Icons for the Connect section!
John
May 25, 2007, 02:01 AM posted in General DiscussionYou have probably noticed that there are new icons in the Connect section. This is to make it easier to distinguish between lesson comments and new user posts.
Other small changes include:
1. Ability to show only "Lesson Conversations" or "User Conversations" (new posts by users) via the drop-down box
2. Usernames in the conversation lists link to their profiles, making it easier to learn about other users or add them to your watchlists.
3. The orange title (Lesson Conversations, My Conversations, etc.) at the top of the page changes when you make a selection in the drop-down box.
4. Unnecessary text removed, titles bolded.
Enjoy!
John
May 25, 2007, 02:24 AMI agree. The icons, while seemingly minor, make a huge difference. It's still democratic, though. :)
lostinasia
May 25, 2007, 06:15 AMBeing able to search the conversations would also be nice. (This would go with tagging, to some extent.) Often I'll remember seeing something explained... somewhere... but can't find it again. (Or is this already possible, but I just don't know how?) Nice improvement though. Glad to see the V3 modifications keep coming!
henning
May 25, 2007, 05:40 AMThe Connect section has some potential if the data scheme is flexible enough. Just some ideas: - user ratings for lesson comments - classifying meta data (grammar question, vocab question, comment on the content, sidenote, other,...) - tagging - feeding in posts form the blog and the Forum (I know, different platform, different user authentification approach, but maybe you can feed them in in some kind of a reduced fashion)
John
May 25, 2007, 05:47 AMhenning, Great suggestions, and actually all things we're considering. The really important thing is to keep it very usable without making it unnecessarily complex.
richyfrost
May 25, 2007, 08:03 AMReally nice improvements, I agree it was kind of indistinguishable what was going on. Bit clearer now.
rich
May 25, 2007, 08:16 AMI really like the icons...was on my wishlist.
The other thing I would really like is a way to search all comments, for I don't reemember all conversation titles that have info I remember, like a met-up or something, so would like to just be able to search "Met-up" or for someone to find the "character breakdown"s I post. This search should be different than lesson dialog and vocab search, or an advanced search page one can select what is searched. Possible? Would be really sweet.
-Rich
KennyK
May 25, 2007, 08:27 AMthe icons look great... great design!
John
May 25, 2007, 08:55 AMRich, Yes, possible! Thanks for the suggestions.
richyfrost
May 25, 2007, 11:58 AMNotifications of unread and read posts would be great if possible too. 37 Signals recently did up Basecamp and something similar to this would be cool: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/430-new-in-basecamp-list-view
kencarroll
May 25, 2007, 02:16 AMI feel these changes make a big difference to the perception of the Connect section. In the past it seemed that one things was indistinguishable from the next - kind of radically democratic. Now it's easier to distinguish between things with a glance. That's good.