Introducing X2 forums and website redesign feedback
OfflineA warm welcome to all X2 folk!
My name is Abhay Sukumaran, and I recently started working with IFTF as collaborative media designer. My primary responsibility is to redesign the X2 website in order to make it a more usable, lively, and productive community.
We at IFTF would like to thank everyone currently on the site for their continued contributions to the site. We have some great content on X2, but many of the mechanics of the site can be improved, and this is a process that we are starting right now. Being big believers in participatory design, we want to start a conversation with the X2 user community around this redesign process. We'll also be interviewing users over the phone, putting up prototypes for you to evaluate, and bringing in mini-polls and surveys to get a better idea of what is going on.
The first step in starting this conversation is the X2 Forum. The forum works like web-based bulletin boards anywhere - it is moderated by IFTF staff, but you are free to start new topics of discussion. For instance, we'd love for you to respond to this thread with your ideas of what works and what doesn't on the current X2 website. This is very much a ground-up redesign, so feel free to be as specific or as broad as you like.
some of the ideas on the horizon in the near term are --
- redesigning the signals entry and viewing interface
- introducing our first games into the site
- having groups that allow peer-to-peer discussions
Warm regards,
~abhay
Comments
Thanks!
Thanks for getting the forum started Abhay.
My name is Mathias Crawford, and I too work on X2. All of us are anxious to hear your feedback, so please let us know everything and anything you think about the site.
mathias
Thoughts...
I am hoping that this post works, when I first submitted via the forum (logged in) I simply got redirected to the About page.
Here are a few issues to consider when beginning the x2 redesign.
1) Socialized content-There isn't an easy way right now to socialize content to other sites that has been created on X2. While authors or users can certainly cut/paste content none of the standard 2.0 tools such as "share this" are incorporated into the site. Without the ability to socialize content I think you are missing out on synergy opportunities.
2) Tracking x2 content: The lack of real simple syndication across the site makes it difficult to track on a daily basis new content posted to X2. I would like to be able to have RSS feeds for my own personal dashboard and also any group that I subscribe to.
3) Navigation too complex and linguistically complicated: The current x2 navigation is in my opinion too complex. You have eight links in the upper right hand corner of the site which are coupled with a side navigation containing 23 sidebar items. It is not clear what many of the side navigation items are supposed to do. For example, the "recent hits" appears to link back to a classic project about page.
Linguistically complicated: To most users the nuance between a signal, forecast, and hypothesis would not be clear. Even after being a user for 9 months my gestalt is that a signal is the most basic post (basically an FYI) while the others attempt to do more analysis and projections of impact within a given timeframe.
4) Some current features don't work: When I login to my dashboard I will frequently see multiple items which show up as being unread in my group although in some cases I have read and even commented on them.
5) No inner site communication tools: There are no tools on the site that promote communication among users while they are on the site. So, at best right now I can see who else is online but have no way to communicate with them. In the group tab there is an email to group tab but it actually contains a label that says to use is sparingly! In my one test of the site when I did send email two things happened: 1) the mail went to almost everyone in the groups spam list meaning it was never seen, 2) for those who saw the mail they had no way to respond back (no return email address, and no internal com tools is a real handicap here.
If you are looking for beta testers as you move forward on redesign please let me know.
Thanks
Jerry Sheehan
Manager for Government Program Development @ Calit2/UCSD
phone: 858.336.2622
yahoo: calit2s
skype: zenchaos
twitter: www.twitter.com/zenchaos
Great feedback!
Thanks Jerry. Here are some thoughts on the issues you have raised:
1) socializing x2 content to other places -- what are the communities you think we should export "share it" buttons to? For instance, places like digg, reddit, or facebook? Or more specific scientific communities? Do we have a sense of which scientific communities are most hooked into 2.0?
2) feeds for X2 & navigational fixes -- agreed, already in wishlist.
3) Linguistic complication: communicating correctly the notion of a signal and their link to forecasts etc. is one of the core questions. As we see it right now, a signal is "an indicator of future change", and one of the changes in the signaling interface we are considering is incorporating more of the "interpretation" bit into the signaling rather than just the "FYI" bit.
