[Theforum] Why do so many people care?

Michele Foster michele at wordpro.on.ca
Mon Dec 10 22:30:32 CST 2001


/me suffering from email overload right about now.  ;)


----- Original Message -----
From: "Madhu Menon" <webguru at vsnl.net>


| The reason we are arguing so much about what goes where is that there was
| no planned areas for these in the original design. For a long time now,
| we've apparently been adding bits and pieces (look no further than that
| mass of text called the sidebar), trying to find an empty slot where we
can
| put new stuff.

There's a lot of truth in this ... however ....

|
| Well, it's gone too far. The current design is groaning under the pressure
| and has already thrown in the towel. Why do these author/bio blocks look
so
| out of place? Because they are! There wasn't any place for them before.

Understandable.

|
| We could go on trying to find a design that'll work, and we may even reach
| something that looks OK, but that will only be temporary. The next time
| someone comes up with a cool idea that we want to implement, we'll again
go
| through this vicious cycle, until we reach a point where no amount of
| design can work.
|
| Perhaps we should just postpone any further features and changes to the
| main site till we analyse the survey data, work out a fresh set of design
| requirements, and then create a totally new design that will actually have
| a plan for author bios, etc. I see no other way to do it.

-1

Realistically, a new design is going to take 6 months .. so, we're looking
at next summer.  Postponing further features isn't an option that I
(personally) want to consider.  There are several mini-projects that will
continue to be worked on while those creating a new design are doing their
thing.  We are *so* close to working on member pages .. which have been on
the books for, what?, well over a year.

It is unfair to say, let's stop everything else while a redeisign is being
worked on.  It's unrealistic too.  Necessary, obviously, but its not going
to happen overnight.  We need to keep working on the other projects/ideas we
have too.

|
| Until then, let's just vote on concepts (e.g., "we need a spot for an
| author's mini-biography") and not on the actual implementation (e.g.,
| "let's put it next to the title in a 300px box")

See above .. I disapprove.  We've got to have the flexibility to go with
ideas as they come up.  Putting ideas on the back-burner while waiting for a
redesign is going to mean (a) those ideas never get done; or (b) they get
done 9 months or so from now.  Far too much time will be wasted continuously
bringing people up to speed on an idea/project.  Witness Member pages ..
what did it take .. 3 months or so, until it all finally came together and I
(personally) understood what had been decided upon during the evolution of
evolt v.2.

|
| Once we get approval for ideas and concepts, we can then work them into
the
| design. If, however, most of us vote against a concept, then we'll all be
| wasting time and bandwidth arguing over the design of a concept that the
| majority were against anyway.
|
| So, Michele, it's probably a good idea to rephrase your vote questions as:
|
| 1) Do you want author stats on the article page?
| 2) Do you want author bio on the article page?
|
| If the majority votes yes, we'll put that down as part of the new design
| requirement. We then vote on the design of it much later.

Results for both questions are Yes.  I'm prepared to to proceed with that.
(Will respond to designs in a few minutes).

|
| Do you folks think I'm talking sense?

You are .. but I disagree wholeheartedly.


Thanks,

Michele






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