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

Tue Nov 30 16:43:15 GMT 2010

On 30 November 2010 13:44, Richard Pope <richard at memespring.co.uk> wrote:
> Hello,
> I've been looking at some potential changes to the CKAN UI. Rather than
> embark on a mega-redesign I thought it would be best to take a section at a
> time and see what small improvement could be made to try and make CKAN 1)
> more easy to understand by a casual user 2) simpler and more intuitive to
> navigate.
> First up here are a few suggestions and a mockup for the package page:
> http://ckan.org/wiki/UIRedesignPackage
> Thoughts?

I think this already looks a lot better. BTW suggest posting main
suggestions in email next time to make commenting easier ;)

> Ratings is rating really much use? It's hard to know what is being rated - quality, openness, interestingness, format. Suggest removing and focus on comments / discussion.

+1 - I think for ratings to be useful they have to be focused on a
specific area (as you suggest). Given uncertainty / value of their use
I think we can just hide as you suggest.

> Comments - Suggest move to a separate tab and rename discussion as per Wikipedia.

+0 This is an interesting suggestion (and I'm not sure I agree with
David that there is a problem having this in a separate page). Guess
my question is whether we want comments or a genuine 'discussion'
page. (My feeling would be to stick with comments because it is so
simple to use)

> Comments - Add hint to new page suggesting what sort of comments/questions people should make

+1

> Getting the data - Can we make the download (Resources) section clearer or more prominant? This seems to be the primary purpose of this page for a casual user.

++1

> Getting the data - 'resources' is unclear term, just call it 'downloads?'

+1

> Groups - Confusing having groups and tags on this page, suggest remove groups for now focus on tags as primary method for organising / grouping.

+1

> Tags - Should be able to add a tag directly via ajax (as per flickr)

+1

> Title - Name of package gets lot in the buttons (edit etc) and the package slug id

+1

> Buttons - move to top right

+1

> API / package slug - Create new API section the explains the slug id and how to access via datapkg etc

++1

> Completeness - If a package is missing a description / licence / download then display a prominent message in the header asking passing users to add the missing info

++1