4) I'm going to start a public buglist for such issues, as a separate forum topic.
5) Groups -- agreed, already in redesign.
Feedback on Your Feedback
1) Socializing Content: Think it is difficult to predict what your most valuable community might be. However, there is some interesting new data out today that suggests that facebook is the leading social bookmarking service (number of bookmark sent vs total sbmarks contained).
The issue in my mind isn't to define the right target silo but rather to have technologies that can liberate your content into various new communication channels. The reality is today's hot channel will likely not even exist within a year. More tools to get content out will allow you to leverage network impact regardless of their long term viability.
2) Great on simplified navigation and RSS. Both of those should make user experience substantially better.
3) Signal vs hypothesis: Maybe this is an area for some visual representation of the concept. Is the goal to take all signals to being hypothesis?
4) Buglist would be great. I'd also remember to watch out for cross browser compatibility issues. We ran into this in our last redesign.
5) Stats on use: One other thought would be to include somewhere on the site more data on how it is being used: 1) number of users, 2) number of hits, 3) number of new signals, etc.
Jerry
(Feedback)^3
Hi Jerry:
Thanks a lot for your comments.
I was wondering if you could expand a little on comment #1, regarding socializing content. Abhay and I definitely agree that making the content readily transportable to other platforms is a key step to rendering the site as useful as possible. It remains unclear, however, how to do this in the current framework of signals & higher level content (hypotheses, forecasts, etc.). I suppose this ties into your third point as well, since the mechanisms for moving from signals to HLC is a bit fuzzy at the moment, but I'd love to hear what your views are regarding the utility of the site's content and how it could be exported for use elsewhere.
Clearly this is a rather large topic, but I think getting a discussion going on this is crucial to the long-term success of the X2 platform.
Thanks again for your input,
Mathias Crawford
Feedback ^3
I think you have a variety of options regarding when to socialize content. The foundational question is if you want to enable socialization of all x2 content or if you wanted it reserved for a certain level of content? For example, what if you only built the bridge to other sites for hypothesis or forecasts? You could of course imagine further customization of this concept, perhaps you write a quick facebook applet that allows others to embed fully developed forecasts into their fb pages?
My thought regarding a visual was that perhaps you need to get users acclimated to the point that signals are supposed to transition to hypothesis and forecasts. Perhaps a bar graph that would show how far each signal is in this evolution.
Is there one of these (hypo I think) that only allow you to pair to one signal? I found this confusing in the past....
Jerry Sheehan
Manager for Government Program Development @ Calit2/UCSD
phone: 858.336.2622
yahoo: calit2s
skype: zenchaos
twitter: www.twitter.com/zenchaos
Content structure
Hi Jerry:
Thanks again for the comments. I think that your confusion re: the structure of hypotheses as they relate to signals is definitely an area that we are trying to get a firm handle on. We are currently in the midst of a fairly extensive evaluation/redesign of this process, so hopefully when we roll out the new design, the means by which the various elements of the site fit together will be a lot more coherent.
Mathias
Some thoughts
Hi,
My name is Piyush Gupta. As one of the content contributors to X2 platform, I feel the following:
1. Rich Editor needed for creating neat looking content is missing. Though the use of HTML tags is allowed but the rich editor can dramatically improve the efficiency.
2. RSS Feeds as already discussed is the need. I realize that you are already working on the same.
3. Can we enable tracking comments on our Signals/Forecasts through e-mails as well?
I shall discuss more thoughts going forward.
Thanks,
Piyush Gupta
Thanks, Piyush. about 1)
Thanks, Piyush.
about
1) we're transitioning from TinyMCE (the editor currently used ), likely to FCK
http://www.fckeditor.net/demo
if you're interested, here's a list of rich text editors supported by drupal modules -
http://groups.drupal.org/node/10104
Let us know if you have a strong preference there.
2) about tracking comments - thanks, we hadn't considered using email for this yet. we can probably build something that lets you set notification / digest options.
Rich Editor
FCKeditor is good enough. IMO this perhaps shows most comprehensive set of features amongst all.
