Re: Mailing list archives: feeback requested on proposed improvements

At 06:15 PM 2002-03-27 , David Booth wrote:
>Dom (and others),
>
>I didn't see any sign of my suggestions being incorporated in the new 
>example that you posted at 
>http://www.w3.org/2002/03/archives-improvements/ml-message , so I'm 
>wondering if they were missed.  I had sent them only to the 
>wai-xtech@w3.org list, which I thought you were requesting.
>

Yes, but somehow all your attachments that we need to review are in Team space.  The wai-xtech list is a public readable space, exhibits for this discussion should also be.  Please get us some public visible copies of your edits.

Generally speaking, making the context navigation reflect a common worldview of the context is a very good thing.  I look forward to reviewing how you set it up.

Thanks,

Al

>The most important suggestion I had was to put a hierarchical navigation 
>line at the top of each page, to indicate the current position in the list 
>hierarchy.  Here are my suggestions again, for the benefit of all.  If you 
>or anyone else thinks that any of these suggestions would be ill-advised, 
>please explain.  Thanks.
>
>----
>
>From: David Booth
>Subject: Re: Proposed improvements to the mailing lists archives
>
>Dom & Al,
>
>Thanks for doing this.  I was just talking at lunch last week about the
>confusing format of the list archives, and how I had not yet figured out
>how to easily navigate them.
>
>Here are my suggestions.  Note that I have created some annotated screen
>shots for explanation, and also some suggested new HTML markup, all
>referenced below.
>
>1. At present, http://lists.w3.org/Archives/  yields nothing.  Make it
>forward to http://lists.w3.org/ .
>
>2. The hierarchical structure and navigation of the many lists is not
>clearly reflected in the page format.  See this annotated example of a
>message page:
>
>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Team/w3t-archive/2002Mar/att-0225/01-archive-msg-problems2.JPG
>
>And this annotated example of a list page:
>
>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Team/w3t-archive/2002Mar/att-0225/02-archive-list-problems2.JPG
>
>This problem can be solved by placing a consistent navigation line at the
>top of each page, to indicate the current position in the hierarchical
>structure, with the higher elements hot-linked, like these:
>
>          [1] (Message)
>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Team/w3t-archive/2002Mar/att-0225/03-archive-msg-format.html
>          [2] (List)
>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Team/w3t-archive/2002Mar/att-0227/01-archives-list-format.html
>          [3] (Public)
>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Team/w3t-archive/2002Mar/att-0225/04-archive-public-format.html

>          [4] (Top)
>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Team/w3t-archive/2002Mar/att-0225/05-archive-top.html
>
>Note the addition of the navigation line at the top of each page, showing
>our context in the list hierarchy.  Sorry about the crude arrows in the
>navigation line.  They should be replaced with something more attractive,
>but I didn't have anything else handy.
>
>3. The pages above ([1] [2] [3] [4]) also contain a few other format
>suggestions, to help clarify the pages, save space, and increase
>consistency.  In particular, they contain the following suggested changes:
>
>          In [1]: Moved the hierarchical navigation to the top of the page,
>as explained above.  Moved the Starting and Ending dates to the same line
>as one displaying the number of messages, to save vertical space.
>
>          In [2]: Added the hierarchical navigation line to the top.
>
>          In [3]: Changed the heading and title to "Mailing List Archives:
>Public".   (The "Member" and "Team" versions should be changed
>correspondingly.)  Added W3C logo and the hierarchical navigation line to
>the top.
>
>          In [4]: Changed the heading and title to be more user
>friendly.  Changed the list descriptions to  be more consistent.  (So each
>one is called ". . . list archives".)  I neglected to put the hierarchical
>navigation line at the top, but maybe it should be there, for consistency
>with [1] [2] and [3].
>
>The MOST important of these suggestions is to use a hierarchical navigation
>line at the top.
>
>Thanks,
>
>David Booth
>W3C Fellow / Hewlett-Packard
>Telephone: +1.617.253.1273
>
>At 04:58 PM 3/27/2002 +0100, Dominique Hazaël-Massieux wrote:
>>Ian, David, Steven,
>>
>>I've tried to implement most of the suggestions I said I would. Would
>>you care having a look at it and tell me what do you think? I'm
>>especially interested on comments about the new message page which is
>>much shorter now:
>>http://www.w3.org/2002/03/archives-improvements/ml-message
>>
>>Al,
>>
>>The pages have changed noticeably and some of the changes we made
>>together were affected: you might want to have a close look at it.
>>
>>Dom
>>--
>>Dominique Hazaël-Massieux - http://www.w3.org/People/Dom/
>>W3C's Webmaster
>>mailto:dom@w3.org
>
>David Booth
>W3C Fellow / Hewlett-Packard
>Telephone: +1.617.253.1273
>

Received on Wednesday, 27 March 2002 20:37:32 UTC