February 22, 2009 at 06:36 pm - by jpeddicord (3 Posts) | |
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 I just submitted my project for the Kicking it Off general scholarship. Most of the elements of the site were self-explanatory, but there were several places that I wasn't sure that my action had completed. Good:The account pages do give feedback to let you know that your settings were saved.Bad:Some of the other pages do not. Namely, the project editor pages and the scholarship submission form. Once submitted, the form goes back to the scholarship overview page (after a hidden postdata redirect). From my limited experience with Drupal in the past (aka guesswork), this means that the form was submitted successfully, though it would be nice to have a notification message stating so.Also, and you probably already know this because the site is obviously working, but I got a MySQL crash page with a bunch of PHP errors about coolstack when changing a project status from Open to Submitted. Given that the rest of the site stopped working as well, I figure it was a coincidence, but I might as well report it. ;) One more usability gripe I have are these forums: the first post is at the top of the page, and then you have to scroll to the bottom and read upwards and in threads to get the information you need. I know, I know, it's a Drupal thing, but it's still a bit confusing. Aside from all that, the rest of the site works flawlessly. Most of the project pages were very self-explanatory and provided plenty of places to fill out information. Thanks for the awesome site, and sorry for the complaining! :D
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June 1, 2009 at 09:52 am - by Mazin (12 Posts) | |
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 @forezt Please, no more of those Ajax/Javascript gimmicks. The more of those there are, the fewer options I have to browse the site using anything but their "ideal" browser/plugins configuration. Oh, and I think they already have a chatroom feature; I think I found one on their contest web pages. I don't mind reloading the page if the website isn't slow. It MIGHT be helpful to focus on optimizing the website and maybe adding more servers. It's not encouraging for me to see pages full of MySQL errors at peak usage times. | |
May 26, 2009 at 10:33 am - by forezt (4 Posts) | |
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 Freshbrain might look into using more Ajax/Javascript technologies to enable users to make entries without having to reload pages constantly. This would save bandwidth, speeding up the whole site, and give the interface a smoother feel. It could not only yield more dynamic interface feedback, but make embedded instant messaging (think facebook) possible. I'm also a bit tiffed by the way freshbrain's pages have unencrypted content mixed in with encrypted content. I use a browser which doesn't allow you to disable the related warnings, so I'm constantly pressing "continue" as I browse. By the way, jpeddicord, I've enjoyed your articles at FOSSwire; they've been a boon to my adventures in Ubuntu land. | |
May 22, 2009 at 05:31 pm - by brainster (65 Posts) | |
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 Thanks for the feedback, Glai. I do see your point and I will take your feedback to my team to work on improving the overall usability. | |
May 22, 2009 at 05:01 pm - by glai (2 Posts) | |
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 As a new member the design of the Web site hasn't had much time to grow on me, but I doubt it will. My main complaint is the organization. It's fine for it to be oriented around topics, but it grows hard or just annoying to navigate when all the user-created content is located in separate, long lists stretching over small pages without a search function to aid the process. There's the search at the top, but it searches the whole site and isn't very intuitive. The site seems overly graphical, using too many small boxes, buttons, and hotlinks to present important information in scattered places. It may appeal to some teenagers the same way kids websites have huge icons to appeal to children, but it clutters up what could otherwise be a clean and accessible site. It's hard for me to like. I feel like I may be missing out on interesting content because I don't want to bother sifting through the ugly disorder to search for it. Perhaps a more centralized design would be easier for me to like. It's just some feedback. I think FreshBrain is a innovative concept, something that has the potential to become wonderful given enough community activity. The web design of any site can attract or repel a significant portion of its visitors; for me, I know it will be painful to use FreshBrain as it is now. | |
April 24, 2009 at 09:30 am - by rickvug (2 Posts) | |
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 I agree with jpeddlcord about the forum ordering. I have participated in many online forums and all discussions have been listed in chronological order, starting with the original post and ending with the last reply. | |
February 22, 2009 at 07:01 pm - by jpeddicord (3 Posts) | |
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Ignore that last comment about the post order, I just found the sort by options at the top-right. :P | |