[Design] [cosmo] [proposal] Detail View

[Ted Leung]

Since Matthew is working on the DV starting today, it's pretty  
important that we come to some resolution on this pretty quickly.    
At this point we have 3 weeks left before we are supposed to start  
QA'ing 0.7, which leaves us very schedule constrained.   With that as  
background, here are my thoughts.

Assuming that the old DV and new proposed DV are roughly the same  
amount of effort, it basically comes down to whether or not we are  
going to have any significant amount of design discussion on this.    
If we think that we can come to a consensus on this  very quickly,  
then let's do that.  On the other hand, if people have issues that  
they want to discuss, then I would prefer to defer this until after  
preview.  My expectation is that we will be making a number of  
adjustments to the UI once Cosmo 0.7 goes into production usage, so  
this is by no means our last chance to make adjustments to the user  
interface.

What do other people think?

Ted

On May 7, 2007, at 10:22 AM, Priscilla Chung wrote:

> This coming week Matthew is going to re-implement  the details view  
> of the web UI in order to support stamping for dashboard. He  
> informed me that he will have to start from clean slate.  From my  
> understanding, the amount of time to implement a layout identical  
> to the desktop and time to implement a proposal are about the same.
>
> So we took this opportunity to look at the event details on the  
> desktop and see if there are ways to address some of the known  
> issues. How to make it behave more like a web application. Come up  
> with more visually acceptable solutions to incorporate all the form  
> elements without losing the 'Save' and 'Remove' button on smaller  
> screen sizes.
>
> ***Note: Please review the questions below before commenting on the  
> design proposal.***
>
> We came up with a proposal which is a slight departure from the  
> current desktop layout of the detail view:
> http://wiki.osafoundation.org/Projects/ 
> CosmoZeroDotSevenSpec#CurrentMockUp
>
> *The reasons for coming up with a new proposal for detail view are  
> the following:*
> + The current layout which is adapted to the desktop app is not  
> well suited to web conventions.
> + This layout better scales to handle small screen sizes and/or  
> additional types of stamps.
> + Right now we have only three stamps, but there is no more space  
> on the horizontal 'mark up bar'. The proposed layout scales for  
> addition stamps, including other ideas such as annotations for read- 
> only collections, per a previous discussion on the design list:  
> http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/design/2007-May/ 
> 007059.html ).
> + The visual relationship strengthens the visual grouping and  
> association for the address, task and event stamp and their  
> associated capabilities.
> + The Casual Collaborator target user, is someone who does not use  
> the desktop every day and may need more guidance in understanding  
> the concept of the the address, task and event stamp.
> + It's not going to take more time to build than implementing the  
> layout similar to the desktop.
> + The current layout which is adapted to the desktop is very tight— 
> the web app may have problems with different fonts and font size.
>
> From the very beginning Mimi and I agreed to keep the two  
> applications consistent, but only *where it makes sense*. This  
> proposal is not intending to create a unique web UI for the sake of  
> it. We felt the web app is a good way to try ideas out, where the  
> desktop app lacked in experimentation because it would longer and  
> be prone to more bugs.
>
> *The reason not to move forward with a new proposal for the detail  
> view:*
> + Discussion on the design list may impact schedule.
> + If this proposal distracts from 'the purpose of preview',  it  
> makes sense to postpone this discussion till post preview.
> + It's not identical to the desktop app and might cause problems  
> with some users, primarily desktop users who are used to using the  
> desktop. For preview, the target user for the web UI are Casual  
> Collaborator and not the 'Consultative desktop users'.
>
> It's fine if we decide to move forward and mimic the layout on the  
> desktop, as long we're aware of the known issues. Trying something  
> new may fix some issues however it will also create other issues.  
> If our concern is schedule, doing something new may not necessarily  
> cause risk—though I lean on Ted/Matthew to confirm this.
>
> Usability risk is unknown at this point because we don't have users  
> testing the proposed layout vs. the desktop layout, but  
> implementing two different layouts offers us the opportunity to  
> test and learn from our users. I understand completely if the team  
> as a whole does not want to take a chance on this because there are  
> a lot of risk factors already.
>
> *Questions:*
> Forgive my bluntness, but it seems like time is against our side,  
> so before commenting on the proposal, I'd first like to ask:
> + Is this proposal distracting everyone from 'purpose of preview'?
> + If so, then we should consider tabling this discussion till post  
> preview—where it belongs?
>
> -Priscilla
> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
>
> Open Source Applications Foundation "Design" mailing list
> http://lists.osafoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/design

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