Usability Review Habra (wishes)
Since the administration is now attentively looking for offers to implement some of them, and there is no ticket system on the site, I decided to collect popular other people's offers and some of them into one list, substantiate and present to the readers in one place. The proposals are grouped to create some sort of visibility of the ticket system and it was convenient to name the problems in abbreviated form. (The list does not claim to be complete, true and inclusive.)
Similar attempts to analyze errors were made periodically in various “audits” of the site, voluntarily made by one or different authors ( one of the examples ). Wishes are often expressed in other ways. In particular, my vision of design and usability is partly expressed in the working user scripts (article about the script) and styles ( ZenComment , HabrAjax , they can always be found on the links from my personal page), but only partially, because I have to stick to the existing design, and besides, we see solutions, but not statements of problems, and the statements are listed below — solutions can be different and different.
The enumeration will go sequentially, in the order of the HTML codes of the site’s page, from the header to the footer. Specific pages will be described separately.
* Double-link to the logo and menu
Let this small inconvenience, but in order we start with it. The link to the logo and the first link in the main menu (“posts”) do not differ, lead to the main page. Probably, it suits those who read only the main one (click where you want), but the header of the site loses its content, creates concern for the user who sees the same results on different links and tries to understand when they may be different. In addition, there is no clue, as on the logo, that “posts” are also the main page. Possible solution: make “posts” another link, for example, “in the last 24 hours”.
')
* Inefficiency of the submenu system
It was described quite fully by me in response to a similar article about the inefficiency of a submenu of another site: habrahabr.ru/company/webprofessionals/blog/132564/#comment_4401350 . Briefly - to go through the site menu, you need to do up to 4 clicks, despite the fact that it is not very complex and contains only about 20 links, considering the special pages (which, by the way, should not be pages - settings, authorization blocks). Possible solution: it is quite possible to keep all 20 links minimized on 1 page and have access to them by mouse-over and 1 click.
* User's menu
Already mentioned - personal page settings are a separate page, not personal page fields that can be edited.
* Small links to pages
There are, of course, the Ctrl + “right” buttons, but why are the mouse buttons so small? Solution: in ZenComment, I not only enlarged them, but also fixed them in the window at the bottom left. As a result, it is easy not only to click, but also to find out on which page the account is located. (Yes, yes, this is not necessary, everyone can take a closer look at the address bar. :))
Companies and blogs have huge names. Not very clear blog index - either. There is no sense in a huge name, if we always know the place of its location.
* author, date and source are not listed at the top of the article
Yes, they are also needed at the bottom, but also at the top. An important feature is when it is written and whether it is translated. If the latter can still be seen from the Z-I encrypted letters (yes, not all the inhabitants of the Earth know this, we enlighten as we can), then the date has to be searched somewhere in the middle of the page, and the author too. Solution - in HabrAjax there is a setting in which this data is duplicated at the top ( for example, this way ).
* source link in translations - the same color as the author and as comments
It slows the perception a little bit; there is no problem to make the color a little different, and the look will distinguish between links.
* As mentioned, it is quite easy to miss the sign that the article is a translation.
For greater distinctness, I, for example, arranged a background color for the header (pale blue, in ZenComment).
UPD 2012-07-10: added an explicit indication of “translation” by type, as “from the sandbox” appeared around May 2012.
* Long titles for blogs, companies, and articles take up a lot of space.
Obviously, in order to attract attention, such a disadvantage pushes authors to give very long headlines for promotional purposes. Or vice versa, they would be happy to do less, but they cannot.
The solution is to make the header font depending on the length of the title, and to cut off the long blog titles (users are not to blame for the fact that they are so long). Implemented in HabrAjax .
* Do something with long texts before kata
It also encourages careless advertisers to write too much at the expense of others, to insert large pictures. The solution is to limit the size of the images to kata to about 100-120 pixels in height and force them to the right (and no more than 2). Also on the right is scrolling for very long annotations. Who does not fit - he is guilty, he will be read at the spread of the article or by scrolling.
* the left and right figures supplant the text if they are large
The solution is to limit them to max-width: 50% (an example can be seen in the ZenComment).
* Social network buttons, even if the reader does not use them
He could turn off the display of social network buttons if he does not have an account on a certain network.
