Re: validator results page - don't break web with fancy features - show information with more clicks

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for this thoughtful and detailed message.

On Mar 9, 2007, at 04:58 , Daniel Barclay wrote:
> At a higher level, what seems to have been broken or not followed
> is the principle of having each resource identified by a URI (as
> recommended by _Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One_
> at http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#uri-benefits).

I don't think this has anything to do with web architecture. The  
resource "results of validation for http://www.example.com (validated  
with options foo and bar)" is properly identified by a URI, and can  
be bookmarked, mailed, etc. This is different from a lot of scripting- 
heavy sites.

The question here is one of user interface, not of web architecture.
I do understand your concern UI-wise, hence this discussion, however.

> Why not have the default settings generate a page without warnings,
> and (assuming you still want the page generated with default settings
> to have easy access to the warnings), make the warnings heading/link
> be a (regular) link to a page with the warnings?




>
> Hey, this might be better:
> That is, when the user clicks on the Warnings link to display the
> warnings that are already contained in the returned HTML, also display
> a link with a URI that will retrieve the page with the warnings
> displayed (not hidden).




>
> > ... At this point I've been
> > experimenting with a slightly adapted look and feel for the Markup
> > Validator:
> > http://qa-dev.w3.org/wmvs/HEAD/check?uri=http%3A%2F% 
> 2Fwww.apple.com%2F;ss;st
> >
> > Would this also work for the CSS validator? Would it be better  
> than what
> > we have at present?
>
> I'm not sure which aspect of it you're asking about.

I am asking about the way the results are displayed, and specifically  
about the bar at the top with links to particular aspects of the  
results. I reckon this is closer to what you would like to see for  
the CSS validator. Hence my pointing it to you.

> However, I do notice two problems:
>
> 1.  Something in the page structure prevents the browser from wrapping
>     the wrappable text (the error message text, e.g., "You have used
>     the attribute named above...") to fit the browser window.  The
>     page requires the user to scroll horizontally more that the user
>     should have to do so.


This is because of a very long line without any space in the source  
display, making the viewport extremely wide.
It does not generally happen, e.g
http://qa-dev.w3.org/wmvs/HEAD/check?uri=http://qa-dev.w3.org/wmvs/ 
HEAD/dev/tests/xhtml1-bogus-element.html;ss



> 2.  The Cleaned-Up Source section has a serious usability problem
>     because it tries to do scrolling internally:

That is not a bug, it's a feature. Unlike the source display above,  
the tidied source is there to be copy-pasted, not looked at  
extensively. This is why it is put in a pre, with scrolling overflow,  
to avoid making the global window too large (something you agree is a  
usability problem, see your comment above).

Thank you,

-- 
olivier

Received on Friday, 9 March 2007 01:46:28 UTC