Hi,
Today i want to make a review, a point of view on the Loco Directory
http://loco.ubuntu.com/ . Sorry it's a long post, and my English is not
easy to read. I presented that like I think a visitor discover the site.
The narrative part are quoted, my reflections not.
*What is Loco Team Directory *: "The LoCo Team Directory is a place
where you can find information regarding LoCo Teams."
*Case 1:* I'm a beginner, no LP account, i just want to find my Local
community.
Ubuntu on Google.fr > cool i found directly my community
ubuntu-fr.org > no link to loco.ubuntu.com
OK, let's try Ubuntu on Google.com > I'm on ubuntu.com official site
> Join the Community > at the end of the page finally I found the
"Local Ubuntu Teams" link to the wiki page.
-> We should be able to let community sites link to the loco
directory, too earlier now, not well translated I think. Perhaps a way
to let teams make some loco.ubuntu-XX.org direct link, integration, make
the different LD instance automatically share items...
-> Something's wrong, no loco.ubuntu.com link in the official
ubuntu.com site ?
*Case 2 :* I'm a beginner, no LP account, I heard about loco directory
and I can found information on loco teams on this site.
Ok, I'm on loco.ubuntu.com, great design, I love this big world map.
But what's in the bottom ? events ? that seems cool. And English
microblog stream ? ho... English... fear... Talking about
frightening things, why it's written everywhere "LoCo team"? What's
a "LoCo Team" ?
-> I think the home page should be a neutral language page. Including
a twitter (identi.ca ?) streamline here is breaking this neutrality.
Event's can also break this neutrality but they are just "short titles",
so it's fine. I think also the events could be at the same level than
the teams, teams on left, events on right. We have these two elements on
the menu, so they have the same importance.
-> Using acronyms in a community is pleasant and funny. Each community
develop their own type of acronyms. But outside the community, these
acronyms are the opposite, unpleasant "words" making harder to
understand what we are talking about.
I click on my continent, and can see the list of loco teams on this
part of the world. Not funny, who the hell make this list. Some
teams start with an ubuntu, some teams have a country name, some
others don't have. It's a mess. Ho wait that's not all. What's that
"Team without country" at the bottom. They are stateless ? Finding
my team in this list is a challenge. I try the search bar. Type my
country name. No result.
-> We have to standardize these Loco-Team list items, and we have to put
a small link in front of the continents to send the visitor also on the
last list where he can perhaps find his loco team in it. My team uses
ubuntu-fr for is name, a user who don't know the conventional
ubuntu-XX(iso code) is lost also. But we can't change this name. Not all
the teams have one state limited activity. It's very complex I know.
Perhaps organising the list by country name, or placing the teams on
continent maps.
-> I try several words on the search bar, I don't understand why
sometime it returns a blank page, and sometimes it returns the entire
team list page. This search bar can do search by country and team names
I think, but something is broken.
Before going to my Loco Team, lets see the events page. "Ubuntu LoCo
Global Events" ? It's local or global ? Ok I see, it's more like
type of events. This should be more explicit, it's appear more like
the other events. Not easy to make the difference.
-> I think the Global Events should be more highlighted, with a complete
separated presentation on the page, like a box with the name, a short
description, the dates with a more natural form like "all the year" "the
27th,28th and 29th august 2010", a link "learn more...", and a link
"show me only these events". These are special type of events, give them
some eye-candy.
It's amazing how many events are listed here. And I can search on
country name, city name, team name, month name, but not in my own
language. And I can see the past events. This list is even bigger.
But it seems I can't yet filter it.
-> Same localisation problem on the search field.
Let see what's a global event. Great, all I need to know is here but
in English. I can add the hashtag for twitter and identi.ca, and
read the stream directly, it's in English but it's fine, it's a
global event, so it's normal. But why the events are listed by
country here. I can't see anymore the dates, and the teams
organizing them. And why some events appear so many times? Ok, I
know, they don't have the same date, but I can't see it.
-> Like I wrote before, global events should be treated differently.
These "type" of events need to have translated content. The list of
events under a global events should appear like the other list of events
also. Having too much way to present the same elements is disturbing.
And only seeing the title is more disturbing when they appear more than
once without reason.
Lets go to the Local Community team page I think it's for me, to
know more about this community, what they do, what they offer, who I
have to contact, where I can talk with them, where I can follow them
on my social networks. Ok I'm on the page, reading it. Location,
language, well I already know that. Launchpad page, Launchpad Team
Owner, what's that, I keep that for later. Expires date, hum it's
some kind of milk bottle ? Provides local support, yes, I don't know
what it is but seems great. Launchpad Team Admins, another "strange
word" field in relation to the administration. Resources, finally,
some interesting information presented with strange icons. And to
finish, the more interesting part, Events. Well, having to pass on
top of the icons to know what they stand for is boring. I chose the
first one, a link to an English wiki, on a page with more
informations on it. This team seems great, I click on the "Join this
team" link. Crap, this Launchpad thing again. Seems to be an account
service, in English. Let do the registration. ok, an email, a
validation, a password, ... what the hell, I can't join the team.
It's restricted. But I'm on the Launchpad English thing. Overview,
Code, Bugs, Blueprints, Translations, Answers. I go back where I
came from seems better.
-> We need to put more information accessible to the team pages, the
icons are great but not everyone understand what it's a puzzle piece, a
pen, a world, some text should be added. On some field, some teams need
to add more than one entry, like in mailing lists, or irc channels. The
official website of the team should be the first link, not just an icon.
All the Launchpad stuff is impossible to understand when you don't know
what it's launchpad and it's appearing 3 times.
-> The systematic use of Launchpad is a big fail for me. This is not an
account provider. This is not a localised tool.
-> The join this team link should only be present when you can
effectively join a team.
-> The "Launchpad Team owner" is one of the field I dislike the most.
Nobody can own a team.
-> Provides local support. Lot of teams say Yes. But what is local support ?
Looking the event list is great, I can search for an event near me
to assist and meet other users. It's cool on the team detail page I
can see the city hover the title. Let see all the events. I can't
see the city in this list. History, same problem, no city
information. Going to an event page to have more informations, I
can't go back to the last page with a menu like before, the go back
is for the events page, not the team events page where I was before.
OK, looking at this page event, like for the team page, no link to
social networks, very basic informations. I can go to the venue
detail page, to see same basic informations. Same problem, I need to
use the prev of my browser to go back, the menu link "back to the
venues list" is not where I came from. It's strange, some people are
registered to attend to the event.
-> The informations presented are too basic, and having to go to 2 pages
to have all the information of an event (the description and the
location) is not fun. Like dedicated web page / sites, some events have
hashtags, a social network integration like the one for the global events.
-> The venue page should provide more information, first one the
accessibility of the venue. Transportation information could be good
also. These information can appear or not on the event page. And where
is the address of the venue? (it's a bug)
-> A reminder to log in, or a link to register to attendance should be
great on the top of the Attendees list if the visitor is not logged in.
Ok, let see the other menu entries on the top of the window. LoCo
Council. Seem to be the people behind the "LoCo"s. Talking about the
members of this council, but no list, and no link to know who they
are. Next, the classic About, this one talk about the tool, and the
guys developing it. And finaly the log in menu. Great he want to use
my freshly created account from Launchpad. I'm logged in. I have new
entries on the menus. But they are not all working. I can't add an
event. But I can now put some comments on an event and register to
it. Great.
-> We have to be more careful to the links we present to the users, a
registered user can't add events, but he can see the link to do that.
-> The loco council page need some work.
That's all for today. Some of the reflections are already bug reports /
whishes reported by others. Thanks you for reading me.
YoBoY
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