bigger, more commercially oriented organisation.
>
> We do have some developers who are paid for their time and work, but they
> generally operate on the basis of x amount of hours per month, and tend to
> triage the really urgent issues, and when their time is up every month, they
> step back, and any issues left will be dealt with in the following month.
> Needless to say, with the launch of the courses, this month has been really
> busy.  I think it's also fair to say that we're all a bit stunned by the
> volume of response we've had this cycle, and are trying (not always
> successfully) to keep up with it.
>
> Generally, people who have skills are happy to devote some of their time
> and the community is often a conduit for this, so if people ask for help,
> those who can contribute generally will do so. The dev list is a good place
> to ask for this kind of support.
>
> I suppose what I'm getting at is this: if you and any other people in the
> community are concerned about the UI, and have the skills, time or
> inclination to help out with this, it would be wonderful. Please don't take
> the lack of response as an indication that nobody cares - I think everyone
> is just busy filtering the large amount of mail coming through at the
> moment, and people who do share your concerns will come forward, if you ask
> for specific help with stuff. Jump in, and get your feet wet!
>
> We haven't been very good at communicating the reciprocal nature of P2PU to
> everyone who joins the community, but we do hope that people understand this
> dynamic and appreciate that it is all part of the great experiment that is
> P2PU! Most of the time, we just try stuff out and see if it works. Sometimes
> we get lucky and it does.
>
> I hope this answers some of your questions - and please don't be
> discouraged - the more people in the community who care about the project
> the better. Also, I'd love to hear what other people on this list think
> about this
>
> All the best
> Bekka
>
>
>
> On 28 January 2011 16:59, B. Maura Townsend <jauncourt at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I put a comment on the new mockup seen at http://p2pu.brianloves.it/
>> in the wiki, under the new design's page, and it seems that it's not
>> really the best place to discuss UI issues, as I got brushed off.
>>
>> My first comment was this (I was keeping it short because of the venue):
>>
>> "Can we try for better contrast in the menus? Also, perhaps swapping
>> the background color and text color when highlighted would be better,
>> usability-wise."
>>
>> Unfortunately, this was interpreted as being reference to the severe
>> contrast issues that I and a number of others have noticed with the
>> current site's styles.
>>
>> A more in-depth analysis of the contrast issues with the current
>> revision of the new design mockup :
>>
>> "The higher contrast of the black pinstripe texture against the white
>> background draws the eye away from the lower contrast menuing, even if
>> it is not negatively affecting the main content. Would it be possible
>> to make the black pinstripe lower contrast? Perhaps a gray about the
>> current color of the un-highlighted menu text? That would increase the
>> usability without lowering the overall visual impact.
>>
>> "The menus at the top are fairly low contrast, light bluish gray
>> against white, with the eye drawn away by the high-contrast
>> background.The highlight is good, with decent contrast, though I'm
>> worried about accessibility for colorblind users. The text in this
>> menu should really be at least as dark a gray as the text in the
>> captions shown in the main content areas.
>>
>> "The menus at the bottom are low contrast unless highlighted, medium
>> gray on medium-luminance colors. The highlight is so subtle as to be
>> lost on many viewers. I'd propose making the text darker on these
>> menus and making the highlight a swap of text and background color. I
>> realize that this is the same shade as the dark gray in the content
>> areas, but that is negated by the medium-luminance background color
>> bars."
>>
>> I'm concerned that I may not be commenting in the correct venue. Is
>> there a UI design team? Is there a specific venue for discussion of
>> the new UI? I know there isn't really anyone looking at usability
>> besides myself and one or two others, and I've seen no comments from
>> them.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> BMT
>> _______________________________________________
>> p2pu-dev mailing list
>> p2pu-dev at lists.p2pu.org
>> http://lists.p2pu.org/mailman/listinfo/p2pu-dev
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Rebecca Kahn
> Skype: rebekahn
>
>
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>


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