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Lee Carre
 
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2006-10-22 21:04:32
last modified: 2006-10-22 21:07:28

could we have some basic usability aids please, the main one that ticks me off is not having the thread title in the page title (the <title> in the <head> of the <html> )

the same title for every single page is, well.... useless

standard format:

page name/title {seperator} section/category {seperator} name of site/organisation

{seperator} can be anything to distinguish that page name is a seperate string to the category, or site name

-----

please take a look at UseIt.com for lots of exelent usability advice for the web and other media
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PovAddict
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2006-10-22 21:06:09

I second that. When looking on the browser history is super-annoying to see a hundred pages called the same.
[BOINCstats] Willy
 
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2006-10-22 21:09:18

I third it

But it will be nearly impossible to do. First of all: this is a BOINC forum (code maintained by Rytis) included in BOINCstats (code maintained by you-know-who ). The forum loads inside BOINCstats, after all headers and stuff are already loaded.
It would require a major... Hmmm, not good enough... a MAJOR (better) rewrite of the whole BOINCstats load code.
Please do not PM, IM or email me for support (they will go unread/ignored). Use the forum for support.
Lee Carre
 
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2006-10-22 21:11:57

I second that. When looking on the browser history is super-annoying to see a hundred pages called the same.

precisely

if we're getting into implications, if affects everything
<title> is THE most important element on any good page

just think search engine results
try a google search for "boincstats" to see what i mean, all the results have the same name, because the titles are all the same! totally useless

while i'm here actually, can we get rid of "click here" links, and "click here to..."
just say where the link goes, in context, because anyone with even the slightest experience with a computer or the web knows to click, and "click here" links make no sense out of context (search engines), so again, really bad idea
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PovAddict
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2006-10-22 21:14:25

while i'm here actually, can we get rid of "click here" links, and "click here to..."
just say where the link goes, in context, because anyone with even the slightest experience with a computer or the web knows to click, and "click here" links make no sense out of context (search engines), so again, really bad idea

Amen! "click here for a google search for 'boincstats' to see what i mean" is a horrible idea A script that takes links out of a website and displays them alone would help, if you get a hundred links all saying Click here, website needs some redesign...
Lee Carre
 
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2006-10-22 21:18:46
last modified: 2006-10-22 21:23:30

But it will be nearly impossible to do. First of all: this is a BOINC forum (code maintained by Rytis)
ok, well if it's a package problem, and not an implementation problem, the author needs to sort it (well, someone with access to the source code)

included in BOINCstats (code maintained by you-know-who ). The forum loads inside BOINCstats, after all headers and stuff are already loaded.
i'm sorry, but plenty of other sites manage it, it should have been fixed at implementation/deployment, rather than after deployment, as you can see, it costs FAR more (time) to fix after deploying

It would require a major... Hmmm, not good enough... a MAJOR (better) rewrite of the whole BOINCstats load code.
what about some simple SSI solution?
PHP must be able to handle inclusions

or why not just have something like (forgive me, i'm not a PHP programmer): <title>%thread name% - BOINCstats: Statistics & Account Management</title>


if you're not going to follow basic usability for something as important as the title, then what's the point in the site?

if your answer is "so people can view their stats"

well, how can they when every page is the same?
especially for the forum, browser history is useless
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Lee Carre
 
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2006-10-22 21:21:55
last modified: 2006-10-22 21:42:15

while i'm here actually, can we get rid of "click here" links, and "click here to..."
just say where the link goes, in context, because anyone with even the slightest experience with a computer or the web knows to click, and "click here" links make no sense out of context (search engines), so again, really bad idea

Amen! "click here for a google search for 'boincstats' to see what i mean" is a horrible idea A script that takes links out of a website and displays them alone would help, if you get a hundred links all saying Click here, website needs some redesign...

i could say much more on the subject, but i'll stick to the basics for now lol

you've hit the nail on the head!
i hope my version of the link was much more descriptive of where the link goes, especially out of context

a list of "click here" links is totally useless
and guess what, that's one of the things visually impaired users have, in say an audio browser, so such a site (boincstats is actually quite good on this issue) is very inaccessible
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PovAddict
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2006-10-22 22:15:04


please take a look at UseIt.com for lots of exelent usability advice for the web and other media

Or why not W3C Tips Recomendations about <title> and don't use "click here" tips are at the beginning of the list.
Lee Carre
 
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2006-10-22 23:36:04


please take a look at UseIt.com for lots of exelent usability advice for the web and other media

Or why not W3C Tips Recomendations about <title> and don't use "click here" tips are at the beginning of the list.

you're right, i've been implementing good usability for so long that i've become so acustomed to the basics

those are some good tips for starting out, to give someone an idea of the type of things that improve usability
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PovAddict
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2006-10-22 23:39:01


please take a look at UseIt.com for lots of exelent usability advice for the web and other media

Or why not W3C Tips Recomendations about <title> and don't use "click here" tips are at the beginning of the list.

you're right, i've been implementing good usability for so long that i've become so acustomed to the basics

those are some good tips for starting out, to give someone an idea of the type of things that improve usability

And I forgot to mention (noticed after I couldn't edit post anymore): useit.com HTML is invalid!
Lee Carre
 
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2006-10-22 23:50:38
last modified: 2006-10-23 00:07:44

And I forgot to mention (noticed after I couldn't edit post anymore): useit.com HTML is invalid!

