[IAEP] http://www-testing.sugarlabs.org/

[Michael Stone]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 11:56:52AM -0500, Benjamin M. Schwartz wrote:
>David Farning wrote:
>> Sorry there was a typo in my last email the site is actually
>> http://www-testing.sugarlabs.org/
>
>I forcefully object to everything about this website.  It is ugly,
>off-putting, unnavigable, unreadable, buggy, empty of any helpful
>information, and in many other ways among the worst websites I could
>possibly imagine for this purpose.  It is a very cool javascript tech
>demo, which is not at all useful here.
>
>Meanwhile, the front page of the wiki is beautiful.  It presents the
>visitor immediately with a statement explaining what Sugar is, and a bunch
>of clearly named links to learn more about Sugar and Sugar Labs.
>Scrolling down presents a wealth of introductory information about Sugar,
>presented in a logical fashion.  It does all of this in a
>non-headache-inducing color scheme, using complete sentences.  Clearly a
>lot of work has been put into this, and it shows.

Christian,

I wish I felt differently, but I agree with pretty much everything Ben said. In
fact, I found myself so put off by the new design that I left the site after
reading no more than two entries. I was particularly frustrated by the
meaningless colors, the dark -> light background transition, the useless sound
bytes, and the invisible one-word menu that overlaps other text when I scroll.

In more detail, this is not the Sugar design that I enjoy -- in Sugar:

   * Colors denote individual identity and contribution; they aren't uniform
     over a page and they aren't randomly regenerated on each visit.

   * Contrast is used carefully: I would never see a black menu with yellow text
     over a pure white background, nor a yellow menu with white text on a white
     background. (Both of which I observed.)

   * Text colors are never reversed for emphasis.

   * Views are scoped and zoomable, and information is usually arranged in
     visually pleasing layouts with gray-out filters or search; not organized
     hierarchically.

     (The exception is toolbars, which Eben redesigned in a fashion much more
     consistent with Sugar's design imperatives:
        
        http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Toolbars

     )

     (At any rate, contrast the hierarchy-free Neighborhood View and the Home
     View with semi-hierarchical Journal or the (deeply hierarchical) source
     code layout.)

   * For better and for worse, icons are used everywhere in place of short text.
     Short text is presented only on hover.

Now, as an alternate suggestion: why not use the desire for a nicer website
as an opportunity to test out our actual underlying UI design principles?

For example, I'd love to see a Sugar front-page that used the Frame and its
zoomable Views for navigation, perhaps organizing hierarchical content with
Eben's Toolbar design.

Regards,

Michael

P.S. - Just think of the educational opportunity that's slipping away by not
dogfooding the existing design work. :)