6 ms·

Any critique of our ad or design spec are also very very welcome!

ajray 16y ago
I am a research scientist but not a web developer. Is there anyway/anywhere I can sign my email up to be notified when an Alpha/Beta is available? I'd love to contribute if possible!
- emeltzer 16y ago
  Absolutely. Should have linked this off the bat, but here is our signup page: http://openprotocols.net/ http://openprotocols.net/
  - ajray 16y ago
    Why does the subscription tell me I've subscribed to SynBioWorld?
stevelosh 16y ago
Here are a few quick, random things I noticed after looking through the PDF. The emphasis on documentation is great. We need more of this. You say that the "hint text" in the various form fields should disappear when the field has focus. I actually find it much easier to use when the text gets lighter but doesn't disappear until the user has started to type. I usually navigate forms by tabbing through the fields, and I hit tab as soon as I'm done with one field, which means that by the time my eyes get down to the next field the hit text would be gone. The jQuery In-Field Labels plugin is a great way to make it a little bit more usable: http://fuelyourcoding.com/scripts/infield/ http://fuelyourcoding.com/scripts/infield/ I'm assuming that users create groups. When two users inevitably create similar groups, is there any way to merge them? Do you really need a separate "add link" button for each reagent? Why not just show the link field and clearly mark it as optional, so someone doesn't have to click many times if they have a bunch of reagents with links? You mentioned videos for steps. Are you thinking people will upload them? If so, that's tricky. What formats do you accept, do you have the space/bandwidth to host them, etc? Or are you thinking that people will upload them to YouTube/Vimeo/etc and paste the link? If so, are they embedded or do users need to go to the video page to view it? The requirements for the step editor seem awfully specific. I'd suggest taking a look at the available editors around like CKEditor or WMD and choosing one of them as a baseline. http://ckeditor.com/ http://ckeditor.com/ http://wmd-editor.com/ http://wmd-editor.com/ The page describing the fonts, buttons, etc seems extremely specific. If the PDF is a collection of wireframes and not a design (maybe I misunderstood it) then there are probably things more important to nail down than the border-radius (border-radii?) of input fields. For the log in lightbox, have you considered using email verification (user signs up, gets emailed an activation link, clicks link, logs in) instead of a captcha? Do you really need the "Ban User" functionality for group admins? Does banning a user make them not able to see that group at all? What if they log out, or create a new account? It seems like the troll rate on a site like this would be extremely low, so is this necessary or just adding extra complexity? What is that "Language" link in the header? Will the site support multiple languages? Can users translate protocols? If so, which user "owns" the translated protocol? This could potentially add quite a bit of work, so it should probably be nailed down. Is the "Blog" in the header just a link to a Tumblr/WordPress/whatever blog or is it part of the site? Something that seems to be missing is a rough overview of the data. A page describing the data would be very helpful, even something as simple as "protocols are divided into groups, groups are created by users, and users can add new group admins" would go a long way. I'm a bit confused about the "DIYBio Protocols" page. Is this a group? It seems like it has a bunch of groups inside it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what a group is. A rough data model would help with this a lot.
- emeltzer 16y ago
  This is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping we'd get! I'm just going to go line by line, after which I'll start redo-ing the PDF to reflect some of the changes. 1. Hint text. Good point. That implementation definitely sounds more useable, and of course, there's a jQuery plugin for it :) 2. There's no explicit way to merge groups, because it sounded like more of a hassle than it was worth. What do you think of avoiding the problem in the first place by suggesting existing groups as the user types in a group name to be created? 3. Separate add link button: good point. changing this. 4. Video: lets forget it. I've never done anything involving video uploading, and once I had a look at what a hassle it is to do, I don't think it's worth it for the amount of our users that will actually use it. 5. Step editor. Yes, also a good point. CKeditor seems perfect. 6. the importance of border-radii: cannot be underestimated. the PDF is supposed to be a bit more than wireframes, but is not intended to be that high-level of a design. 7. Captcha vs. email verification. I did think about this one a bit. I personally hate email verification more than I hate captchas, but is there some other reason to prefer one over the other? 8. ban user is about as useful as video uploads, and is probably not worth the hassle it entails. lets cut this. 9. early on, many of the people who've expressed interest in the site wanted to use it in non-english speaking settings. since there is no "settings" page yet (not enough settings to make it worth having one) the languages selector goes on the top menu rather than inside a settings section. Changing it at the very least changes the language of the UI (assuming this isn't too difficult) but could also change which protocols are shown (this sounds much harder.) Not an essential launch feature, on reflection. 10. The blog is just a link to a posterous/tumblr/whatever, for now. 11. The last page has a crude data structure diagram, but i'll add the users into it. 12. DIY bio page: That is a group page. The different headings on the page are categories within a group. I'll put this into the data model as an example.
  - stevelosh 16y ago
    2. There's no explicit way to merge groups, because it sounded like more of a hassle than it was worth. What do you think of avoiding the problem in the first place by suggesting existing groups as the user types in a group name to be created? This is kind of a big deal, in an estimating-cost-of-website sense. How are suggestions displayed? Inline, as-you-type, AJA* updating, or only once you hit create? Also, how do you determine if two groups are similar? Just based on the words in the titles, or in the descriptions as well? What about synonyms? It's a hard problem, and a perfectly reasonable answer for an initial launch is: no merging, and no suggesting. If two similar groups are created: tough. Deal. 4. Video: lets forget it. I've never done anything involving video uploading, and once I had a look at what a hassle it is to do, I don't think it's worth it for the amount of our users that will actually use it. To be honest, I think videos would be extremely useful (though I'm not a scientist), but a lot of work. 7. Captcha vs. email verification. I did think about this one a bit. I personally hate email verification more than I hate captchas, but is there some other reason to prefer one over the other? No, not really, not until someone comes up with some hard data about the spam-reduction rates of the various methods. 9. early on, many of the people who've expressed interest in the site wanted to use it in non-english speaking settings. since there is no "settings" page yet (not enough settings to make it worth having one) the languages selector goes on the top menu rather than inside a settings section. Changing it at the very least changes the language of the UI (assuming this isn't too difficult) but could also change which protocols are shown (this sounds much harder.) Not an essential launch feature, on reflection. For the UI: Who translates the UI? How do they do it? Who checks their work? For the protocols: Yes, this would be hard to get right. Very hard. What about translating groups? Who owns those? How does a translator know when a group's "original" description has changed and need re-translating? What if someone edits a translated group -- who reverse-translates the edit back to the original group? What if the original has changed since then? 12. DIY bio page: That is a group page. The different headings on the page are categories within a group. I'll put this into the data model as an example. Somehow I missed the "groups have categories" concept. Sorry.

