New Browse Box

[homerdundas]

... sorry to offend anyone - I thought my browser was broken for a minute when it first came up. This box seems quite ugly to me - it is not in the same style as the rest of the page - it's nice that it is in the centre - and I can agree with the necessity - some people who are not Internet adept, have expressed to me that this site is difficult to use (though I'm sure they would say the same about 98% of the Internet). I suggest that the type size be reduced, the table format scrapped, and replaced by a simple box - with the same bullets one finds in the navigation panel at the left of the page. The text size should be larger than the navigation panel, however. Does anyone else have comments about this?

[BKhon]

Firstly: It's never a good idea to use all CAPS in any given heading or body. It's offensive in some languages

Secondly: I can certainly sympathize with those who are not internet adept, but I wouldn't go the extent of calling the site "hard to use".

Lastly: I suppose we can play around with it until it looks better. I agree that perhaps the design is not as good at it could be.

[daphnis]

I also think this new box is horrid to look at and doesn't really help add any accessibility to the site. How hard is it to take 20 seconds to look at the wiki front page and come across the left boarder to find the "browse scores" section??

[BKhon]

I don't think it's horrid, but to be honest I don't see the point. I would prefer one of two things:

1). Completely ditch the whole "Browse" section from the main page, and replace it with the news section. If one keeps everything else the same, I think this looks better. Not to mention, it lines up perfectly with the featured scores section. Feel free to edit the page deleting the entire template and browse score section (just make sure to hit "preview" instead of "save").

2). Perhaps something along these lines (though it could be vastly improved):



<h2>Browse Musical Works</h2>
<div class="mp_box">
<center>
{| border='2' cellspacing='2' cellpadding='10'
|-
|[[:Category:Composers|Composer Name]]
|[http://imslp.org/index.php?title=Catego ... Recordings Composer Name]
|[[Browse by composer time period|Composer Time Period]]
|[[:Category:Performers|Performer Name]]
|[[:Category:Composers by nationality|Composer Nationality]]
|[[IMSLP:View Genres|Genre or Instrumentation]]
|}




Of course my slapdash critique fails to disambiguate the difference between "recordings" and "scores", which poses a problem... That can, however, be easily fixed.

[imslp]

The reason for that box was that I have heard reports of people who couldn't really find a way to browse the site on first glance. I understand that frequent IMSLP users would have no problem, but for a new user, having the links somewhat buried amongst a fairly big page is perhaps somewhat intimidating.

That said, the point of my recent modifications of the Main Page was to spark discussion and improvement of that page. As I noted on my talk page the Main Page is perhaps a little too cluttered, so I would welcome any discussion on how to improve it that way (or any disagreement about whether the page is too cluttered in the first place!).

Please, please do feel free to change that page. As I noted before (and as you now know), I'm a horrible web designer.

[vinteuil]

Yeah, it looks terrible. Make the borders thinner.

[daphnis]

Seriously, I really don't see how this makes the site more user friendly--it just makes it awkward to stumble upon. This site follows other left-border-style wikis which reads like a table of contents. Have the people who complained about the site's readability ever visited any other websites on the internet?

[vinteuil]

Yes. In fairness, I have heard plenty of complaints about navigation difficulties—perhaps laziness, but still...

[BKhon]

Yeah, it looks terrible. Make the borders thinner.

Do you mean the original, or the one that I recently implemented :/ I guess either one needs help... I'm not much a designer either (obviously)...

[daphnis]

I have heard plenty of complaints about navigation difficulties—perhaps laziness, but still...

Difficulty in even finding the "browse scores" section on the left?! Because that's the only thing this box fixes.

[vinteuil]

I tried removing the borders—perhaps this looks better—

[BKhon]

Yes, it does look better... we should all try not to be so hotheaded about this. Everyone seems quite harsh today.

[imslp]

I agree. Lighten up, everyone... there was no permanent damage.

By the way, the data center the main IMSLP server is hosted in is currently undergoing a power outage (apparently the backup power failed too), hence why the server is down at the moment.

[steltz]

The latest version looks quite nice. I see both sides of this - I think browsers should be able to find their way to the list on on the left, but I have also had to help many students and even our Head Librarian to navigate the site, so there was something not very intuitive about the page. Let's see how this latest revision does.

[Carolus]

I think the latest version looks quite nice, and in keeping with the overall design of the page.