[Imc-tech] publish button

[Danielle Chynoweth]

let's do it like
twincities.indymedia.org

they have a link

 put your story on
 the newswire:
 instantly upload your audio,
 video, photo or text directly
 from your browser

prominently under their IMC logo.

- danielle

On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, David Young wrote:

>
> Here are a few observations on the reasons that 'publish' is invisible,
> and some suggestions for fixing it. I do not mean to impugn anyone's
> design ability or anything. (I realize that the template for the home
> page was inherited without change from the global organization, anyway.)
>
>     No link or control needs to appear more than once
>
>         There are three links called 'publish'. (One of them is broken,
>         BTW.)  It is a rare user who will use a different 'publish'
>         link the second time than the first time, and a single link that
>         is distinguished by its large size and prominent location will
>         advertise the 'publish' feature more effectively than three
>         teeny-tiny links scattered all over. Also, it's a whole lot
>         easier for the Web admins to keep broken links under control
>         when there is one link instead of three.
>
>         When you give three ways to do something, even quite sophisticated
>         computer users will believe superstitiously that each link is
>         subtly different from the others---why else would the designer
>         have made a single option into three?
>
>         So, my first suggestion is to make make three "publish" links
>         into one. Put it in the leftmost column near the top. Make it
>         at least as big as the other links on the page.
>
>         'About' and 'newswire' are appear three or more times. They
>         also deserve one large link, prominently located.
>
>     Put important things at top; conserve vertical space for this purpose
>
>         Scrolling really exasperates users.  All the really important
>         links and controls should be at the top of a home page so
>         that users don't have to scroll to find them. So you can fit
>         everything you need to at top, conserve space there by writing
>         concisely and avoiding unnecessary graphic doodads.
>
>         When it makes sense, you can conserve space by making the
>         structure of choices "deep" instead of "broad." In other words,
>         make a list of closely-related choices into a second page,
>         and then link to that page. The list of indymedia centers and
>         the list of mailing lists deserve this treatment. The list of
>         mailing lists belongs a lot nearer the BOTTOM of the page than
>         it is, because most visitors will not use it.
>
>         The graphic in the top-left corner is very nice, but it takes
>         up a lot of vertical space.  What if the search feature were in
>         that corner, instead, and the 'publish' option pulled up so that
>         it was right under 'search' ?
>
>         In the search feature, it is possible to replace the wordy
>         explanation '(leave blank if you with to browse all entries)'
>         with a button labeled 'browse news'. This simplifies things and
>         saves space for links 'newswire', 'features archive', and
>         'about', which deserve display near the top.
>
> 	If you organize by headings and subheadings, be consistent and aim
> 	for navigation "at a glance"
>
>         In the leftmost column, there are things under headings
>         'participate' and 'independent media centers' that, if I were
>         looking for them, I would not have looked under those headings
>         to find them.
>
> Dave
>
> On Thu, Apr 05, 2001 at 11:43:28AM -0500, Molly Stentz wrote:
> > Hey,
> >
> > I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts on how to make the "PUBLISH" feature
> > oh-so-much-more prominent on the front page of the site.
> >
> > I really like all the new additions lately, including the "how to get your
> > story featured" link. I think we need something big (maybe not blinking)
> > that says PUBLISH NEWS somewhere near the top of the page, with a brief
> > description that ANYONE can post relevant news content to the site. I
> > don't think it's clear enough to the average citizen web-user.
> >
> > It could be another panel below the Orientation blurb or we could move the
> > Participation part on the side bar to the top and add a more descriptive
> > blurb. Anybody object to me doing either of those things, or does someone
> > have a better idea?
> >
> > -Molly
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Imc-tech at urbana.indymedia.org
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>
>