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JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
At 4:02 AM on Apr 23, 2007, Aymeric Levaux wrote:
Fresh Jobs for Developers Post a job opportunity
Now it's time to make a break and to watch back to make the point on what will be the next version of JavaBlackbelt.
John and I, started this processes considering all the comments and suggestions we got from the community. John wrote a document that describes in details the upcoming refactoring. (This document is attached to this post)
We would greatly appreciate any comments or suggestions!
Thank you,
- Aymeric
14 replies so far (
Post your own)
Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
Hi,The proposal looks really great! However, you might want to consider some of the following W3C standard:
- Valid W3C HTML: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.javablackbelt.com
- Valid W3C CSS: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.javablackbelt.com&warning=1&profile=css21&usermedium=all
- W3C Tableless: http://w3tableless.com/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.javablackbelt.com
It might be hard to get passed all of them. But I believe the less errors the better
Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
As for me, scattering "My Stuff" menu items isn't good idea. Now it's quite easy to find all my stuff, but according to the document it will be not so easy.Evgeniy.
Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
I can't find anything about forum in the draftAt this moment we can observe kind of separation between forum and real JBB. And IMHO this significantly impact the attractiveness of JBB. At this moment JBB forum hosted on javalobby exists "behind the scene" and is attended mainly by the moderators and admins. It makes involving newcomers into JBB community quite difficult task. The important word here is "community" and community has communicate easily.
Is there any chance to make JBB more Web 2.0? For example on the last.fm music community every user (as well as band, genere, album, song and so forth) has 'shoutbox' associated with it. This is a place where every registered user can send and publish a short message. This fast and easy form of communication makes last.fm community really associated with this service. I believe that similar feature would also reduce the amount of the "good/bad" comments.
Also feature like sending private message to given user would be cool.
I write this here because I was hope that JBB v3 will integrate forum and similar communication/community-friendly stuff into it. I couldn't find anything like that in the draft.
Of course I understand that this kind of functionality is very complex and requires huge changes in the entire platform, but you should consider this topic seriously - JBB with community/communication functionality as advanced as in last.fm (+ forum cleverly integrated with the latter) could gather muuuuuuch more newcomers and then keep'em more active.
Once again - sorry for the offtopic :P
Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
You are right Henryk and a forum integration is one of the frist post v3 projects. We need it for e-learning (for teachers and students to communicate with each other).Aymeric, can you give more details about your forum projects (the name of the framework, for example) ?
At the same time we should use any tool to enhance communication between members (messages posting, real time chat).
John.
Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
Hi,Here is my input:
- One goal is to get more yellow belts coming back.
We discussed some time ago that it could be a good idea to give a user the chance to get some more exams for free (i.e. without contribution points). At the moment we are forcing people to contribute - but to make JBB more recognized by the Java community it could also be worth to take the number of belts into account. So let people get to the blue belt without contributing.
At the moment I am not afraid that we won't get enough new questions etc. If someone is really interested in Java he/she will create a comment if there is a question wrong/imprecise/misleading.
- Clean up of question page (and everything else)
The usual feedback from some of my colleagues is something like "What is this button/icon/link doing?".
So a clean up of the pages especially for new users could really be helpful.
- Comments
Sometimes I find it hard to see what was the comment and what was the answer.
- Forum / Communication
It would be nice to have the forum closer to JBB. Not that I don't like JavaLobby, but it would be easier to link to questions/objectives/etc. And it might encourage new users to use the forums.
Just my 2c
Thomas
Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
My plan is to use JavaBB the java port of PhpBB. I know that JavaBB has fewer options than PhpBB but it uses the same technologies we use in JBB (Hibernate, Spring, Webwork) and this is my main concern as I want a seamless integration of this forum in JBB.Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
First of all, it is great that you are getting community feedback. That helped with YAMP and I'm sure it will be useful here. I waited a few days to think some and get all my thoughts in one place. So this is a bit long...A few things really jumped out at me as being nice features. I'm mentioning it so you can get some user reaction on the powerful features:
- the progressive/level system
- intermediary menu screens for "embedded" documentation
- AJAX/usability/speed for low bandwidth
- questions marked as to be commented during the exam should appear more evidently in the list
- Allow voting without page resubmit
- Predefined comments for moderators - this is a good training tool
- Delay/retry e-mail
Other comments:
1) page 4 & 5 - menu structure:
- Would unregistered users would see a different menu structure or a disabled version of the full one?
