I forgot to also say that in response to the concerns Gary and the
team had after user testing, perhaps when we have very large portlets
(which would result in the layout shifting around jerkily) the List
Ordering (http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Drag+and+Drop+-
+List+Ordering) pattern would be more appropriate than the Layout
Preview (http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Drag+and+Drop+-
+Layout+Preview) pattern. (This info could also be added to the
patterns.) I think that was the direction the group was going but
they went with a more current Yahoo! portal interaction instead of
the older one represented in their and our design patterns.
I also think our List Ordering pattern need to be modified to have a
half tone (or see-though, empty, with a solid or dotted border)
"portlet-in-the-process-of-being-dragged" avatar. That is consistent
with how the Gallery currently works on http://build.fluidproject.org.
On Apr 18, 2008, at 11:18 AM, Allison Bloodworth wrote:
Hi there,
I definitely believe that we should support the i-Google style
preview that our 'drag and drop layout preview' pattern supports.
However, I had also not noticed before that (as Eli pointed out)
the iGoogle portlets are all the same size. If this pattern is used
for columns with different widths, I'm guessing this may complicate
things from both a coding and user perspective. For instance, how
do you clearly tell a user that they cannot drag a portlet from a
wider column into a narrow column? It may be that there would be
enough feedback with the fact that a drop target did not appear,
but that would be something I think we should user test. Another
question would be whether we even want to prevent that
interaction...should users be able to drag portlets around without
worrying about column width? I'm guessing the coding for this could
be complicated. This could result in a page like this:
<PortalLayout.png>
...but perhaps there *may* be contexts where this would make sense
(e.g. users organizing piles of photos if the Gallery every
implements this). I did a bit of searching on the web and it seems
like not too many portals (or design patterns) are dealing with at
least *moveable* portlets of differing widths yet, so this is
probably something that deserves more thinking and then inclusion
in our design patterns.
I had also been a bit confused by what was described as the more
"Yahoo!-style" interaction our Layout Customizer displayed, as I
hadn't been too involved in the Layout Customizer design process
and actually hadn't seen a (in the process of being dragged)
portlet avatar represented as a very small box before. Today I
realized why--Yahoo! has apparently recently changed this
interaction in their portal, though their drag-and-drop modules
Design Pattern has *not* been updated to reflect it: http://
developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/pattern.php?pattern=dragdropmodules#.
If you hit "play" you will see that a half tone avatar is still
used here, as opposed to the very small box representing the
portlet which Layout Customizer (and My Yahoo!) is currently using.
This is the interaction I was more familiar with, and is
represented by our Drag-and-drop List Ordering Pattern (http://
wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Drag+and+Drop+-+List+Ordering).
I had a short conversation with Gary about this a few weeks ago,
and he said that after the usability testing done on a more i-
Google-like implementation:
"One of the main concerns was keeping the drag avatar the same size
as the original portlet. With potentially very large portlets,
there were usability issues with having such a huge drag avatar,
jerk-like shifting in the page contents on drag, and sometimes
obscuring the drop target indicator with the drag avatar."
It sounds like this could be a real concern, but I'm wondering if
using a full-size half-tone avatar (which you can see through, so
the drop target is visible), which both Yahoo!'s *design pattern*
(not portal) and iGoogle use, might mitigate this problem in a more
effective way. This could be backed up by user testing, but I am
worried that users will not be able to see or understand the
interaction of a very small avatar, which they may not clearly be
able to understand is a representation of the portlet they are
dragging (because it is difficulty to make that mapping and is
likely not in accord with the user's mental model of what a portlet
looks like). With an avatar that is the same size which immediately
moves from the original spot when the user begins to drag it, the
mapping is much more clear.
I had also suggested to Gary that we make our drop target color
very different from the portal's theme colors (e.g. make it green)
to ensure users could see it. I would also recommend including this
info in the design pattern. Also, I thought the way the drop
target is placed right next to a portlet without any padding makes
it harder to see. I'd like to see it spaced about halfway between
the portlets in between which it is indicating a drop target.
After we figure out what to do with the portlet avatar styling for
the Layout Customizer if anyone is up for thinking through some of
this and updating the design patterns with me, let me know.
Thanks!
Allison
On Apr 16, 2008, at 4:54 PM, Daphne Ogle wrote:
Thanks Colin!
