<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-15" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Hey Mike, concerning the tracks: this is quite a new approach, isn't it? It covers many things, which the theatre would cover too: navigation between different polls, filtering them (even though sorting by activity is the only and probably one of the more unimportant criteria for an average user), discussion feed. Now it adds a lot of complexity to the diff-bridge, the postion-pages etc. At first look the mass of symbols looked really confusing to me. Also a bit like, if something was broken with my browser-graphics. Is it really worth it? I mean, why would you want to navigate to another poll from the diff-bridge or the vote-space? Wouldn't a button to get there be enough here? I understand that the discussion feed attracts attention on these pages to go deeper into the system. Hm ... Maybe the symbols for the discussion-feed could be little speech-bubbles again? Maybe coloured for voter, candidate etc. and with the initials of the author in it? I definatly like the mini-votespace controls in the bridge! I hope they going to become like this on position-pages too!? Thomas schrieb Michael Allan: <blockquote cite="mid:1327870061.e5b4AfEF0.12510@out.zelea.com" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Dear all, I have some mockups ready. These illustrate some proposed designs for the toolbar (1a), bridge footing controls (1b) and single sign-on (1d), all of which are aimed directly at usability. (See the orignal post quoted at bottom.) In addition, they introduce two new theatre tracks. These are not strictly for usability purposes and will therefore be coded last. They are intended to attract new users and also to provide back-links to discussion media, both of which are new functions unprovided by the existing code. (Crossforum Theatre is supposed to provide these functions in its feeds and maps, but those are a little further in the future.) The first mockup is of Votorola's home page: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-1.xht">http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-1.xht</a> Stuff happens when the mouse moves. This is the attractor: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-2.xht">http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-2.xht</a> A user who clicks around will begin learn what it's about: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-3.xht">http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-3.xht</a> If only because he/she will soon bump into others who are talking: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-4.xht">http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/home-4.xht</a> The second mockup is of the difference bridge. It looks similar to the previous mockup, which of course is the main idea: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/diff-1.xht">http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/xf/_/TheatreToolbar/diff-1.xht</a> That's all I have, so far. I still need to draw a position draft and votespace. But I just wanted to share these drawings, because it's been taking longer than I planned. What do you think so far? Personally, I get a good feeling from tracks as a design pattern. They have almost no effect on page layout so we can deploy them over almost anything. (If we do a browser plugin, for example, then we can deploy directly over top of web forums, or over any web based medium or application.) And if a track doesn't happen to work out, then it's no big deal; we just throw it away and code a new one. Easy come, easy go. </pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>