Thanks for considering the suggestions. Look forward to the changes :)
Recent events on the home site in 1 stream
Hi,
I would suggest to put every recent events from the log on the main http://sciencex2.org site in 1 stream instead of the recent Recent signals with high rating, Recent comments, Recent hypotheses and so on structure thereby allowing the explorers of the site to instantly see where things are happening right now on X2. The high rating emphasis is not that important when the priority is to show the latest contributions to the site.
Attila
signals / everything else?
@attilla --
thanks for the suggestion, firstly
We've been thinking about different ways to organize the viewing / browsing interface. One of the ways, similar to what you suggest, is a "blogger" model where a continous stream of content is updated with different signals, forecasts, set, pools, etc.
If we go with this model, we would need to decide whether *every* new piece of site content gets promoted to this feed, ways to filter it, provide different lenses on it (maybe scope by fields of science)?
Regarding types of content on the site, I've started a new thread called "From signals to forecasts" that suggest different content types on the X2 platform. It would be great if you could look at that & post your thoughts.
Time Frame for New Design?
Is there a time frame for the new design?
Thanks
Jerry Sheehan
Manager for Government Program Development @ Calit2/UCSD
phone: 858.336.2622
yahoo: calit2s
skype: zenchaos
twitter: www.twitter.com/zenchaos
10 weeks
following roughly this order --
- signals creation
- signal sets/pools
- enhanced groups
- forecasts and site navigation
- visual design and themeing
- account creation, login, dashboard pages
signals is going to be rolled out this week. look for additional forum posts explaining the changes, and of course feedback is welcomed with open arms.
Image Upload is Clunky
Just one other quick usability note, I just tried to append an image to a post and found the experience clunky. First, you don't get the option to include an image until after the body of the text post. This means you write, then add the image. Second, when you upload an image and are asked to insert it into the post if you are out of the post box at that time it seems virtually impossible to have it inserted into the right text. In my case the image ended up down in the citations and I had to cut/paste the code back up into the body text.
Anyone else?
Jerry Sheehan
Manager for Government Program Development @ Calit2/UCSD
phone: 858.336.2622
yahoo: calit2s
skype: zenchaos
twitter: www.twitter.com/zenchaos
now inline
Image upload is now inline in the new signals interface rolling out this week. You can literally ctrl-C and ctrl-V images into the editor.
Still Having Image Upload Problems, Firefox on a Mac
I am still having image upload problems, just tried to upload a 36kb image for insertion into an article and was told it was beyond the dimension accepted. My guess is the 500*500 didn't work. Why limit the size on upload and not instead hard code the tool to size at say 150*200?
Related Links
Would you please allow us to manually adjust the list of related links to forecasts? The automated links are not always the most relevant.
China Group Webpage?
Would it be possible to set up a webpage for the China group, which would have its own special features such as support for posting and discussion in Chinese? I would like to tap more of an audience in China. My main concern is avoiding content that might get blocked, which might mean having the page hosted and vetted through the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
check out the new groups
Philip, does the new groups feature fulfil these needs? Please let us know what your experience is like if you decide to start a group of your own on X2.
New Group Page
The new page looks great. However, it is not exactly what I had in mind. I would like to be able to categorize content to build up a resource page comprehensively covering all major research projects in China. Eventually, I would like to put this information on an interactive map. I would also like to have a mirror site in Chinese to make this content more accessible and open to discussion within China.
My more immediate concern is that my new signals are not appearing at all on the Explore page. I only see the link to them if I log in. Casual browsers who have not yet registered will not be able to see them. Would you please fix this?
New Signals Still Missing
I noticed the bug is not limited to my new signals but Jerry's as well. The signals from the past few days do not appear on the Explore page unless the user is logged in. Unregistered casual browsers will miss the content. Curiously, Alex's signals appear fine.
What happened to the rest of the content?
I was just checking out the new group page for China. The bulk of the China related posts are not accessible even after selecting "more." If you only allow users to see the most recent postings, this is is no different than the main general home and explore pages. Users looking for more special interest materials will have a more difficult time.
Spacing is Strange
When I cut and paste from another editor into the WYSWIG editor everything looks fine but when I preview or upload it appears to be doubling the spacing between paragraphs. The only way I can find to eliminate this is to go back and delete all of the spaces.