- "Take an exam" - This is all about exams, but not about taking exams. The title is a bit misleading.
- Take an exam --> My results - would this be linked to from the members/profile area? I wouldn't look under take an exam for my results.
- contribute --> what can i do to contribute - Is this general or dynamically changing based on current needs? For example, new questions, exams needing specific attention, etc
- Members - Is this a members only tab or just a title? It sounds like the former from the name, but only my profile is user specific.
- Misc --> Auctions - This seems buried under misc. Is "misc" something people are likely to click? This is somewhat mitigated by having a link on the home page.
- Misc --> Content - People might look under courses for the study guides rather than here
- Misc --> Guidelines - Has a typo; should be "guidelines". I only mention it in case this becomes the requirements document.
2) Do you plan to have a sitemap? It would be useful to see all the navigation in one place (like it is in the document, but with links.) This could go under the info menu.
3) Page 5 - grayed screen - Doesn't grey mean disabled? I haven't seen how SourceForge does this. Does it mean the screen is refreshed in grey with the action highlighted?
4) Page 7 - level system
- Level 0: Is the step after registering to go for the yellow belt or take a test? It looks like the action list is mixing goals with tasks/actions.
- Level 1: #1 under this level is register. Aren't you already registered to be a white belt by definition.
- Level 2: typo in "get you" - should be "get your". Again, I'm only mentioning this in case it becomes the requirements document.
- Level 2: #2 - Is this the "next exam is free" concept?
5) Page 8 - course list
- On first glance, it looks like there are no exams under Java ME? Is it intentional to have the level under the header blank?
- Why get rid of the icons? They are only one per category. This isn't a big deal, but it breaks up the text nicely. Maybe the headers will serve that purpose.
6) Page 9 - Auctions/competitions - "should they only be displayed for logged in users" - It's nice to promote the visibility of features. I think it gives people incentive to join. It's a nice to have type thing though. If it increases clutter, it probably isn't worth it.
7) Page 10 - exam page - "should we hide 'add a question'" - As long as there are other ways to get contribution points at first (like by voting), I think this is a good idea. It encourages people to gain some exposure to the site and see what a good question is before adding their own.
8) Page 12 - Layout - "how to invite people to comment ... without invading page" - How about a link to a pop-up (or DHTML expandable IFrame) with some more features. This helps with the clutter while still keeping things conspicuous and easily accessible. For example, one could put open comments and the add comment box after a link called "add/view comments."
9) Page 13 - Question List
- What details would be shown in the rollover? Note the full question text, right? This seems hard to use. For example, how do you copy/paste, comment, etc. Would there be an option to open it in a new window?
10) Page 13 - "should missed questions be shown first?" - I like seeing my results in the order they appeared in the exam. I'll make notes to look at "question #14" after I'm done for more details. If the questions reorder, this wouldn't work.
- Have you considered a gmail type expandable view to showing more information rather than a rollover?
11) Page 13 - User levels
- Can there be a way for moderators or admin to explicitly raise a user level? If someone known/trusted shows up, they should be able to gain privileges faster. For example, suppose Vincent Massol had showed up for the first time under the new system. We would want him to be able to help lead an exam right away rather than waiting for time/contribution points/whatever is decided.
- When would you recalculate the users level? On login, batch job, etc?
- "other ideas" for user levels - number of questions could be a piece of the formula. I would use weighted average of votes by user level rather than straight amount of users voting on the question. If a higher level of user votes on a person's questions a lot, that is a sign of trust.
- I see time since registration is on the list. Why? I don't really get the significance of this one. If someone spends a ton of time on the site in a week, they are going to gain a lot of experience with it.
- I think the most important thing is to use a combination of factors for user levels to make it harder to game the system.
