How to make using the TranslationTool easier?

Table of contents:

Why the TranslationTool needs an improved Design

Within the two years of its existence, the TranslationTool has been both massively and steadily growing. While lots of new submissions were made and new content was added, its functionality has also been widely increased. However, the user interface has not been altered very much in the meantime. For this reason, the main page is now quite overloaded. While it contains many useful features, it is not really usable in an intuitive way. Especially new users might be scared away by this which is considered counterproductive.

As a result of these concerns, it was proposed to remove about 70% of all elements from the current startpage and to modify the design of any other pages which can be improved in means of usability.

The following pages may need to be redesigned or restructured:

• Startpage
  Currently active version
  Proposal 1
  Proposal 2

• Article Posting Form
  Article Posting Form
  Is it good to have the help texts for the input forms immediately visible? We could hide them, so that only people looking for help would see them (a link to a help page, a pop-up window, a help field, that appears when the mouse pointer is over it)

• Article View
  Article View (Example)

There may be others.

It is probably about time to collect these and other ideas related to the TranslationTool and to realize and integrate them on face to face meetings. For now, the germanwide IMC meeting in february in Berlin is targeted for making this happen.

Previous ideas for Design Changes

The TranslationTool users have already aggregated a list of proposed design changes, ideas for improvements, considerations etc. It is probably a good time to check these single hints before putting together a complete redesign proposal.

• Is it good to have the labels of the center column icons only with english text (To do, I'll do, Part, Revision, Done) or would it be better to translate them aswell? (We thought ppl have to get used to the english keywords and so learn the releation better if icons are in english aswell)
• Do we still need the "Todo| Illdo | Done | part | revision"-links under the icons? Since they are not very selective (most of it keeps "to do" forever")
• improve the documentation (translate the user guide, FAQs, etc.)
• translate the GUI to more languages
• the (german) helptag for the title while adding a translation to a requested article is misleading, it says: the title of the post should be the one of the source article.. but where to put the translated one?
• it seems not consequent to have to put the status-tags in front of the titles [illdo, ...] and then have to manually edit it afterwards again, since the status tag wasn't used and didnot update the state after all. (why not seperate titles and status-tags?)
• get rid of the feature feed from www.indymedia.org in the upper right corner of the startpage. It is broken for a long time and I can't see when it will be fixed. Any proposals what to do with this free space now?.

Design Proposals

Current design of the TranslationTool

On this wiki topic, we are collecting some proposals on how to redesign the TranslationTool with a strong focus on increasing its usability.

You are very much welcome to add your own proposal.

To do so, please right-click on Edit (on the upper left and bottom of this page) and select Open in new Window (or Open in new Tab). This way you can have a look at the old version while you are editing to see what you are changing,

Next, edit one of the proposals marked as Example Proposal below. Make sure to keep the last example proposal as it is (read: make a copy and paste yours on top of it) so other people can use it as a template.

You are free to change anything about the way your proposal looks, of course. The examples are just there to make your life easier.

When adding your ideas, please try to be as specific as you can, i.e.:

• Make notes on the navigational structure: If I click this, it takes me there. This image links to this page.
• Make notes on the design: background and foreground colors, text sytle (italic, bold ...), text indenting etc.
• Give examples of other web sites which are already using the styles or structures you like/recommend.

That's it. Happy designing!

Design 1

Proposed by: AlsteR

Modified by: (Put your name and email address (or your WikiName) here if you are editing this proposal and it was not initially made by you)

Startpage

Header

The header line contains the following elements:

• The interface language selection box
• A Live Help text link (preferrably) or the current Live Help! button
• A search box which runs a full text on all articles.

An extended search is available through the main menu (see left column below). All elements of the header bar span a single line and are aligned to the right side of the screen.

Left column

The left column contains a logo as well as the main menu. Both logo and main menu should be located on this position on every page of the TranslationTool.

The TranslationTool logo always links back to the main page.

The main menu contains the following menu options:

• Add article -- This links to the Article Posting Form, see below.
• Search -- This links to an Extended Search page
• Documentation -- This is just a menu category without any function
  • Quick Start -- A quick start tutorial for those who do not want to read all the docs
  • FAQ -- Frequently Asked Questions on translations & the tool
  • Complete Docs -- The full and comprehensive docs on the TranslationTool
• About
  • Mission Statement -- what it says.
  • Editorial Policy -- what it says.
• Contact -- A new page listing info on the translation mailing list and the IRC channel, also including an email form which makes posting to the mailing list possible without subscription.

Additionally, below the main menu, there will be another menu which lists the adminitrative options:

• Administration
• Interface Language Mgmt.

Center column (Yet to be completed by AlsteR.)