ajray 16y ago

I am a research scientist but not a web developer. Is there anyway/anywhere I can sign my email up to be notified when an Alpha/Beta is available? I'd love to contribute if possible!

emeltzer 16y ago
Absolutely. Should have linked this off the bat, but here is our signup page: http://openprotocols.net/ http://openprotocols.net/
- ajray 16y ago
  Why does the subscription tell me I've subscribed to SynBioWorld?

stevelosh 16y ago

Here are a few quick, random things I noticed after looking through the PDF. The emphasis on documentation is great. We need more of this. You say that the "hint text" in the various form fields should disappear when the field has focus. I actually find it much easier to use when the text gets lighter but doesn't disappear until the user has started to type. I usually navigate forms by tabbing through the fields, and I hit tab as soon as I'm done with one field, which means that by the time my eyes get down to the next field the hit text would be gone. The jQuery In-Field Labels plugin is a great way to make it a little bit more usable: http://fuelyourcoding.com/scripts/infield/ http://fuelyourcoding.com/scripts/infield/ I'm assuming that users create groups. When two users inevitably create similar groups, is there any way to merge them? Do you really need a separate "add link" button for each reagent? Why not just show the link field and clearly mark it as optional, so someone doesn't have to click many times if they have a bunch of reagents with links? You mentioned videos for steps. Are you thinking people will upload them? If so, that's tricky. What formats do you accept, do you have the space/bandwidth to host them, etc? Or are you thinking that people will upload them to YouTube/Vimeo/etc and paste the link? If so, are they embedded or do users need to go to the video page to view it? The requirements for the step editor seem awfully specific. I'd suggest taking a look at the available editors around like CKEditor or WMD and choosing one of them as a baseline. http://ckeditor.com/ http://ckeditor.com/ http://wmd-editor.com/ http://wmd-editor.com/ The page describing the fonts, buttons, etc seems extremely specific. If the PDF is a collection of wireframes and not a design (maybe I misunderstood it) then there are probably things more important to nail down than the border-radius (border-radii?) of input fields. For the log in lightbox, have you considered using email verification (user signs up, gets emailed an activation link, clicks link, logs in) instead of a captcha? Do you really need the "Ban User" functionality for group admins? Does banning a user make them not able to see that group at all? What if they log out, or create a new account? It seems like the troll rate on a site like this would be extremely low, so is this necessary or just adding extra complexity? What is that "Language" link in the header? Will the site support multiple languages? Can users translate protocols? If so, which user "owns" the translated protocol? This could potentially add quite a bit of work, so it should probably be nailed down. Is the "Blog" in the header just a link to a Tumblr/WordPress/whatever blog or is it part of the site? Something that seems to be missing is a rough overview of the data. A page describing the data would be very helpful, even something as simple as "protocols are divided into groups, groups are created by users, and users can add new group admins" would go a long way. I'm a bit confused about the "DIYBio Protocols" page. Is this a group? It seems like it has a bunch of groups inside it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what a group is. A rough data model would help with this a lot.

