Re: Major updates to beta php.net based on UserVoice feedback.

Hi Levi, Thanks for the email, I didn't bother consolidating all my work into an email like this. I like the simpler header. I like the new breadcrumb format it solved the issue for prev/next buttons. We still need to give users a dropdown menu. I'd like to use twitter bootstrap header menu so we get easy dropdowns. The main reason for this is we can use bootstrap-responsive.css and our header will become mobile/tablet responsive without needing to code anything, they can do all the heavy lifting for us. I'm not sure if you're experience with bootstrap but I am so it' a natural choice. Thoughts? On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 12:25 AM, Levi Morrison <levim@php.net> wrote: > Dear list, > > I have been reviewing a lot of the feedback we have from UserVoice. This > as been valuable in identifying some serious problems we have with our beta > website. Thanks to Peter Cowburn, Paul Dragoonis and anyone else involved > for getting UserVoice up and running. > > I have some major updates pending to beta PHP.net that address many of the > feedback items. I have not yet pushed because it creates some new problems > and I don't want feedback from users on it just yet since I know what some > of the big issues are. > > Some highlights and lowlights: > > - *I stuck the header to the top of the screen at all times. *This > required a few changes such as shrinking its overal vertical size. I also > went ahead and gave it the dark-grey color of the dropdown menu and the > footer. > - The dropdown menu now interacts strangely if you've scrolled. > This can be fixable, but there has been a lot of feedback on the dropdown > menu that is hard to fix. *I vote we remove the dropdown menu**.*We don't have one > currently and so it isn't a usability regression if we > remove it. If we can work a better implementation then we can add it back > in. This would possibly mean we need to add an item or two to the main > navigation but I'm fine with that. > - *I moved the "parent" navigation items out of the layout-menu (on > the left) and into a breadcrumbs bar. *This came from a suggestion > from the uservoice feedback and I think it works really well. This also > strengthens the layout-menu because it's more clear what the menu is for: > related functions. > - *I reduced the margins on many items. *This one was painful to me > but I really had to choose between shrinking the margins and shrinking the > base font-size which I will not do. Thus I gave in and removed some of the > whitespace. This means some items that were originally separated by > whitespace might need something else to help separate them (such as a > border). > - *The layout-menu is now grey instead of purple.* Combined with the > dark header across the page this really gives the page more variety in > color and contrast. A very common piece of feedback was the lack of color, > excess whitespace and lacking contrast. > - *The homepage looks worse than ever.* Not quite sure what to do > about it; I'll think about it over the next day or so. > > If you have ideas on how to fix any of these problems please let me know. > There are also a few minor problems such as the PHP logo now being barely > visible that I need to touch up before I push these changes; I don't want a > bunch of UserVoice feedback saying the PHP logo is hard to see. > > The changes can be viewed at http://leviathon.homenet.org/ when > my server > is up -- it's hit and miss right now because of active development. You can > find a small gallery of screenshots that illustrate these changes at > http://imgur.com/a/4ZoWo#0 > > If you absolutely hate these changes, please let me know that as well; I'm > open to feedback both good and ill. > > Cheers, > > Levi Morrison >