Right column (Yet to be completed by AlsteR.)

Article Posting Form

(Yet to be completed by AlsteR.)

Article View

(Yet to be completed by AlsteR.)

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Design 2

Proposed by: LinksRhein

Heavy use of iframes (in contrast to the proposal of Alster, which would mean to get rid of frames)

Demo A: http://translations.indymedia.org/copy1_of_index_html

Demo B: http://translations.indymedia.org/copy3_of_index_html

Modified by: (Put your name and email address here if you are editing this proposal and it was not initially made by you)

Startpage

header:

• no difference between external and internal section and removed link to permanent_html (no one ever uses it!)
  
• chat / help / docu / technics / contact - infos moved to left colunmn
  

left column:

• removed list with language code links
• 1 search slot + send - button, link to expert search in center frame
• chat- button
  
• help links (faqs, docu, instructions, language codes) if you click on the link, the info appears in you language in the center frame
  * flash-tutorials in different languages (alternative: one link that fills the center frame where you find a list to many tutorials)

center column:

• link and icon for listing the language-source added
  
• link added to explain language codes
  

right column:

• still no idea for upper right corner
• right column is filled with the latest replies to translation requests the
• Add any other design elements if you like or remove this line

Article Posting Form

• Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• Add any other design elements if you like or remove this line

Article View

• Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• Add any other design elements if you like or remove this line

Add any other pages to be changed here or remove paragrah

• Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• Add any other design elements if you like or remove this line

---

Design 3 -- EXAMPLE PROPOSAL

Proposed by: (Put your name and email address here if you are putting your proposal here)

Modified by: (Put your name and email address here if you are editing this proposal and it was not initially made by you)

Startpage

• header:
  Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• left column:
  Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• center column:
  Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• right column:
  Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• Add any other design elements if you like or remove this line

Article Posting Form

• Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• Add any other design elements if you like or remove this line

Article View

• Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• Add any other design elements if you like or remove this line

Add any other pages to be changed here or remove paragrah

• Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• Add any other design elements if you like or remove this line

---

Design X -- EXAMPLE PROPOSAL

Proposed by: (Put your name and email address here if you are putting your proposal here)

Modified by: (Put your name and email address here if you are editing this proposal and it was not initially made by you)

Startpage

• header:
  Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• left column:
  Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• center column:
  Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• right column:
  Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• Add any other design elements if you like or remove this line

Article Posting Form

• Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• Add any other design elements if you like or remove this line

Article View

• Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• Add any other design elements if you like or remove this line

Add any other pages to be changed here or remove paragrah

• Type your proposal or comment in this,
  this
  and this line (of course you can add more)

• Add any other design elements if you like or remove this line

Reactions to the proposals

duende

Just a few unstructured comments on the proposals above:

• Thank you for coming up with this! :-))) Maybe we can consider an irc meeting on the topic after the meeting in Berlin?
• Logo: on every page, linking back to the homepage: YES!
• Search function: I think a simplified search on the homepage is enough for most users (as in Proposal 2)
• I love the feature feed from www.indymedia.org but it's probably a good idea to replace it by the last comments posted (as in Proposal 1)
• Promoting the list is a good idea. As a contact point and to invite translators to subscribe.
• Internal/external section: ok to get rid of the internal. is it technically possible/easy to solve the problem of the requests disappearing after a few months by adding a checkbox on the posting form, with a question such as "Request are normally deleted after x months. Do you want yours to be permanent (for instance for localisation request for indy software)?" (formulation needs to be improved...)
• Live help button: if we keep it, i would not be against changing its color
• Article posting form: I think the help texts are more usefull to first time posters (indyans not familiar with the TT who needs to post a request in a rush because there's something big going on in their area) than they are disturbing for regular users. I agree that changing the title field is a good idea. Can't we just put the translated title there?

carlos

here are my opinions:

• a source button allong with the other ones would be good;
• that little pencil link on the upper right of every article could disappear, 'cause it is not be used by most people and ends up confusing them;
• a simplified search tool would be nice;
• most of the links on the upper middle could be transfered to the left column;
• the internal and organisational texts should either have a more visible link or not be distinguished at all, appearing among the normal translation requests;
• i dont know what that RSS syndication works for, but if its not so important i think it could be removed or put in the left column, leaving the right column for ongoing translations on top, and Publication of infos on translation work below;
• i think proposal 2 of the new page is already much better then the one being used now, and in my opinion could already be put online, needing only some minor changes (i.e. pencil removal, right column).

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-- LinksRhein - 05 Jan 2005

-- AlsteR - 06 Jan 2005

-- DuendeBxl - 02 Feb 2005

-- CarlosMOP - 08 May 2005