* Show rating buttons, even if they are not functional.
Let this trick work as a hint to random visitors that evaluations happen in this particular place. But obviously too much for authorized visitors.
* Closely located comment rating buttons
An example of placing them on opposite sides of the assessment value is in the ZenComment.
* Post messages by Ctrl + Enter
(It still works!)
Perhaps, at first glance, this seems to be a sign of “advanced” interface, but, in fact, there is a suspicion that 90% of unexpected message sending errors occur as a result of this. Even if the user knows about it, he can accidentally press Ctrl + Enter while typing (I knew, but it happened), and the sent comment cannot be corrected. Possible solution: I personally put a lock on this action in the script (HabrAjax), and since I always write under user scripts, the errors of unexpected message sending have stopped. For the administration - it would be most simple - to cancel the rule, remove it from all input forms. Or, looking at another flaw, enter the rule of possible editing a posted comment in the first 5–20 minutes or until others have watched it (but at least some time).
* Closely located buttons "Preview" and "Send"
They are large, so the error is unlikely, but there is a lot of space on the right. What prevents the submit button to at least move away from the preview?
* Triggering <br> tags in Source and Code
I wrote about this bug in technical support in the summer - nothing has been done, although they answered in a letter.
Crash test: enter
<source lang = "javascript">
a = "<br>";
</ source>
Then click "preview" (when sending the same, checked in the mail from a month ago).
UPD 2012-07-10: corrected for SOURCE on July 9, 2012.
* Source, Blockquote will not appear among the tag buttons.
Resolved in HabrAjax.
UPD 2012-07-10: SOURCE appeared on April 12, 2012 .
* Somehow close buttons are above the input field, you have to aim
Spread out in HabrAjax and in another script (from Crea7or), if he is in the ranks now.
* Unexpected redundant modal window when entering some tags
Distracts from the input field, attention moves to the middle of the window. In a constantly cited script, modal window services are disabled.
* there is no growth of the input field when increasing the amount of text in it
And even the resize style is turned off. Included in HabrAjax (height).
* Lack of ticket system
The user who sees the bug remains one on one with technical support mail. He doesn't even know if others have written about this bug and how long ago it appeared. In the comments and on the Internet, he can see descriptions of other bugs, so the argument “we hid tickets so that no one knew that there are errors” does not work, and the service does not have what is around and for free (the simplest example is the website reformal.ru , paid example (classic) - getsatisfaction.com).
* Deletion of comments
Even if the user made a grammatical, logical (or fatalistic :)) error, he cannot correct it in his own message. He can write somewhere down there, what to read, they say, not so, but otherwise, or do not read it at all, but this will be THEN and DOWN. While the administration and users of other full resources to correct their messages can. The result - a clear discrimination and the game with only one goal. In the best (and normal, decent) position is only the author of the article, which can delete the article. But there is another problem - deleting the messages of all other users.
* Removable comments
If the user (or someone else) deleted the article, all comments by other authors are deleted, which also contradicts the principles of controllability of their own messages. How to solve? The best solution (for an information resource) seems to be a suggestion for users to republish their comments elsewhere. To do this, they just need to be visible to the author in the list of his comments and marked as invisible, and now they are simply removed from everywhere (except for the draft of the author), and if the user has written something valuable - he loses it, and also loses time to set your comments.
* deletion of messages and articles (!) of the user who was removed from the site
This concerns not only the information necessary for removal according to the laws of the country or according to the rules of the site, but also in general all (!) User messages that are not related to the reasons for deleting the author.
Here is an obvious failure in the concept of an information resource in general. If information on a resource is destroyed for no reason - this is no longer an information resource. Any user will be forced to copy information and save it on real information resources.
* inaccuracies of the rules
There are numerous inaccuracies and non-information. They were collected and tried to fix, but they remain. Examples:
- It says about 100 characters available for the survey header, but in fact there can be no more than 90 of them.
- Nowhere warned that the survey can not be edited after publication. (In theory, the warning should be right in front of the publish button.)
