Re: Mailing list archives: feeback requested on proposed improvements (3: messages)

Comments (part 3) on:
http://www.w3.org/2002/03/archives-improvements/ml-message

The page I experimented with is at
http://www.cwi.nl/~steven/w3c/lists/ml-message.html
(It still needs work)(I haven't touched the footer navbar)
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I don't see the value of the bullets in the navbar.
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(I won't repeat suggestion made in earlier messages)
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There's no reason to include the message headers in the <pre>. Only the body
of the message needs to be <pre>.
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Message pages are very noisy. Your primary aim is to read the message, the
other things are secondary; yet you have to do a lot to get to the message
body. I have experimented with quietening them down. The information is
still there (in the titles), but not so in your face.
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See other changes on the example page mentioned above.
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General comments on navigation.

I note that the hierarchy of the lists are as follows:

1: Archives (many lists)
2: List (one particular list)
3: Sorted view (by author, by date, etc)
4: Message.

Looking at the navigation you can always get from level n to level n+1.

You can get from 4 to 3
You can get from 4 to 1
You can get from 3 to 1

But you can't get from 4 to 2, from 3 to 2, or from 2 to 1: level 2 seems to
be level-non-grata. You can only get to it by going to 1, and then down
again, and from that level you can only get to its parent by going down one
level, and up two (which I often end up doing).

I suggest that level 2 be treated as a first class citizen, so that you can
get to it from all its descendents, and you can get from it to its parent.

Steven

Received on Wednesday, 27 March 2002 08:00:34 UTC