emeltzer 16y ago
This is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping we'd get! I'm just going to go line by line, after which I'll start redo-ing the PDF to reflect some of the changes. 1. Hint text. Good point. That implementation definitely sounds more useable, and of course, there's a jQuery plugin for it :) 2. There's no explicit way to merge groups, because it sounded like more of a hassle than it was worth. What do you think of avoiding the problem in the first place by suggesting existing groups as the user types in a group name to be created? 3. Separate add link button: good point. changing this. 4. Video: lets forget it. I've never done anything involving video uploading, and once I had a look at what a hassle it is to do, I don't think it's worth it for the amount of our users that will actually use it. 5. Step editor. Yes, also a good point. CKeditor seems perfect. 6. the importance of border-radii: cannot be underestimated. the PDF is supposed to be a bit more than wireframes, but is not intended to be that high-level of a design. 7. Captcha vs. email verification. I did think about this one a bit. I personally hate email verification more than I hate captchas, but is there some other reason to prefer one over the other? 8. ban user is about as useful as video uploads, and is probably not worth the hassle it entails. lets cut this. 9. early on, many of the people who've expressed interest in the site wanted to use it in non-english speaking settings. since there is no "settings" page yet (not enough settings to make it worth having one) the languages selector goes on the top menu rather than inside a settings section. Changing it at the very least changes the language of the UI (assuming this isn't too difficult) but could also change which protocols are shown (this sounds much harder.) Not an essential launch feature, on reflection. 10. The blog is just a link to a posterous/tumblr/whatever, for now. 11. The last page has a crude data structure diagram, but i'll add the users into it. 12. DIY bio page: That is a group page. The different headings on the page are categories within a group. I'll put this into the data model as an example.
- stevelosh 16y ago
  2. There's no explicit way to merge groups, because it sounded like more of a hassle than it was worth. What do you think of avoiding the problem in the first place by suggesting existing groups as the user types in a group name to be created? This is kind of a big deal, in an estimating-cost-of-website sense. How are suggestions displayed? Inline, as-you-type, AJA* updating, or only once you hit create? Also, how do you determine if two groups are similar? Just based on the words in the titles, or in the descriptions as well? What about synonyms? It's a hard problem, and a perfectly reasonable answer for an initial launch is: no merging, and no suggesting. If two similar groups are created: tough. Deal. 4. Video: lets forget it. I've never done anything involving video uploading, and once I had a look at what a hassle it is to do, I don't think it's worth it for the amount of our users that will actually use it. To be honest, I think videos would be extremely useful (though I'm not a scientist), but a lot of work. 7. Captcha vs. email verification. I did think about this one a bit. I personally hate email verification more than I hate captchas, but is there some other reason to prefer one over the other? No, not really, not until someone comes up with some hard data about the spam-reduction rates of the various methods. 9. early on, many of the people who've expressed interest in the site wanted to use it in non-english speaking settings. since there is no "settings" page yet (not enough settings to make it worth having one) the languages selector goes on the top menu rather than inside a settings section. Changing it at the very least changes the language of the UI (assuming this isn't too difficult) but could also change which protocols are shown (this sounds much harder.) Not an essential launch feature, on reflection. For the UI: Who translates the UI? How do they do it? Who checks their work? For the protocols: Yes, this would be hard to get right. Very hard. What about translating groups? Who owns those? How does a translator know when a group's "original" description has changed and need re-translating? What if someone edits a translated group -- who reverse-translates the edit back to the original group? What if the original has changed since then? 12. DIY bio page: That is a group page. The different headings on the page are categories within a group. I'll put this into the data model as an example. Somehow I missed the "groups have categories" concept. Sorry.