- it is not warned anywhere that the length of the article can be more than 43706 characters (or slightly more),
- there is no information anywhere (see “there is no ticket system”) whether this bug was fixed during at least a year when it was (me) detected
There are more than a dozen such inaccuracies of the rules, but the lack of infrastructure for their removal and tracking teaches us to treat them condescendingly and coolly.
* Presence of classified information
The message that would be of interest to the whole world turns out to be closed among the readers of the site or even among the subscribers of one blog. It would not be a problem if all the blogs were divided into closed and open parts. Now - even worse - the moderator sometimes silently insists on transferring any article to some blog, and considers the opposite transfer disagreement with the actions of the administration and bans (I was banned from recording and voting for a week for a double attempt to publish an article about Habré in an open blog). The solution is the mark by the author, what kind of article he wants to have, and the moderator can simply set a non-global visibility label for the article, not for the blog, if he considers it necessary, and without creating conflicts.
There are trivial blocks of information - which are repeated on all pages and therefore they are simply not interesting to watch.
These are popular blogs, “best companies.” Rating rarely changes, so it’s interesting to look at such blocks only at the beginning by occasional visitors. Registered more than a month, I think, is already beginning to interfere.
* Distorted emphasis of links in the "live" and "QA"
The block itself is useful in that the “buried” and stuck topics have a chance to get under the eyes of other readers. But the link leads to a specific message and to the personal page of the author of the message. Why author? Why the message if the reader is interested in the headline, and not yet unknown to him the message? The solution - in HabrAjax posted links differently, as it is intuitively expected - to a specific message - on the author's nickname (although they are unlikely to go on it), to the article - on the title of the article.
* Non-informative work reports
Not to mention the fact that 80-90% of readers do not need such a block (because they do not live where they offer it), removed the location data from the link. But after all this links did not become more valuable! They became, on the contrary, more harmful, because by clicking it turns out that it is from another city and even a country.
* footer
Site rules are hidden somewhere in the middle of numerous lists.
================================================= ========
UPD : A note about the minus in karma. I didn’t want to write in the lists of problems, because I’ve already discussed 20 times elsewhere, but I’ll have to.
This is another relatively new problem Habr. Her, I think, will soon be decided by the introduction of an automatic reduction of karma by cons - there was a remark from someone from the developers. The problem is that the negative ones over the past year have become very angry. If a year ago, an average of 20 minuses in a comment was one minus in karma, from which it was possible to draw conclusions, now for 2-3 minus points in an article and even in some comments (if at the top of the page) there is 1 minus in karma. Moreover, the cons can appear on completely harmless reasons and when expressing a private opinion in the right place. And this is not one case (probably, not only with me, judging by the comments in other places). An example about myself - for a completely innocuous statement (“Thank you, auto-update should be disabled ...”), I’m not going to update Firefox from 8th to 9th and I got a lot of bad reasons to justify it , and as a result I lost about 4 units of karma (minuses of 7, plus the rest, and then only after asking for help). And in fact, after all, I disabled auto-update for this very reason, and thanks to the author of the article are sincere (I missed the update from 7 to 8, there were problems with addons).
Here and now: the article is placed in the right place. Blog - “Habr”, it took 3 hours. For 6 minuses in the article - 2 minuses in karma. The question is, which of the subscribers (not random people, read about the site, know what they are doing) can not so brutally dislike the discussion of the content that they vote for karma? I see the reason in the awareness of the threshold of impunity and in the increase in the number of such people who are not inclined to protect the ecosystem of the site.
Conclusions - people are embittered by the injustice of anonymous voting for karma and recoup on anyone only at the slightest pretext and hint at the justice of minus.
Oops, while writing this addition, the article went to the main page, already 7 minuses to the article - 4 minuses to karma. (With that, there was not a word about karma.) Save, who can.
UPD after 2 hours: the struggle between good and evil goes on with varying success: 2 plus, 2 minus.
(After all, it's wrong to have to take care of things not related to the material.)
UPD by morning: score +5, -2.
UPD to the evening: score +4, -1. And yet, this is not an assessment method, when in defense against the minus drivers of karma, it is necessary to say and warn about them. The first 4 minuses are unambiguously, there were angry unpunished miners (absolutely no one spoke negatively in the comments), when good-natured readers were silent, because it would not occur to anyone just to give alms when they do not ask.
