Fwd: Re: Proposed improvements to the mailing lists archives

[I am resending this at Dom's request, with references corrected inline, 
since I had incorrectly linked to W3C Team-only archives instead of public 
archives.  --D. Booth]

>Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 12:07:44 -0500
>To: wai-xtech@w3.org
>From: David Booth <dbooth@w3.org>
>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

URL should be: 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2002Mar/att-0059/01-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

URL should be: 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2002Mar/att-0059/02-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

URLs should be:
[1] (Message) 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2002Mar/att-0059/03-archive-msg-format.html
[2] (List) 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2002Mar/att-0060/01-archives-list-format.html
[3] (Public) 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2002Mar/att-0059/04-archive-public-format.html
[4] (Top) 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2002Mar/att-0059/05-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

David Booth
W3C Fellow / Hewlett-Packard
Telephone: +1.617.253.1273

Received on Thursday, 28 March 2002 15:17:44 UTC