demo-wide navigation (was Re: "Beyond the Demo" page)

Hi Tom, Eric,

I hear your concerns, let's talk more later today about the possibility 
of solutions for these. Please find inline below some clarifications on 
the motivations and the requirements for proposing the current design:


Thomas Jewett wrote:
> Hi, Shadi --
> 
> I see what Eric is talking about -- in particular, I found
> the "tab" bar to be confusing -- probably best left out here.

The basic issue is getting back and forth between the meta-pages and 
actual sample pages. This has been the problem in the past. More below.


> A couple of other obserations:
> 
> I don't quite understand the difference between barrier lists
> and the reports. Would there be a possible confusion between
> the barriers and WCAG 2 (which we're trying to emphasize)?

The barriers/features will be more or less the annotations but in a way 
that can be printed out separately. Actually this is a residue from the 
previous version of BAD that did not have the annotations functions. We 
can discuss if the barriers/features are still useful or not.


> Also, and I'm guessing this is a artifact of the stock WAI template,
> but the expand/collapse of left nav doesn't work as I'd expect,
> e.g. with barrier descriptions and evaluation reports.

Technically there isn't really an expand/collapse function in the WAI 
navigation but rather a progressive expand as you dig deeper into the 
different areas of interest. We're mostly stuck with this design.


> Sounds like a lot to talk about in the morning :-)

Indeed! More clarifications below...


> On Wed, 30 Sep 2009 06:03:18 +0200
>  Eric Eggert <w3c@yatil.de> wrote:
>> Hi Shadi.
>>
>>> Please have a look at the latest edit (linked below) and let me know 
>>> if you
>>> continue to have concerns. I think I've addressed the jumping back 
>>> and forth
>>> issue that you raised.
>>>  - <http://www.w3.org/WAI/demos/bad/draft/2009/>
>>
>> Actually not, it is even more confusing then I’ve thought. For
>> example, if you click on “Evaluation Reports” you get to a site which
>> shows the navigation to the demo websites as the most prominent
>> interface element. Users will click onto the tabs (which are barely
>> recognizable as tabs as there is no content area), as they’d expect
>> they are in context and will take them to the evaluation report of the
>> different pages.

The issue with the previous design of BAD is that when the users went to 
the report pages or barrier descriptions, they could not get back to the 
sample page that they were looking at. We need to address this issue.

My idea was that users may recognize the tabs as a way of getting back 
to the sample pages, but maybe we need a different interface element. 
Fact is that we need a way of getting from the sample pages to the meta 
pages associated with them, and back again. Suggestions welcome.


>> Then there is an accessible/inaccessible switch which doesn’t do what
>> all the other elements in that navigation do: It switches _inside_ the
>> documentation, not the demo.

Yes, I thought about that too. We can remove it if it is too confusing.


>> I am not even a fan of having the same link („Evaluation Report“) in
>> our meta header to link to different pages, I think it should link to
>> the evaluation report overview page.

I was unsure about the benefit of linking to the sub-overview pages, as 
it only forces the user to make yet another click.


>> Even I am confused now. The whole frankennavigation doesn’t work that
>> way, it was never intended to. Look at the old version, where you have
>> all barriers on one page:
>> <http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/2005/Demo/features>

Users had great difficulty with that design for several reasons:

#1. either they were sent somewhere inside that page from the sample 
pages and did not understand where they were, or they were sent to the 
top of the page and did not understand that they need to scroll down.

#2. once they finished reading the descriptions, there was no easy way 
to get back to the sample pages (the links "inaccessible @@@ page" and 
"accessible @@@ page" were not clear enough to most users).


>> Of course that shouldn’t be the case with the reports but it
>> simplifies to a great extent, and that is what we need. We should have
>> a clear line between “these are the demo pages” and “that is the
>> documentation”, I think it is wrong to mix them together and will lead
>> to confusion anyway.

We need to think of the "demo" as the "sample pages" *plus* the "meta 
pages". It is one entire thing, unfortunately packaged yet again within 
another existing site (the WAI site). We need to figure out navigation 
for the entire demo within the WAI site, and it won't be an easy task.


>> Why not just use a list of links linking to the demo if that is 
>> necessary? Tabs are for in-context viewing, but the context on the 
>> documentation changes all the time, so that is confusing.

You mean to the sample pages -- yes, this is precisely the idea. I'd be 
happy for a suggestion on how this "list of links" could look like. I'm 
not stuck on the tabs but I do think there is merit to the recognition 
aspect -- maybe we can use a similar interface element for these links.

Let's talk more later today...

Best,
   Shadi

-- 
Shadi Abou-Zahra - http://www.w3.org/People/shadi/ |
   WAI International Program Office Activity Lead   |
  W3C Evaluation & Repair Tools Working Group Chair |

Received on Wednesday, 30 September 2009 09:39:41 UTC