By dries on

Here is a little experiment I'd like to conduct: can we use Flickr to make it easier for people to provide feedback on Drupal's UI/usability? Here is how you can participate and how it would work:

  1. Create a Flickr account. It's free.
  2. Take a screenshot of a Drupal (administration) page and tag it with the keyword drupalui (which stands for 'Drupal user interface'). It's important to use the drupalui tag as that is the tag we'll use to pick up your feedback.
  3. Annotate the screenshot by adding notes: use the notes to explain what you would do differently, what confuses you, what can be explained better, what is missing, etc.

An overview of all the annotated screenshots tagged with drupalui can be found here:

As you can see, I submitted one example screenshot and annotated it with two notes:

So start annotating Drupal screenshots on Flickr, and we'll try our best to include your feedback in Drupal 5.0.0.

Additional comments:

  • Of course, we can't capture all feedback through simple notes; we'll continue to use the other feedback channels (like the issue tracker) for more complex things. However, for a lot of people Flickr notes can be an easy way to give back to the Drupal community. It is worth giving it a try.
  • Contributions are gold, talk is silver. This thread is a 'call to action' and not so much a 'call for complaints'. Now is the time to translate your complaints into concrete suggestions. We'll love you for it. :)

Comments

dries’s picture

dries commented

We already have 10 screenshots with notes! Keep 'em coming, or join the fun. :-)

kbahey’s picture

kbahey commented

Some time back, Flickr started purging screenshots of Second Life from their system.

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,71119-0.html
http://cogdogblog.com/2006/05/23/i-have-a-bone-to-pick-with-flickr/

Not sure if this was for a particular user, application, or just concern about screenshots overcrowding real photos.
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crbassett’s picture

crbassett commented

One caveat.

The Flickr website states:

"And yes, Flickr is for photos. With some exceptions, it's OK to post other images, but if the majority of your photostream contains content other than photographs (like illustrations, screenshots, diagrams, etc.) it's very likely that your account will be marked Not in Public Site Areas (NIPSA). NIPSA means your photos won't show up in photo searches, but they will still be visible in your pages, your groups and contacts."

Just be careful that your Flickr account doesn't get marked NIPSA if you are interested in sharing photos as well.

I like this idea though!

Bèr Kessels’s picture

Bèr Kessels commented

Because flickr states this so obvious, most of all. In the past we (a few developers/designers working on the web) used some accounts, flickr and the notes-feature. Our accounts were closed then. They seemed to not close em anymore but mark em NIPSA now, but still: Flickr is for photos, not for your developing-communication.

How hard is it to add this to drupal.org? Open up images for reviews? Talk about eating dogfood? whats next? Using stikipad/wikipedia for our Drupal documentation?

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Steven’s picture

Steven commented

Actually, it should be easy to whip up an image notes interface with jQuery, the jQuery Interface plug-in and image.module ;). Any takers?

Still, I don't think it's a problem to post this on flickr, because it'll be many people posting one or two screenshots, in between all their photos.

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boris mann’s picture

boris mann commented

We *have* to build this anyway...using the same format/standard as Flickr (Fotonotes). walkah, commit some code!

dries’s picture

dries commented

Feel free to build this. It would be a useful service for the Open Source community at large.

skylightst’s picture

skylightst commented

Thanks a lot
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web design and usability consulting
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robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

"walkah, commit some code!"++

- Robert Douglass

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walkah’s picture

walkah commented

sheeeeeesh ;)

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Yeah, that's easy now thanks to FAPI... you just need some CCK, Views and Actions.
James Walker :: Bryght Guy

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walkah’s picture

walkah commented

I committed the initial ... wrapper for the Fotonotes (tm) spec (the same one used by Flickr). Info can be found here : http://fotonotes.net/

Code is now in CVS (modules/fotonotes)

Lots more coming soon :)

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Yeah, that's easy now thanks to FAPI... you just need some CCK, Views and Actions.
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skylightst’s picture

skylightst commented

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web design and usability consulting
Portal |Online|Work

fax8’s picture

fax8 commented

If you are going to open a Flickr account only for sending Drupal screenshots
please note that your images will probably never be public to other flickr users...

