Page Comparison

Meeting minutes for

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Note that due to Labor Day, next week's meeting will be held Tuesday, Sept. 2 at the normal time.

No new issues

Noah added two new efficiency-related issues: 14279 and 14280.

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We reviewed most of the new screenshots of the proposed Portfolios tool UI rework by Nathan Pearson. Comments included:

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2: The question arose whether anyone has large numbers of portfolio templates, which would make this screen unwieldy. Probably not.

3: Comments included:
- Does the screen take up too much room once you put the Sakai navigation in?
- Is the progress indicator misleading, since it would say "Complete" before you are finished with, say, adding all the pages you want. Perhaps it would be better to say "Ready" rather than "Complete".
- Should the Status section be moved to the Sharing page? This would take up less real estate on this page, but would make the Sharing screen more cluttered.
- Nathan explained that it is generally a good principle of UX design to allow multiple ways of accomplishing the same important task, which is why he put in tabs as well as links for actions such as "Add/Edit Content".

3a: The question arose of when the Preview button should become available. Nathan thought it should always be there, but show a blank screen with a message like, "No portfolio is ready for previewing".

Screen 2.After: It must be possible to select free-form portfolios. Also, it is often the case that there is only one portfolio template available for a site. Is this page even necessary if there is only one? Can't the single template just be assumed to be the user's selection?

Screen 5.After: The original screen had two advantages. One is that the user can see what forms have already been selected, so you don't lose track of what you've already done. Second, selection of multiple pages in the multi-select box is straightforward, if not particularly elegant. UM, for example, has sites where users regularly add 10 forms of the same type. Lynn suggested that multi-select could be handled with checkboxes. Nathan responded that we are weighing efficiency against learnability, and it may be that learnability is a more important consideration in a screen that is not used that often.

Screen 5a.After: Having "<add new>" as an option in the dropdown is a little too subtle - everyone but Lynn missed it. Should it be a button?

Screen 5b.After: Everyone liked the preview of the form, though it was recognized that few forms will be as easy to preview as the resume entry shown in the wireframe.

Screen 6: The difficulty with multiple "titles" was discussed, as this screen attempts to reduce to one the three types of title (portfolio name for listing, options form display name, and portfolio title as used in the portfolio website). The options form display name can probably be eliminated by accepting the automatically generated name but not displaying it in the form. There seems to be a legitimate need for the other two titles, though maybe a change in nomenclature would help. The idea of getting rid of the description field was discussed, since people don't seem to use it. Apparently it is available for display using a display triangle when a portfolio is shared with someone, so maybe it is useful after all.

Screen 7.After: The share page would have multiple options, and a hidden div would slide down in cases where more info is needed, such as who you want to share with. Nathan will finish those mockups this week.Jan expressed concern that some of the efficiency of the current screen is lost here. For example, the user can't tell how many schools they've added to their resume. Having to click back in to each section would be tedious. Nathan said that he believes we have more of a need for ease of learning than efficiency. It would be possible, however, to indicate how many items of a particular type have been added.

5: Since the display name is just for saving the Outline Options form, it would be best just to use script so that it isn't displayed at all. The Presentation Name is from a UM Outline Options form. This screen prompted the question, where do you name the portfolio (the name that will show up in the list of portfolios). It was explained that the portfolio name that has been displayed throughout the screens (Nathan's Resume Portfolio 1) has an edit link next to it to allow the name to be edited. (It remains unclear to the author of these notes when and how the user would be prompted to name the portfolio in the first place.)

6b: There should be a select all button and that button should select all users, not just the ones listed on the first page. Are groups necessary? Yes.