Questions : WHY?
Who are all these evil people? Why are there so many of them?
What do they do here, in Habr's blog before, in all other blogs?
Similar attempts to analyze errors were made periodically in various “audits” of the site, voluntarily made by one or different authors ( one of the examples ). Wishes are often expressed in other ways. In particular, my vision of design and usability is partly expressed in the working user scripts (article about the script) and styles ( ZenComment , HabrAjax , they can always be found on the links from my personal page), but only partially, because I have to stick to the existing design, and besides, we see solutions, but not statements of problems, and the statements are listed below — solutions can be different and different.
The enumeration will go sequentially, in the order of the HTML codes of the site’s page, from the header to the footer. Specific pages will be described separately.
Problem group of various menus
* Double-link to the logo and menu
Let this small inconvenience, but in order we start with it. The link to the logo and the first link in the main menu (“posts”) do not differ, lead to the main page. Probably, it suits those who read only the main one (click where you want), but the header of the site loses its content, creates concern for the user who sees the same results on different links and tries to understand when they may be different. In addition, there is no clue, as on the logo, that “posts” are also the main page. Possible solution: make “posts” another link, for example, “in the last 24 hours”.
')
* Inefficiency of the submenu system
It was described quite fully by me in response to a similar article about the inefficiency of a submenu of another site: habrahabr.ru/company/webprofessionals/blog/132564/#comment_4401350 . Briefly - to go through the site menu, you need to do up to 4 clicks, despite the fact that it is not very complex and contains only about 20 links, considering the special pages (which, by the way, should not be pages - settings, authorization blocks). Possible solution: it is quite possible to keep all 20 links minimized on 1 page and have access to them by mouse-over and 1 click.
* User's menu
Already mentioned - personal page settings are a separate page, not personal page fields that can be edited.
* Small links to pages
There are, of course, the Ctrl + “right” buttons, but why are the mouse buttons so small? Solution: in ZenComment, I not only enlarged them, but also fixed them in the window at the bottom left. As a result, it is easy not only to click, but also to find out on which page the account is located. (Yes, yes, this is not necessary, everyone can take a closer look at the address bar. :))
* Headlines
Companies and blogs have huge names. Not very clear blog index - either. There is no sense in a huge name, if we always know the place of its location.
* author, date and source are not listed at the top of the article
Yes, they are also needed at the bottom, but also at the top. An important feature is when it is written and whether it is translated. If the latter can still be seen from the Z-I encrypted letters (yes, not all the inhabitants of the Earth know this, we enlighten as we can), then the date has to be searched somewhere in the middle of the page, and the author too. Solution - in HabrAjax there is a setting in which this data is duplicated at the top ( for example, this way ).
* source link in translations - the same color as the author and as comments
It slows the perception a little bit; there is no problem to make the color a little different, and the look will distinguish between links.
* As mentioned, it is quite easy to miss the sign that the article is a translation.
For greater distinctness, I, for example, arranged a background color for the header (pale blue, in ZenComment).
UPD 2012-07-10: added an explicit indication of “translation” by type, as “from the sandbox” appeared around May 2012.
* Annotations of articles
* Long titles for blogs, companies, and articles take up a lot of space.
Obviously, in order to attract attention, such a disadvantage pushes authors to give very long headlines for promotional purposes. Or vice versa, they would be happy to do less, but they cannot.
The solution is to make the header font depending on the length of the title, and to cut off the long blog titles (users are not to blame for the fact that they are so long). Implemented in HabrAjax .
* Do something with long texts before kata
It also encourages careless advertisers to write too much at the expense of others, to insert large pictures. The solution is to limit the size of the images to kata to about 100-120 pixels in height and force them to the right (and no more than 2). Also on the right is scrolling for very long annotations. Who does not fit - he is guilty, he will be read at the spread of the article or by scrolling.
* the left and right figures supplant the text if they are large
The solution is to limit them to max-width: 50% (an example can be seen in the ZenComment).
* Social network buttons, even if the reader does not use them
He could turn off the display of social network buttons if he does not have an account on a certain network.
* Publishing
* Show rating buttons, even if they are not functional.
Let this trick work as a hint to random visitors that evaluations happen in this particular place. But obviously too much for authorized visitors.
