Web site design+functionality issues (and various sagely banter)

yerba · 23 November 2019 01:03

To present a more polished appearance and user-friendly experience, may I suggest the following changes:

1. On the home page, the Raspberry Pi logo is not visible unless you scroll down. Thus a significant percentage of new visitors will immediately click on 'Download', after linking here from one of the many articles about Mate on various blogs & computer industry news sites. (This is a statistical inevitability.) And when the visitor clicks on Download without scrolling down the page, they will miss the Raspberry Pi logo which links to some information which impacts user experience, such as:

Notes about SD card performance
The experimental VC4 driver can be enabled via 'raspi-config'
The arm64 images do not feature any VideoCore IV hardware acceleration

...They will go on to choose their model and release, and then they will see the Download page with a button for Release Notes at the top. Because it is highly visible there, I propose placing another button next to "Release Notes" which links to the page referenced above, so more people will view the information. (It is equally important as the release notes.)

I also recommend that the section entitled "Making a microSDHC or USB" should be updated to include more polished and uniform installation methods, such as the open source 'Balena Etcher.' Furthermore, the instructions for Mac are missing entirely, and linking to a cross-platform application like Etcher will simplify documentation.

2. The forum user interface prevents me from posting in the following sections (i.e. the 'New Topic' button is disabled):

Tips, Tricks & Tutorials
Multilingual discussions

--But I can post in all of the other areas! This makes no sense.

3. Regarding the Release Notes here:

"No one reads the release notes, isn’t that right DasGeek?"

--If the type was a bit larger, they might. Then they will focus on scrolling and will not notice the intimidating size of the page until they are halfway through, and compelled to finish by sheer curiosity. With equal respect for common accessibility issues such as poor vision, I therefore recommend that you increase the size of the text by at least 50%, and here as well:

4. Regarding the following comment and the whole section:

Charles Babbage wasn’t lying when he said “The only thing that would make my Difference Engine any better would be a modern customisable desktop environment that didn’t deviate from traditional desktop paradigms (unless I wanted it to.)” --In a long lost diary entry Ada Lovelace scribbled “If only my code could be matched to an OS that had a perfect blend of usability and style accompanied by a handpicked selection of quality software packages.” --ENIAC, moments before being unplugged in 1956, spat out a final message: “Give us a reboot when Ubuntu MATE 18.04 LTS is out will ya? -- Gold star for charming wit and historical references, reminiscent of "Creative Computing"

...and HAL9000 replied: "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

Speaking of computing pioneers, here is a true historical anecdote that is equally improbable: an early software developer who wrote programs in pure binary wore a clock around his neck decades before this guy:

Flavor%20Flav

--For a retrospective future then !

lah7 · 23 November 2019 14:21

Thanks for the feedback. One of our objectives for 20.04 LTS is to overhaul the website so it's easier to discover for new users. It's a work in progress:

(Preview only)

I propose placing another button next to "Release Notes" which links to the page referenced above

I have been wondering where to place the Raspberry Pi and GPD Pocket pages without cluttering the navigation bar, so I'll try adding more links inside the download pages as well as the homepage - as the 'new' one is looking empty.

I also recommend that the section entitled " Making a microSDHC or USB " should be updated to include more polished and uniform installation methods, such as the open source 'Balena Etcher'.

Yes,, this is a section that I agree requires re-visiting. There's going to be a more central FAQ for downloads too.

Tips, Tricks & Tutorials

Multilingual discussions

These are intentionally read-only to avoid generic topics. Posting happens within the subcategories. Based on your comment, I'm now aware that that button will appear disabled if you're on the page itself which does appear odd.

I therefore recommend that you increase the size of the text by at least 50% , and here as well:

Already done. The 'new' WIP website uses a larger base font.

...and HAL9000 replied: "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

I do wonder how HAL9000 is going to handle the year 2038. Till then, open the pod bay doors!!

yerba · 24 November 2019 00:02

Possible workaround: reset the calendar.

The 13 Moon calendar synchronizes solar and galactic cycles on July 26 correlating with the star Sirius. YT

http://lawoftime.org/thirteenmoon.html

http://13moon.com/dreamspell.htm
http://13moon.com/not_the_mayan_calendar.htm

yerba · 24 November 2019 07:04

Here are some issues I found in the forum software. I was going to file bug reports with the developer, but cannot determine what you are running here.

1. The following URL is parsed incorrectly when converted to a tile within a post

https://www.samsung.com/us/compare/#category/N0002506/products/MB-MC128GA%2FAM,MB-MJ128GA%2FAM,MB-ME128GA%2FAM,MB-MP128GA%2FAM

YT The Fixx

2. Correcting an error in the title of a post grants the 'Wiki Editor' badge.

3. The post composition interface needs a button for undo and center-justify embedded image (which are features I have seen on some other forums)

4. The forum indexes show a view count for each post, but counts are not displayed on the users activity page. When the subject is bug reports or helpful tips, it would be nice to know which posts the readers are most interested in, or which kind of problems are the most common on a particular platform.

5. Changing the forum theme from light to dark in user preferences does not work in Microsoft Edge. (Not my browser and not your bug, but I have to say Edge is a real buggy turd that renders a lot of things improperly, and you might want to know about it.) A company with such wealth & resources as Microsoft could have done a lot better.

lah7 · 25 November 2019 11:32

We're using Discourse:

1. The following URL is parsed incorrectly when converted to a tile within a post

That's the website owner's fault. If you view the source of that link, you'll see some meta tags do indeed say "null | Samsung US".

2. Correcting an error in the title of a post grants the ' Wiki Editor ' badge.

If you're referring to this recent post, that's because it is a wiki post (by default for tips/trick categories) Easy way to earn the badge though!

3. The post composition interface needs a button for undo and center-justify embedded image (which are features I have seen on some other forums)

Good idea, looks like it's already been suggested:

Not sure if text justification may be one since there isn't a standard for that in Markdown, which is the primary editor. I don't think Discourse would want to encourage rich text editing with custom fonts, text sizes and colours, which reminds me of traditional forums.

4. The forum indexes show a view count for each post, but counts are not displayed on the users activity page.

It sure does for the Topics section, which makes sense as it's their topic:

For post activity, I don't see much value in knowing how popular it is and would add a bit of clutter.

That's just my opinion. You could suggest this to Discourse developers, unless I've misunderstood #4?

5. Changing the forum theme from light to dark in user preferences does not work in Microsoft Edge .

Edge will soon be based on Chromium, maybe ported to Linux too so... we could wait this one out due to other priorities, unless there's significant demand.

Etcher · 25 November 2020 08:26

Very Helpful thread, i can now able to get my answer from comments. Thanks.