[thelist] client push / designer pull

joe stowaway at uklinux.net
Sat Oct 25 07:30:58 CDT 2003


hi folks

this is a kind of two part question which I'd be interested in getting 
your feedback on.  the first part is about design and usability, the 
second technical.

as far as the design philosohpy goes:

I have a project which is a redesign for a client's existing site.  the 
site is a community area in which people can message each other and 
chat, as well as browse one-another's profiles etc.

the way the previous designers set the site up was to auto-refresh every 
page every thirty seconds, thereby allowing notification of new messages 
to members who are logged in, and also let them know of any chat-requests.

the client wants to keep the notification functionality, which also 
includes a 'feature' called the screensaver.  It's not actually a 
screensaver, it's a mechanism whereby the browser window is made tiny 
and unskinned.  The auto-refresh continues every thirty seconds and if a 
new message is delivered, a full-screen pop-up appears with a picture of 
the the user's choosing.

Our discussions have gone something along the lines of:

client:  I want to keep this functionality because I haven't seen any 
other sites doing it

me:  perhaps because no-one else thinks its a good idea?

client:  I just turn the volume down so the auto-refresh clicks don't 
annoy me

me:  so the computer's ability to use standard audio-communications with 
the user is totally disabled

client:  users go off and do other things, so we need to let them know 
they have a message

me:  if users are doing other things, perhaps they don't want a message 
right now

client:  they will use the site at work, so they need a notification 
system that is discrete for when their boss walks past, and the 
full-screen image just looks like a screensaver

me:  yes if they're away from their computer, but then they won't see 
the notification.  if however, they are just using another program (very 
likely if they are at work), the full-screen pop-up occurs at an 
unpredictable moment, and interferes with them as they type in Word, 
send an email, save an important file, etc.


so we're trying to come to a compromise: I want to scrap the 
auto-refresh, for a number of reasons - it makes my computer click every 
30 seconds, a sound I've come to associate with pop-ups, when I'm not 
requesting pages, and which drives me mad.  I also want to allow users 
to set a preference so that they can choose to have the full-screen 
pop-up notification if they want (the client simply won't lose it 
altogether).  the latter is straight-forward and we've agreed on that.  
the former is going to be a bit more tricky

the technical part is what is the best way to keep notifications without 
the auto-refresh.  there are a number of options, but I wonder what you 
think about it:

we've already agreed that we will use some flash objects in the site, so 
I am leaning towards using the flash banner to piggy-back 
notifications.  the messages and chats are all written to user's 
individual xml files, so it should be possible to use the flash object 
to send timed requests for the user's xml files and check if there are 
new messages and run some kind of animation or call a script.  people 
without flash do see static content, but are also exactly the users who 
are likely to not want a full-screen pop-up, and clicks every 30 seconds 
when they're doing something else.

before I plough into this I wonder if anyone has any suggestions as to 
better ways of doing it?  and also how far should one resist a clients' 
demand to alter the normal functionality of someone's computer?

bit of a long one, sorry about that :)

thanks

joe



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