Re: beta.w3.org

On 9 Apr 2009, at 4:34 AM, Lee says Yeah wrote:

> Hey all.
>
> Great work on the new beta site for W3C.
>
> I've posted some thoughts here:
> http://yousayyeah.com/article/2009/04/thoughts_on_the_world_wide_web_consortiums_beta_site

Hi Lee,

I'm still making my way through beta comments. Thank you for sending  
yours. Some comments inline.
I've added some issues to the page I'm using to track issues:
   http://www.w3.org/2009/04/beta-comments
>
> Full text:
> Wow. There is some chaos going on when you shrink your browser  
> window here http://beta.w3.org. The behaviour actual seems much more  
> correct in Safari 4 Beta than Firefox 3 on the Mac. More on the  
> motivation in this A List Apart article on Fluid grids.

We've reworked the home page:
   http://beta.w3.org/

Is the chaos still there?

>
>
> More importantly, there are two odd design decisions which affect  
> you when you're not goofing around with your browser size:
>
> • The contextual left nav shows on the homepage, but disappears on  
> all other landing pages, only to reappear when you click through  
> from a landing page to other content within the section. I get that  
> the landing page has pretty icons which point you to the sub nav  
> sections, but that's no reason to force people to find the link  
> they're looking for in the main body, particularly on subsequent  
> visits. Inconsistent menu behaviour is simply frustrating as hell.  
> Especially with the homepage defaulting to show the Standards sub  
> nav, which is way out of context at that point. Just leave the left  
> nav on the landing pages instead of jumping on and off the screen.

The left side navigation is for siblings. Three notes:

  1) For the standards / participate / membership / about pages (they  
are all siblings and the children
      of the home page), we did not show them on the left side since  
the top navigation and breadcrumbs
      allow you to reach those pages. A consequence is that as soon as  
you hit one of those pages you
      see nothing on the left side, which may cause more confusion  
than noise of seeing those links
     repeated on both left and top.

  2) One pages with no siblings, there is no left side navigation.

  3) The home page is different from other pages. The question is  
whether "it's ok for the home page
      to be different) or whether there should be no left side  
navigation at all since there are no siblings
     of the home page.

>
>
> • Also, I'm getting used to the Talks, Events, News content sub-sub  
> menu on each of the Standards section sub pages, but I was initially  
> surprised at the lack of method to visually identify this content  
> which shows further down on each sub page (showing in two columns,  
> same text formatting, with Events buried under Talks).

I'm not sure what you mean yet: there are headings for Talks and  
Events (in the left column) and
News (in the right column). Do you mean that they don't stand out  
enough? Here's a sample page:
  http://beta.w3.org/standards/webdesign/


> Never mind that there's a whole section of key info underneath the  
> Talk, Events, News menu that isn't categorized. (So what's this  
> stuff? Size and hierarchy says it's more important, but you've got  
> to read through to the links after each of the descriptions to  
> figure out what you're clicking on, particularly here: http://beta.w3.org/standards/xmlcore/ 
> . This section should be prominently labelled in the Talks, Events,  
> News menu, no? Say, called Specifications.

I see your point. The purpose of the Talks / Events / News menu at the  
top was to let you skip past the
general introduction. I take your point that we might benefit from a  
link to the introduction as well.

>
> Finally, is there really no line spacing support in mobile browsing,  
> because the mobile view is illegible. One line of text is literally  
> sitting on top of the next. Maybe line spacing is set on the mobile  
> browser itself and, as a non-mobile browser, I should quit making  
> assumptions about mobile line spacing. Either way, mobile browsing  
> is clearly broken.

Can you provide more information on what browser you are using?

Thanks!

  _ Ian

>
>
> Talk to you soon.
>
> Lee Dale
> Culture, Inspiration
> & Community
> ________
> Say Yeah!
>
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--
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)    http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/
Tel:                                      +1 718 260 9447

Received on Monday, 18 May 2009 19:22:26 UTC