Re: [EuroPython] The layout of EPC

[Magnus Lycka]

Jean-Marc Orliaguet wrote:
> - it is difficult to navigate the site
> - there are too many useless options ('login' menu, 'join', etc.)
> - the horizontal menu is too wide, it forces visitors to scroll horizontally
> - the printable page is not printable because the horizontal layout is 
> to wide to fit on a single page
> - it is difficult to find information, the search function returns every 
> temporary document ever created (instead of those published)
> - there is no way of knowing what documents have been updated lately
> - there is no way of subscribing to a particular page to get informed 
> about changes (I for instance had to check the same page several times a 
> day just to find out if my talk had been accepted, an email would have 
> been enough)
> - not a single page has a contact / author information or last updated 
> date except that Plone is copyright Alexander Limi, Alan ...

This is an excellent summary of the problems. Thanks Jean-Marc.

Let me just add the problems of registering for the conference, with
duplicate users created, lack of clear feedback, the fact that users
were created and left on the system if you just tried out the 
registration form but never finalized your registration etc. It seems
to me that creating the visitor registration in Plone was a severe
case of trying to push a square peg into a round hole. I can understand
the resons for doing so, but I'd rather see these things kept apart.

On the other hand, I can appreciate that we don't want to spend more
resources than needed on redoing things that we've already spent a lot
of time on. After all, the more time we spend on fixing the web site and
conference software, the less time we will have for things like preparing
talks, writing nice programs to present or spreading the word about the 
conference to more people...

I suppose that the people who actaully worked with the site are the ones 
best suited to determine what the best strategy for further development
is. Regardless of how visitor and speaker registration, talk scheduling
etc is handled, there is some work to be done 

But I also think Tom's question about the EPC 2003 site is relevant. 
It seems to me that the old site was better than the new from a users 
perspective. Was it much worse from other perspectives, or is it just
that it wasn't Plone?


-- 
Magnus Lycka, Thinkware AB
http://www.thinkware.se/  mailto:magnus at thinkware.se