* Closely located comment rating buttons
An example of placing them on opposite sides of the assessment value is in the ZenComment.
* Post messages by Ctrl + Enter
(It still works!)
Perhaps, at first glance, this seems to be a sign of “advanced” interface, but, in fact, there is a suspicion that 90% of unexpected message sending errors occur as a result of this. Even if the user knows about it, he can accidentally press Ctrl + Enter while typing (I knew, but it happened), and the sent comment cannot be corrected. Possible solution: I personally put a lock on this action in the script (HabrAjax), and since I always write under user scripts, the errors of unexpected message sending have stopped. For the administration - it would be most simple - to cancel the rule, remove it from all input forms. Or, looking at another flaw, enter the rule of possible editing a posted comment in the first 5–20 minutes or until others have watched it (but at least some time).
* Closely located buttons "Preview" and "Send"
They are large, so the error is unlikely, but there is a lot of space on the right. What prevents the submit button to at least move away from the preview?
* Triggering <br> tags in Source and Code
I wrote about this bug in technical support in the summer - nothing has been done, although they answered in a letter.
Crash test: enter
<source lang = "javascript">
a = "<br>";
</ source>
Then click "preview" (when sending the same, checked in the mail from a month ago).
UPD 2012-07-10: corrected for SOURCE on July 9, 2012.
* Source, Blockquote will not appear among the tag buttons.
Resolved in HabrAjax.
UPD 2012-07-10: SOURCE appeared on April 12, 2012 .
* Somehow close buttons are above the input field, you have to aim
Spread out in HabrAjax and in another script (from Crea7or), if he is in the ranks now.
* Unexpected redundant modal window when entering some tags
Distracts from the input field, attention moves to the middle of the window. In a constantly cited script, modal window services are disabled.
* there is no growth of the input field when increasing the amount of text in it
And even the resize style is turned off. Included in HabrAjax (height).
* Lack of ticket system
The user who sees the bug remains one on one with technical support mail. He doesn't even know if others have written about this bug and how long ago it appeared. In the comments and on the Internet, he can see descriptions of other bugs, so the argument “we hid tickets so that no one knew that there are errors” does not work, and the service does not have what is around and for free (the simplest example is the website reformal.ru , paid example (classic) - getsatisfaction.com).
* Deletion of comments
Even if the user made a grammatical, logical (or fatalistic :)) error, he cannot correct it in his own message. He can write somewhere down there, what to read, they say, not so, but otherwise, or do not read it at all, but this will be THEN and DOWN. While the administration and users of other full resources to correct their messages can. The result - a clear discrimination and the game with only one goal. In the best (and normal, decent) position is only the author of the article, which can delete the article. But there is another problem - deleting the messages of all other users.
* Removable comments
If the user (or someone else) deleted the article, all comments by other authors are deleted, which also contradicts the principles of controllability of their own messages. How to solve? The best solution (for an information resource) seems to be a suggestion for users to republish their comments elsewhere. To do this, they just need to be visible to the author in the list of his comments and marked as invisible, and now they are simply removed from everywhere (except for the draft of the author), and if the user has written something valuable - he loses it, and also loses time to set your comments.
* deletion of messages and articles (!) of the user who was removed from the site
This concerns not only the information necessary for removal according to the laws of the country or according to the rules of the site, but also in general all (!) User messages that are not related to the reasons for deleting the author.
Here is an obvious failure in the concept of an information resource in general. If information on a resource is destroyed for no reason - this is no longer an information resource. Any user will be forced to copy information and save it on real information resources.
* inaccuracies of the rules
There are numerous inaccuracies and non-information. They were collected and tried to fix, but they remain. Examples:
- It says about 100 characters available for the survey header, but in fact there can be no more than 90 of them.
- Nowhere warned that the survey can not be edited after publication. (In theory, the warning should be right in front of the publish button.)
- it is not warned anywhere that the length of the article can be more than 43706 characters (or slightly more),
- there is no information anywhere (see “there is no ticket system”) whether this bug was fixed during at least a year when it was (me) detected
There are more than a dozen such inaccuracies of the rules, but the lack of infrastructure for their removal and tracking teaches us to treat them condescendingly and coolly.