- "What would we show to which level?" - This is pretty vague. I think you'd get more feedback if there was a list of categories of things under consideration. (add a question, accept change proposals, etc)
12) Page 13 - User levels - count
- "A comment of a level 4 user should be handled with more priority by volunteers" - I don't follow this. Level 1 users need more "training" on using the system. Delaying responses doesn't usually accomplish this. A level 1 user could create a lot of superfluous comments of the same type without realizing it was against conventions.
13) Page 14 - Contribute screen
- "may require certain amount of contribution points" - Do you mean contribution points here or levels? If the former, it's confusing to mix idioms. Why not just have everything go by levels?
14) Page 15 - Ajax voting component
- This doesn't sound intuitive to me, but that's probably because I haven't seen it. Is there a particular part of parleys.com that has an example?
15) Page 16 - comments
- "B - a comment to congratulate the author" - What would the workflow be for these?
- Deleting "good question" comments and rolling back points - This would finally be a way to discourage such comments.
- "suggestions welcome" - I still think we need a "mini-lock" to remind people of things. It's not enough to just rollback comments as that is a manual process. You don't want to be in the business of cleaning up tons of things. It distracts energy from actual productive things people could be doing on the site.
- volunteers contributors responding to concepts - Is it possible to tie this into how long it as been since a user logged in? Comments on questions from users who haven't logged in in months are more likely to need clean up (not really necessary to wait for long) than ones on more active contributors who should learn from the comments.
16) Page 16 - category comments
- "we should change the way users can suggest objective changes ... any proposal welcome" - I think there are two main types of objective changes which warrant different mechanisms. First are formatting and minor changes. These could use a facility like we use for change proposals where people submit what they think it should look like along with a reason. This is good for "how about adding another class to the list." Second are more philosophical suggestions such as "the UML diamond problem" discussed recently. These really need to be discussed in a forum. Maybe we could just link to the forums for suggesting these.
17) Page 1 7 -votes
- "is it useless with weighted votes" - I don't think moderators should be able to "null" votes. As long as it is possible to wipe out ALL the votes of troublemakers, I don't see a need for this. If a user has issue with a specific pattern, I would rather leave the vote there and see if a pattern emerges. With weighted voting, it wouldn't have a big effect unless a lot of people felt that way.
- "hiding votes" - I vote 10 for this idea
- I don't follow why the topic of hiding vote results during exams comes up though. Why is during an exam special? The same logic applies to the results screen, etc - right?
- I like the idea of asking users to vote on the next login after an exam.
18) Page 17 - Usage mails (If this is just an example and not a requirement, you can skip my comments on this section.)
- If this e-mail is cumulative, it really should describe features used "today."
- On first read, I didn't realize that "areas available upgrades" meant the trust level.
- The report is really long. Could it group the features you've used or something?
- Our CMM trainer said that people have trouble seeing more than a level or two above where they are now. This certainly resonates with me. It is also something to keep in mind for the features e-mail. It's fine to say there are higher level features. Just beware of going into too much depth on this.
- "would this be useful to make users explore more of the site" - Maybe. It's certainly a good reminder of what is out there.
19) Page 18 - Admin work queue
- "cancel 500 points at once" - Huh? What's this all about. Did you mean cancel all 500 votes?
20) Page 19 - user tracking
- "past fan club problems" - This feels weird. Once a problem is resolved, is it really necessary to keep reminding the user that they once did something wrong.
- "editable zone for availability" - This is editable both by the user and moderators, right? It sounds really useful.
21) Page 20 - search facility - who is using it
- I use it. I could function without it, but I'd like to outline what I use it for. First: searching my own questions to update a specific question/string of questions for timeliness or content. Second: finding plagiarized questions - often the same question is in the system multiple times.
- If you don't want to get rid of the feature entirely, consider locking down the search during an exam, restricting it to moderators, restricting it to one's own questions, restricting it to within a category or some combination thereof.
Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
I would like to suggest few things.1). With new SCJP(Real) they have added drag and drop kind of questions. Last week my friend took it and he got 19 drag and drop kind of question. I think its not a small number.
