Re: from Henk: Some thoughts about the new design

Hi, Henk,

Thanks for your comments.

> looking for. The box under the navigation is by its format already clear 
> as having some extra options. So there is no need  for a list format or 
> brackets around the options.

After some discussion [1], the WSTF agreed that bullets are useful to help distinguish items when the lines wrapped. For example, with large fonts it could look like:
WAI Site Map
Help with WAI 
Site
image
Translations
image About RSS
image WAI Site 
Search

We felt the brackets made it harder to read.

The preliminary decision to use small list bullets is, of course, for EOWG review. Let me know if you are OK with it as is now (with list bullets), or if you think it needs further discussion.

> The link 'W3C Home' is not clear, without hovering the mouse over the 
> word 'W3C Home' there is no format clue to know that this is a link to 
> the W3C homepage. It is even a bit strange as solitude word on top of 
> the navigation.

Yes, we know this is not ideal visual design. In the previous major design prototype that we did formal usability testing on (http://www.w3.org/WAI/ut2/gettingstarted.html), we had W3C Home within a darker box. That did poorly in testing as people clicked on it when they wanted to go back to the WAI home page.

Do you have suggestions for easy fixes? Would adding "Page" to it be a big improvement (i.e., "W3C Home Page")?

Or, do you think we can list this as an open issue and address it after the first release of the new site, rather than holding up the rollout of the new site to address it now?

(WSTF, since we didn't get to this on the telecon, please comment on list.)

> To me it is not clear to be on the Web Accessibility Initiative web 
> site. This is because of the fact that the word Web Accessibility 
> Initiative is rather small and is a part of a long sentence. See my 
> sample what I thought would be more clear. (wai.png)

Yes, again we know this is not ideal visual design. We had different alignment in http://www.w3.org/WAI/ut2/ but that didn't do well with larger fonts. We had hoped to refine this visual design to have a different "treatment" of the "tagline"; however, we had chosen to move forward as is for the first release.

Note that in usability testing of http://www.w3.org/WAI/ut2/ everyone easily identified the site.

Do you think it enough for now that:
- "Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Home" is at the top of the navigation bar
- there is an "About WAI" link on all pages
- the "WAI" acronym is well known within Web accessibility community and most people coming to the site
?

I think making the orange bar larger to accommodate larger test would make it too strong ascetically. Perhaps left aligning the text would help?

If we don't come up with an easy solution, do you think we can list this as an open issue and address it after the first release of the new site, rather than holding up the rollout of the new site to address it now?

> What I already said in last call, the two logos appear to me as if the 
> web site is representing two different organizations. That's why I was 
> in favour of a WAI logo that is more in the look and feel of the W3C 
> logo. Or it should be much smaller that the W3C logo. (See image wai2.png).

Yes, I understood your comment in EOWG. This is a particular challenge because, quite frankly, the W3C logo is very unappealing to many and we want a good looking WAI logo. Anyway, the next iteration of the WAI logos will have at least one that more closely aligns with the W3C logo.

Also note that in usability testing, some users didn't distinguish that there were two logos (rather than just one), so this is a reason we might want to make them look distinct from each other (though still in harmony :).

Best,
~ Shawn

[1] http://www.w3.org/2005/06/27-wstf-irc.html

Received on Tuesday, 28 June 2005 02:07:41 UTC