In answer to thomas :

Do we agree then to keep everything in Jira then ?

Because as of now, there are 3 sources:
- THe original email
- the wiki page:

https://wiki.corp.jboss.com/bin/view/SystemsEngineering/Portal2_6Usability?skin=blueskin
- Jira

I will have to spend quite some time to create JIRA tasks for the 40
issues mentionned.

In answer to Thomas:

Yes, i could have done it on the Wiki or in the email much faster ;)

My problem in estimating time is also about making things pretty, i'm
not a Gimp Guru, when i read:
"Consider using icon images (with alt attributes set to the name of the
function) for actions in the lists in this portlet."

First, Jacob Nielsen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Nielsen_(usability_consultant)
would get mad to hear that to improve usability we should change text to
images (even with alt). I should read his book again, he also released a
new version of his book, that i was about to buy.
IMO, the CMS icons don't make the CMS editor easier to understand.


Second, it can take 15 minutes *if* i have the icons, but much longer if
i have to design the meaningful icons.

I'd like us to be pragmatic, either i get the icons from someone but we
have been asking for a designer for years or this Jira task is doomed
and we move on and release with simple explicit text.

I agree with you, the original design is "iconless" and has been defined as such initially by James Cobb.

Let's drop that requirement from "first pass" and we will eventually add it on the "second pass" once the first pass has been implemented and we have an improved UI.

Please update the JIRA tasks accordingly.

"thomas.heute@jboss.com" wrote:
I am still not convinced to replace the text with icons (even with alt text) for usability reasons.

What we can do is it add icons to current text, pretty much like there is on the developer bar of the firefox extension: http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/
See the tabs: CSS | Forms | Images | Information

use javascript and put those buttons out of the FORM.

<input type="submit" onclick="document.forms["form1"].submit();"/>

"bdaw" wrote:
ok... maybe its a lame html problem but...

there are a lot of tasks like:

The cancel link should be a button styled similarly to the "Save Changes" button, with a slight amount of spacing between the two buttons.

it comes from the fact that in all views there is "Save" button and "Cancel" link. I guess it comes from a good reason that both need to trigger different portal URLs. Its hard to align such buttons (two forms) in a single row on the page and keep the functionality. Any suggestions?

After the first pass of requirements we'll ask probably your help.

"james.cobb@jboss.com" wrote:
Hello guys,

We've added a second UI designer to the design team. We now have the capacity to help more. Let us know if you'd like us to engage in any fashion.

James

It looks to me that nobody is responsible for usability by and large for the portal project at JBoss/Red Hat but everybody has its opinion.

Roy and Jame Cobb were responsible for usability until James had to work on jboss.org full time and Roy left the boat.

Then Thomas and myself took over the job to redo the management portlet in order to get it done the best as we could.

Now Chris D. and Ram self granted them that responsiblity.

I hope it will be more clearly defined in the future.

ps:

- The template forms were asked for a long time but it was not taken in account.

- the web is designed for documents and that's why we have to hack with javascript or css.

"chris.laprun@jboss.com" wrote:
Using javascript is bad for usability (what if the client has javascript deactivated, what if the client is a screen reader, etc.)...

My big beef with these tasks is what is Chris D. authority, more specifically what does he know about usability that we don't? Most of the tasks are more about consistency (which is good) and making things look better (which is good to a point) but for example, switching labels to generic text or using images is less usable to my mind. I don't mind changing things to improve usability, not just to make them shinier from a marketing perspective.

These design issues should be done by a UI person that knows about usability, graphic design, etc. We're going to spend a lot of time changing things that I am not even convinced improve the design. For example, something that would be really useful from the UI team would be a template for CSS-aligned forms (i.e. no tables) that are usable, contain the proper semantic markup with all the alts, labels, what have yous that would make them work properly with screen readers or alternate user agents.

So it is clear for everyone :

we stick to icon less design as designed by James Cobb

we will rediscuss that topic once the first pass of UI improvements is implemented.