Is it possible to introduce same question type to our JBB? I know creating questions will be bit tough but we can limit question creation for the green belt and above and/or users who have given more than 25/50 questions.
I think this feature will attract real SCJP takers.
2). I was wondering can we have some bookmark kind of feature? say I have few questions I liked them very much. Either the question or the explanation I would like to re visit them again and again and learn something.
3). Can we provide one more feature to revisit the questions which user could not answer correctly in first shot. May be user can re visit the wrongly answered questions one by one and reinforce the concepts.
4). With above two points #2 and #3, it increases the possiblity of the cheating but I think we can add something for locking it during beta and real exams.
5). Contributer names and pics. should be hidden during exams(beta and real) frequently exam takers know the tendency of the questions creaters sometimes. Say for for true false kind of questions. I am not mentioning the name but one blue belt has created many true/false kind of questions in Collection exam and they are having answer as true. On seeing his name only I can put true and can be assured that my answer is correct. So it will be nice if we stop displaying name and pic.
6). Nowadays I am seeing many of the questions (generally added by yellow/white belts) are of true/false kind. Generally we merge such 4/5 concepts and create a single multiple choice kind of question. I think in coming days users will start likeing true/false questions and give them with high stars and old questions will get less stars. But I think with 4/5 concepts checking is better than just 1 true/false. I don't know what others think.
I generally create true/false where the statement is very ambiguious and its hard to say answer will be true or false. I think we can give this true/false question creation restricted to senior users only. Senior in belt or contribution points or creation of questions.
7). I would love to see mail kind of facility for each user.
Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
(8). Recently I have seen few guys are adding propostion and I have to reject it because they haven't changed anything not even added a space. For this I would like to suggest 2 changesa). While submitting can we have a javaScript check? if two contents are same? Say on change we may set flag to true and while submitting can check it.
b). While submitting proposition it should be mendetory to add a message that why he/she is adding the proposition.
Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
read next one instead. It was messed up.Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
9). Generally new users create questions and others will come and add proposition with code or code:java or code:java num for few exams (generally new comers will add questions in java se basic for yellow belt ;-)) while adding question after selecting question type can we give something like CODE:JAVA NUM /* Insert your code here*/ /CODE:JAVA template ? say just for few basic exams or while user is adding first 5 questions?10). Nowadays all address given to moderators/admins are not working can we make them work and provide admin/moderators with mail box?
NB: those tags were not working they were getting skipped for code num so i had to post this entry again and i found out eventually.
Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
And the important thing:Moderator should be able to moderate comments i.e. to remove them (what should entails also the removal of the contributions points associated with them).
Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
Hi folks,Tanks a lot for all you reply. They're really useful!
We will come back really soon with some feedback on all those suggestions. (certainly with a new version of the refactoring document)
- Aymeric
Re: JavaBlackBelt v3 : Usability and Design refactoring
Let me add a few comments, coming late to this party as I have1) It's difficult to comment sensibly without a mock-up. But I guess at this stage you're gathering comments and ideas first.
2) Like the reorganisation of the course list (p8 of PDF). Much clearer at first glance.
3) Try to reduce use of Flash. Animations, unless used well, are intrusive and draw the eye away from the real content. I use AdBlock Plus to block EVERY piece of Flash on the JBB site because it's so intrusive.
4) I've no idea what resources you guys have at your disposal or how much you can spend on the site so I'm not sure whether this comment helps. From my own experience designing websites I can say I am competent at coding the HTML/CSS/script bits to implement a given design. I am NOT good at creating said design in the first place. For a martial arts site I oversee, I tried to come up with a great design given a few guidelines from the client. I spent ages trawling the web looking at stuff and trying to come up with a compelling and cohesive look. Eventually I came up with a decent (not great) design but still wasn't happy. I finally asked a web designer to make me some designs -- and that was the key: employing someone with graphic design skills. The point is: programmers generally are not good at creating visual designs. Employ a graphical designer. (Note: Please understand, I'm not taking a shot at anyone involved with the current design)
5) Don't go overboard with so-called "Web 2.0" stuff. The mere presence of Web 2.0 doesn't make a site better.