* Presence of classified information
The message that would be of interest to the whole world turns out to be closed among the readers of the site or even among the subscribers of one blog. It would not be a problem if all the blogs were divided into closed and open parts. Now - even worse - the moderator sometimes silently insists on transferring any article to some blog, and considers the opposite transfer disagreement with the actions of the administration and bans (I was banned from recording and voting for a week for a double attempt to publish an article about Habré in an open blog). The solution is the mark by the author, what kind of article he wants to have, and the moderator can simply set a non-global visibility label for the article, not for the blog, if he considers it necessary, and without creating conflicts.
* In sidebar
There are trivial blocks of information - which are repeated on all pages and therefore they are simply not interesting to watch.
These are popular blogs, “best companies.” Rating rarely changes, so it’s interesting to look at such blocks only at the beginning by occasional visitors. Registered more than a month, I think, is already beginning to interfere.
* Distorted emphasis of links in the "live" and "QA"
The block itself is useful in that the “buried” and stuck topics have a chance to get under the eyes of other readers. But the link leads to a specific message and to the personal page of the author of the message. Why author? Why the message if the reader is interested in the headline, and not yet unknown to him the message? The solution - in HabrAjax posted links differently, as it is intuitively expected - to a specific message - on the author's nickname (although they are unlikely to go on it), to the article - on the title of the article.
* Non-informative work reports
Not to mention the fact that 80-90% of readers do not need such a block (because they do not live where they offer it), removed the location data from the link. But after all this links did not become more valuable! They became, on the contrary, more harmful, because by clicking it turns out that it is from another city and even a country.
* footer
Site rules are hidden somewhere in the middle of numerous lists.
================================================= ========
UPD : A note about the minus in karma. I didn’t want to write in the lists of problems, because I’ve already discussed 20 times elsewhere, but I’ll have to.
This is another relatively new problem Habr. Her, I think, will soon be decided by the introduction of an automatic reduction of karma by cons - there was a remark from someone from the developers. The problem is that the negative ones over the past year have become very angry. If a year ago, an average of 20 minuses in a comment was one minus in karma, from which it was possible to draw conclusions, now for 2-3 minus points in an article and even in some comments (if at the top of the page) there is 1 minus in karma. Moreover, the cons can appear on completely harmless reasons and when expressing a private opinion in the right place. And this is not one case (probably, not only with me, judging by the comments in other places). An example about myself - for a completely innocuous statement (“Thank you, auto-update should be disabled ...”), I’m not going to update Firefox from 8th to 9th and I got a lot of bad reasons to justify it , and as a result I lost about 4 units of karma (minuses of 7, plus the rest, and then only after asking for help). And in fact, after all, I disabled auto-update for this very reason, and thanks to the author of the article are sincere (I missed the update from 7 to 8, there were problems with addons).
Here and now: the article is placed in the right place. Blog - “Habr”, it took 3 hours. For 6 minuses in the article - 2 minuses in karma. The question is, which of the subscribers (not random people, read about the site, know what they are doing) can not so brutally dislike the discussion of the content that they vote for karma? I see the reason in the awareness of the threshold of impunity and in the increase in the number of such people who are not inclined to protect the ecosystem of the site.
Conclusions - people are embittered by the injustice of anonymous voting for karma and recoup on anyone only at the slightest pretext and hint at the justice of minus.
Oops, while writing this addition, the article went to the main page, already 7 minuses to the article - 4 minuses to karma. (With that, there was not a word about karma.) Save, who can.
UPD after 2 hours: the struggle between good and evil goes on with varying success: 2 plus, 2 minus.
(After all, it's wrong to have to take care of things not related to the material.)
UPD by morning: score +5, -2.
UPD to the evening: score +4, -1. And yet, this is not an assessment method, when in defense against the minus drivers of karma, it is necessary to say and warn about them. The first 4 minuses are unambiguously, there were angry unpunished miners (absolutely no one spoke negatively in the comments), when good-natured readers were silent, because it would not occur to anyone just to give alms when they do not ask.
Questions : WHY?
Who are all these evil people? Why are there so many of them?
What do they do here, in Habr's blog before, in all other blogs?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/135667/
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