ah yes, i discovered that a while ago (i use the HTML Validator firefox extension, so it's easy to spot)

i'm not saying invalid code is acceptable, not at all, however i can see the distinction, Jakob is commenting on a much higher level subject than code validity, but that's no excuse, but i can understand that it may not be his "thing" (usability clearly is), also he's not a standards advocate, if he were then fair enough (*caugh* WaSP (valid, but not best-practice) *caugh*), but he's fighting a different, but related, problem

to be fair to Jakob, his Alertbox page has fewer errors, and that's what most people read

and hey, he's serving HTML as text/html rather than XHTML as text/html, but lets not get into that argument (as illustrated here, one of the problems of making links comprehendable out of context is that to achieve that, you have to be quite long winded, my "argument" link won't mean much out of context, but to make it so, i'd have to use: the argument about why serving XHTML as text/html is bad instead, which is also bad usability because it's too long and breaks the flow of the regular text)

on the other hand he's not specifying a character encoding, so swings and roundabouts


but i'd rather his articles be better than have valid code thou, but each to their own


on a personal note, i'm really glad to see that someone besides me knows about this kind of stuff (i'm guessing accessibility too?), and apreciates it's value
i'm currently developing (well, still planning at the mo) a site for a local autism charity (support here is non-existant, so it's quite an important campaign), and it gets a little annoying at times to keep having to explain that good web dev isn't simple or easy, and all this stuff matters
but being their head of IT gives me a fair bit of clout
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PovAddict
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2006-10-23 21:36:27

I can see the thread subjects on page title! Thanks Willy!

Like I said many other times, the best stats website getting better.
Lee Carre
 
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2006-10-24 19:36:59
last modified: 2006-10-24 19:38:31

I can see the thread subjects on page title! Thanks Willy!
wuhoo
however, when i replied to PovAdict's post, the title changed to "I got first! " which is obviously not the correct title lol

Like I said many other times, the best stats website getting better.
i totally agree, hence why i'm spending the time to try to make it a good site, as well as a good service (no, the 2 are not the same thing)
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PovAddict
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2006-10-24 19:39:30

I can see the thread subjects on page title! Thanks Willy!
wuhoo
however, when i replied to PovAdict's post, the title changed to "I got first! " which is obviously not the correct title lol

"I got first" is the name of the first forum thread
Lee Carre
 
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2006-10-25 01:41:02

I can see the thread subjects on page title! Thanks Willy!
wuhoo
however, when i replied to PovAdict's post, the title changed to "I got first! " which is obviously not the correct title lol

"I got first" is the name of the first forum thread

so that'll be a bug then
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Lee Carre
 
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2006-10-25 21:24:30

another issue:

could there be size attributes for graph images etc.
i assume they're a consistent size, it just makes rendering a bit more user friendly as placeholders will be the correct size etc. before the image is even requested, hence avoiding the "jumping layout" problem
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Lee Carre
 
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2006-10-26 12:56:59

another major issue:

text sizes, basically text isn't resizable, i assume because you're using absolute units, rather than relative ones

relative include: em, %, pt

absolute include: px
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Lee Carre
 
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2006-10-27 13:29:32

yet another issue:

forcing links to open in new windows, an example is the sig image links on the combined user pages

this is just bad, if users want a new window, they can choose to open one, don't force them

if reasons are needed, i can point you to various articles if really needed
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Lee Carre
 
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2006-11-07 00:00:11
last modified: 2006-11-07 00:09:32

willy, i'm trully impressed - after reading your post about all pages now showing the page title, any slight doubt has been removed from my mind about boincstats being the best, you trully are dedicated to making a great site, and it shows

considering your comments about the difficulty (which i can sympathise with) this is a great achievement

just one remaining minor change to reach "title perfection", that would be to change the order of the items:
currently you have:
"site name" | "section" - "page title"

however, the order is important, for example when users have a lot of IE windows crammed on the taskbar they only get to see the first dozen or so characters (or when task switching with Alt+Tab).
Reversing the order helps greatly.

besides, most applications/search engines etc. crop the page title to about 60-80 characters anyway, and it's less important if the site name is cropped, than having the page name cropped, nevermind the fact that you want the most descriptive part first, and that's the page title (imagine a user looking down a list of links, especially if they're alphabetised), also it avoids having all your actual page titles starting with the same text
having the actual page title first, the category/section, then site name is the most helpful order for the user

trust me, this stuff really does make a difference, it's noticed most with e-comerce sites, a usable site will make more sales than an unusable one, usually quite a vast difference (we're talking 50% here, that's a lot of turn over), but as for boincstats, it makes the site easier to navigate and use, making your users happier
users may not notice it (it's a subtle thing after-all) but they appreciate it, users usually give up with an unusable site

----

maybe when you have time you could address some of the other issues raised in this thread, while i'm posting, another one for you (i think that's 4 now :p), on the main BAM! "welcome" page, there are a lot of "click here" links
if you want/need suggestions for replacements, just yell
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PovAddict
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2006-11-07 03:58:33

just one remaining minor change to reach "title perfection", that would be to change the order of the items:
currently you have:
"site name" | "section" - "page title"

however, the order is important, for example when users have a lot of IE windows crammed on the taskbar they only get to see the first dozen or so characters (or when task switching with Alt+Tab).
Reversing the order helps greatly.

Following the BOINC naming tradition, maybe we could make it "Forums@BOINCstats"

just kidding!
Lee Carre
 
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2006-11-09 12:27:03

another suggestion, but about language selection, rather than trying to explain here, i'll just link to the article: indicating language choice: flags, text, both, neither?
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Index :: Comments and suggestions :: basic usability
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