Organization OG Design

[https://id.mayfirst.org/ross]

After much discussion today, we've (jamie, ross, joseph) come up with a working design model for the organization ogs. These are the sets that need to be implemented and a screen shot of what the current implementation looks like.

1. block view for each content type.
2. A specific region below content-area to house all org og content blocks.
3. css to make the blocks behave
4. Design for the blocks.

[https://id.mayfirst.org/ross]

Screen shot of working organization og design.

[https://id.mayfirst.org/malloryk]

I think for the majority of organizations not very many of these functionalities are necessary, thus the format for the page would be unnecessarily cluttered with empty boxes.

What about having linearly-vertical, collapsible fieldsets for each box?

[https://id.mayfirst.org/jamie]

Empty boxes would definitely be bad - However, I think if there's no content in a box, the box won't appear at all - and the boxes would fill out from left to right three per row.

It might still look funny if you only had one box.

On the other hand - with linearly-vertical collabsible fieldsets (I imagine they would be un-collapsed by default) - it would be hard to get a snapshot of content without scrolling down a lot if you have an actively used group.

I think my preference would be with the smaller boxes (assuming they don't appear with no content) becuase if a group is not actively used, then it won't be viewed as much as the actively used one. So going with a design that favors actively used groups seems like a good move.

jamie

[https://id.mayfirst.org/ross]

You are correct in your assumption that these boxes only appear when they have content in them.

[https://id.mayfirst.org/malloryk]

Just let me say first thanks for all the hard work and thought that you've put into this, Ross.

I simply think the design doesn't use really easy and common design elements and lacks some creativity in not using tabs, overusing fieldsets and sidebar space, therefore forcing a complicated information presentation in the worst case scenario and lack of any content in the best case scenario.

Plus, I don't think we need to introduce new design elements such as boxes.

As for scrolling for content, I think this is something folks are having to do on all of the sites because our beautiful header is really big. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Minimally, we should have the organization name and the description listed high and on the level with the action, secondary menu at the right.

How to deal with the other extreme is what we're trying to figure out. Again, I'm taking my experience from using Orkut, MySpace, Facebook, etc. etc. We're never going beat those aesthetics. And we're not trying to; we're beating them politically.

So I propose in the saturated content case: Maximally, I think there are two choices:

A) Horizontal tabs, like the View/Edit/Translate tabs. These can easily be made with the Views menu settings.

B) Vertical expandable fieldsets with the first most recent three items listed and a "more" link to js expand downward the fieldset to show all, also then a "less" link.

And while I'm at it, I'd just like to add that I think sidebar space should really be scaled back. I think the length of the menu at the right is too big to share the space with anything else. Since it seems that keeping the functionality of the organizations and projects to a minimum was not followed, making at least the presentation simple is then even more important.

Sorry if the above suggestions seem curt, but my feelings are very strong that the reason this site will be a success or a failure is solely contingent upon its usability and nothing else. It's the only thing ever talked about relating to openfsm.net, for example, and probably why such a boring and useless site like fb is so popular.

[https://id.mayfirst.org/ross]

I completely agree that the site's success depends on usability, but for what end? This is something I sometimes do not understand, and apparently have a very different perspective than you Mallory. It seems your view had projects and organizations as having minimal functionality. I really don't understand this as projects were conceived and built based on libkuman's vision of projects, which has (almost) all the functionality for which he asked.

As for organizations and workshops, I don't really see any functionality, just a way to display a few different content types, which by the way, I'm not wedded to those displays. That said, I don't know why we need all those different content types for organizations, nor do I know why we need all those content types for workshops, and we definitely don't need them for projects as only 4 content types will display for projects anyway.

In part, this functionality (ability to create all types of content) exists because no one has written the code to modify the Group Details block which displays every cck type permitted to be posted in an og. Anyway, that's not the real issue here. The real issue, from my perspective, is having no formal plan for what we want the site to do or where we want it to go. And since there are not very many of us working on this and all of us going in 20 different directions at the same time, this problem is exacerbated.

So I don't know what to do about it, but my perspective is this. I don't think workshops need to have any og functionality as they are limited term data and will be historical documents after the forum. This is why I see org ogs as needing more functionality b/c they will continue after the forum. I don't know if they need the ability to post tasks and meeting notes or not. As far as projects go, they only need to have Meeting notes, tasks, Events, and Posts available.

And still this doesn't answer what we want this site to do.

All this to say, I don't mind tabs and fieldsets. But I've lost perspective on why we're having content to display in tabs and fieldsets.

This

is

ross

burning

out....

...

..

.

[https://id.mayfirst.org/malloryk]

I feel you on all of that 100%.

Let's pair down content creation to blogs, events, and webforms.

Everything else, including workshops and cultural submissions can get hidden - we'll link those two elsewhere.

Other functionality includes invite a friend and edit profile.

I'm ambivalent about messaging (actually webforms, too), but they're pretty cool, so why not.

And with only three content types, let's make them views with tabs on org og page thusly:

[Info] | [Member Blogs] | [Calendar] | [Surveys]

Simple feeds for 2 and 4, simple node display of og profile for the first tab.

Is this okay? I want to give you a hug, dear ross, you've done so much great work!!

[https://id.mayfirst.org/malloryk]

I think we figured this out! The only thing we weren't able to do was the Member Blogs, however. Opening more tickets related to the related minutiae such as breadcrumbs #412, projects, and workshops #340.