[ckan-discuss] CKAN UI improvements #1 - Package Page

Wed Dec 1 19:37:57 GMT 2010

On 1 Dec 2010, at 17:34, Richard Pope wrote:
> Updated version here taking in to considerations Richard's feedback:
>
> http://ckan.org/wiki/UIRedesignPackage
>
> - Merged the first two columns in the downloads table

Hm, a slight concern is that you can sometimes have multiple resources  
with the same format, e.g.,

Format   Description
CSV      List of primary schools
CSV      List of secondary schools
CSV      List of special schools

Making the first column the download link might be a bit confusing,  
people might think that it's a link that explains what CSV is, rather  
than a link to the resource. I guess I would prefer:

Description                 Format
List of primary schools     CSV
List of secondary schools   CSV
List of special schools     CSV

where the description is the link to the resource. Only problem I can  
see with that model is when there is no description -- in this case it  
would probably have to default to some sensible text:

Description                 Format
List of primary schools     CSV
List of secondary schools   CSV
List of special schools     CSV
[No description]            Excel

> - Moved the source link back to the top at original size, but kept url
> shortening,  added 'source:' and lined up with title so hopefully
> still clearer

Yup, works for me.

> - Changed the API section so it is the same light grey as tables

I can live with this.

> - I'm not 100% sold on 'collections' but will leave it in for now and
> see if anything else comes up. Whatever it ends up as I think it needs
> to explain that these things are essentially curated collections of
> packages.

+1 for that explanation. Do you think that simply leaving it with the  
current terminology “Groups” would be too much of a problem? And  
maybe: “Groups are collections of packages, curated by CKAN users.”

Best,
Richard

>
> Unless anyone else has any major suggestions/alterations I'm going to
> sign this bit off and move onto the next section.
>
> cheers,
>
> Richard
>
> On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 4:52 PM, Richard Cyganiak  
> <richard at cyganiak.de> wrote:
>> Nice. I like where this is going!
>>
>> On 1 Dec 2010, at 13:45, Richard Pope wrote:
>>>
>>> Comments/discussion - I've changed the name to 'Questions and
>>> comments' and added the number of items to the button.
>>
>> Works for me.
>>
>>> Downloads / resources - I've gone with 'Downloads and resources' as
>>> the title, so as to accomodate  RDF etc, and added an explanation
>>> under the table.
>>
>> I like the title, and the explanation helps. The table itself still  
>> doesn't
>> make much sense -- it still labels everything as “Download”  
>> regardless of
>> whether it's downloadable, and the URL column is still mislabelled  
>> (it
>> doesn't contain URLs).
>>
>>> API / datapkg - I've added a visually obviously separate section for
>>> code related stuff and included some examples for using datapkg.
>>
>> Looks much too big and heavy to me. Either put it on a separate tab  
>> (“API”),
>> or collapse it by default, or make the block much smaller. I don't  
>> see the
>> point in printing the full JSON and RDF URLs -- links would be  
>> sufficient.
>>
>> I'm glad that groups are back. I'm not a fan of renaming the  
>> feature to
>> “Collections”, but I'm ok with it as long as that change is also  
>> made in the
>> URL scheme and in the API.
>>
>> I still want the homepage URL back in a prominent position. “View  
>> more
>> information at http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/...” in a small font  
>> misses the
>> point. Look, some of us use CKAN *as a directory of links*,  
>> essentially a
>> library of bookmarks. This URL is one of the most important pieces of
>> information on the page, perhaps second only to the title.
>>
>> Best,
>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 6:49 PM, Richard Cyganiak <richard at cyganiak.de 
>>> >
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Richard,
>>>>
>>>> Great to see work on the UI of CKAN happening!
>>>>
>>>> On 30 Nov 2010, at 13:44, Richard Pope wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> First up here are a few suggestions and a mockup for the package  
>>>>> page:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://ckan.org/wiki/UIRedesignPackage
>>>>
>>>> Nice!
>>>>
>>>> Some comments:
>>>>
>>>>> Comments - Suggest move to a separate tab and rename discussion  
>>>>> as per
>>>>> Wikipedia.
>>>>
>>>> Not sure about this. On Wikipedia, the discussion page is not for
>>>> discussions about the topic of the article but about discussing the
>>>> article
>>>> itself. On CKAN, my impression is that comments about either of  
>>>> those are
>>>> encouraged. Or not? And if the comments can contain useful  
>>>> information
>>>> about
>>>> the dataset (“it's full of errors and not actively maintained,  
>>>> don't
>>>> waste
>>>> your time with this”), then they shouldn't be hidden on a  
>>>> separate page.
>>>>
>>>> So I guess some clarity about the purpose of the comments field  
>>>> is needed
>>>> first.
>>>>
>>>>> Getting the data - 'resources' is unclear term, just call it
>>>>> 'downloads?'
>>>>
>>>> That would be a step in the wrong direction IMO. It's not just  
>>>> downloads
>>>> but
>>>> all sort of other things too -- API endpoints, documentation,  
>>>> example
>>>> links.
>>>> See [1] for a proposal that deals with this in a better way IMO  
>>>> -- by
>>>> moving
>>>> the description to the first column, it becomes much clearer what  
>>>> the
>>>> resource is (download or something else).
>>>>
>>>>> Groups - Confusing having groups and tags on this page, suggest  
>>>>> remove
>>>>> groups for now focus on tags as primary method for organising /
>>>>> grouping.
>>>>
>>>> Please don't do that. Groups don't have to be visually prominent,  
>>>> but you
>>>> would make my job as the manager of a CKAN group MUCH harder by  
>>>> removing
>>>> this information completely from the package page. I agree that  
>>>> tags are
>>>> certainly much more important for the average user, and should be
>>>> displayed
>>>> more prominently.
>>>>
>>>>> Title - Name of package gets lot in the buttons (edit etc) and the
>>>>> package
>>>>> slug id
>>>>
>>>> The package ID shouldn't be as prominent as it currently is, but  
>>>> should
>>>> still be shown somewhere to enable tools like datapkg where one  
>>>> needs to
>>>> know the package ID.
>>>>
>>>>> API / package slug - Create new API section the explains the  
>>>>> slug id and
>>>>> how to access via datapkg etc
>>>>
>>>> Yes good idea. Don't call it “package slug” though!
>>>>
>>>> Please keep the package URL (homepage) more prominent. I'd vote for
>>>> keeping
>>>> it where it is now, under the big title. I often use CKAN as a  
>>>> sort of
>>>> directory for going to the web pages of certain packages.
>>>>
>>>> +1 to the other points.
>>>>
>>>> Some other points that I would like to see addressed in a  
>>>> redesign of the
>>>> package page UI:
>>>> http://ckan.org/ticket/818
>>>> http://ckan.org/ticket/816
>>>> http://ckan.org/ticket/814
>>>>
>>>> Again, thanks for working on this! I'm very much looking forward to
>>>> seeing
>>>> some of these improvements go live on the site soon.
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>> Richard
>>>>
>>>> [1] http://ckan.org/ticket/817
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
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>>> richard at memespring.co.uk
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>
>
>
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