Looking at the results it does look like users had difficulty
understanding where the portlet would land based on the summary:
"Drop Target Indicators:
* Green bar is too small and not being noticed enough.
* Maybe make it thicker and with an arrow indicating where
portlet will go."
Perhaps we could include the bar and make it thicker along with the
igoogle dotted outline pattern? Not being involved in the testing,
it's difficult to understand exactly where the hang up was for
participants.
It looks like the link is broken to the original designs (off the
testing page Colin identified below). Assuming we have it
someplace,
we could do some additional testing with the new design and an
updated
version of the old one. Since so much changed between designs I'm
concerned that testing just the new design won't give us very good
comparison information.
That said, our current iteration is very full so we could sure use
some volunteer help doing the testing if we decide to go that route?
And takers? We could do pretty low intensive "hallway" testing so I
wouldn't expect it to take more than a day but we'd have to look
at it
closer to see what is required.
-Daphne
On Apr 16, 2008, at 4:38 PM, Colin Clark wrote:
Daphne,
Sorry for the confusion; we haven't renamed all the wiki pages to
reflect the new Layout Customizer name. The user test results are
located here:
http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Portlet+Layout+Manager
+Results
The results, as I read them, suggest that some participants had
difficulty determining exactly where their portlet would land. On
the other hand, this test was performed with a prerelease version of
the component that was a bit buggier in some respects.
Hope this helps,
Colin
On 16-Apr-08, at 7:33 PM, Daphne Ogle wrote:
Does anyone know where the user testing results for the layout
customizer are? There doesn't seem to be a link off the main page
for the component and I haven't had luck with search (probably
don't know what terms to use).
Thanks!
-Daphne
On Apr 16, 2008, at 3:33 PM, Colin Clark wrote:
Hello designers,
We've been doing a lot of review and testing of the Layout
Customizer
component in preparation for the Fluid Infusion 0.3 release.
One of
the things we've been thinking about is the behaviour of drag and
drop
in this component.
A couple of months ago, Gary and Shaw-Han did a great job of
putting
together some detailed mockups. They're available at:
http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Portlet+Reorderer
+Mockups
If you notice, these mockups specify an approach that is very
similar
to myYahoo's news portal, available at http://cm.my.yahoo.com/.
The
noteworthy features of this approach are:
* the use of a small drag "avatar" (the thing that follows your
mouse during a drag operation)
* a coloured, horizontal bar representing the drop target (the
spot
where the thing will land when you let go of the mouse)
Another approach to drag and drop layouts is documented in the
Fluid
design pattern for Layout Preview:
http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Drag+and+Drop+-
+Layout+Preview
This approach is similar to iGoogle, http://www.google.com/ig.
Noteworthy features include:
* the use of a full-sized, transparent drag avatar that shows the
whole portlet
* a full-sized outlined box for the drop target
* other portlets on the page shift out of the way to show a
realistic preview of how the layout will look
What's the best approach? I'm thinking this is one of those "it
depends" questions. When portlets are similar in size and closely
spaced, the myYahoo approach is probably simpler and easier to
control. When portlets are more widely spaced and may have
different
sizes, a full preview of the layout seems more useful.
At the time of the original designs, it's my understanding that we
went with the myYahoo-style interaction because it was immediately
similar to some existing code we have in the Reorderer. On the
other
hand, the Reorderer is highly customizable. The dev team tells me
that
implementing both behaviours should be relatively straightforward.
It
may impact our release date a bit, but should we consider
taking the
time to provide an option that will allow for the iGoogle-style of
preview?
I'd really appreciate opinions and advice from designers in the
community.
Colin
---
Colin Clark
Technical Lead, Fluid Project
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto
http://fluidproject.org
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Daphne Ogle
Senior Interaction Designer
University of California, Berkeley
Educational Technology Services
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
cell (510)847-0308
---
Colin Clark
Technical Lead, Fluid Project
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto
http://fluidproject.org
Daphne Ogle
Senior Interaction Designer
University of California, Berkeley
Educational Technology Services
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
cell (510)847-0308
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Allison Bloodworth
Senior User Interaction Designer
Educational Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(415) 377-8243
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Allison Bloodworth
Senior User Interaction Designer
Educational Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(415) 377-8243
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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