some CD issues/wishlist items

I tried to look at the Community Directory today, while we were talking
about it, with a critical eye, imagining what might be problems for a
first-time user.  This is no substitute for real usability testing, but
it's a lot faster and cheaper.  :-)

Please forgive the critical tone here -- it comes with the critical eye.

If we start to use an issue tracker, I'm happy to put these there and
try to rank and categorize them.   I'm willing to fix some of these, if
it's not too hard to learn how.  (I've sat through two talks on
Callimachus and I still don't understand it.)

     -- Sandro


* I don't know what "View by Directory" means.  Maybe it should be
  "List of Organizations"

* I think the "DOWNLOAD" link should be on the left, visible on every 
  page.  Right now it's buried on the About page which people don't want
  to read.

* SPARQL link should not require login (unless the underlying engine
  has no defense against DoS, I guess).  Also, it shouldn't be in an
  admin feature.

* Admin options probably shouldnt be available, at least when not
  logged in

* I can't find a way to upload RDF data (but if we allow upload, we'll
  need some validation/vetting to prevent someone easily, even
  accidentally, flooding the system with junk.)

* system should actually do its own downloading - let people submit URLs
  from which the system will fetch their data (in RDFa, RDF/XML, Turtle, 
  (maybe SPARQL)) every day or so.

* front page (dir.w3.org) should be the best view of the data, not a
  splash page.  Splash pages are annoying.  Each page should just have 
  visible links to pages for editing/adding-to the data.

* URLs should be shorter/simpler/less-implementation-specific, not
  "http://dir.w3.org/callimachus/lookup?q=w3c" but
  "http://dir.w3.org/about/org/w3c"

* "Main page" link on the left is blank/access-controlled

* "Contents" link on the left doesn't give me the contents of the
  directory.  It's very confusing if I'm looking for vendors, etc.

* "All pages" link on the left doesn't make sense, for a directory, I
  think.

* "Recent Changes" should be changes to the data, not to the templates
  (or maybe it is -- links are access controlled)

* "About" should probably include some kind of blog/news about the
  directory, too.

* In search results, it's not clear what to click on, or what the rdf
  logo means on a search result.

* In the upper left, under the W3C logo, the phrase "Community
  Directory" should be "GLD Community Directory", so people don't
  think this is the "W3C Community" Directory

Received on Wednesday, 25 January 2012 22:21:01 UTC