Actually after your account creation, the flickr team will review your photos just
to be sure that you aren't using Flickr for the wrong things (like posting screenshots)

If your account is not marked as good by the flickr team you will never see your
pictures on public lists of images.

Fabio

------------
www.varesano.net - Fabio Varesano Personal Homepage

profix898’s picture

profix898 commented

I posted an issue on usability of the new adminstration section lately.
Its something I realized starting to update contrib modules to 5.0 /CVS.

Usability: New admin page and .info description
http://drupal.org/node/82339

boris mann’s picture

boris mann commented

Called Drupal UI, and just add photos to that.

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented

Subscribing

chx’s picture

chx commented

I just love the idea. Thank you really, really much!

I submitted a long standing problem of mine (i use my browser in full screen on a 1680x1050 monster thus i am totally lost which module checkbox belongs to which module) got an excellent suggestion and already coded it. I also coded another suggestion which I found interesting/worthwhile.
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rport’s picture

rport commented

Hi chx,

What was the idea and code?

Russ

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Russ @ Firewize

flk’s picture

flk commented

the first idea was moving the checkboxes to the left. next to the module name.

solipsist’s picture

solipsist commented

I don't think that's totally necessary but the following features would be nice:

Order modules by alpha and status (enabled/disabled)
Display module weight
Show disabled modules as greyed out

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DriesK’s picture

DriesK commented

I created a new Flickr account, and because of their 'screenshot policy' I uploaded a bunch of other (normal) photos, and 1 Drupal screenshot which I tagged drupalui. A while later, my account got approved, and all my other photos appeared normally in the Public Site Areas (tag pages, etc).

However, my image tagged drupalui doesn't appear on this page. When I tag any other of my images with drupalui, just for testing, they also don't appear on that page. Furthermore, the image which has been tagged drupalui doesn't appear on other tag pages either (e.g. it's also tagged drupal, and it doesn't appear on the drupal tag page). So it looks like the person that approved my account, also blocked me from using one specific tag without marking my whole account NIPSA. Strange thing.

Anyway, here is the link to my drupalui screenshot: http://flickr.com/photos/dries-knapen/235346983/. It is primarily about the permissions of the system module, and some related stuff.

ica’s picture

ica commented

you can also follow up flickr>tag>drupalui with an RSS reader on this URL
http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=drupalui&for...

drumm’s picture

drumm
he/him
Location NY, US
commented

Flickr takes a few minutes to update those pages.

DriesK’s picture

DriesK commented

yes, but it's over 24 hours now. There has definately been some action from their side, I'm only not sure what exactly.

khang’s picture

khang commented

My partner and I are working on an screenshot and photosharing application.
It is yet to be completed but we have a photo exhibition site exzone.sg that may suite your purpose.
we would like to give your team a free site with enough space to do your work.
this is our contribution to your opensource efforts.

We have created an exzone called "projectdrupal"
the status is PRIVATE because we have uploaded a few sample screenshots and
don't want them to display in the exzone's common "photo" area.

projectdrupal.exzone.sg

The account has a username and password which i willl forward to whoever writes to me from this team.
Apart from this, the PRIVATE exhibition requires a passkey for viewing.

Each member of this team can create a free exzone account and link to each other using the FAVORITES (bookmark) function.
This will give you a defacto enclosed community that can share images with each other.

you have functionalities like leaving comments and sending your images as postcards etc etc

you can write to me at khang@lensecap.com.

cheers!
khang

exzone.exblog.sg
home.exblog.sg

bartezzini’s picture

bartezzini commented

My little contrib for drupalui that Flickr do not want to show in public

http://flickr.com/photos/95007598@N00/tags/drupalui/

factoryjoe’s picture

factoryjoe commented

I used to do this quite often.

In fact, I did it a ton when I was at Flock.

I'd recommend it, but NIPSA is a problem.

I was hoping Walkah would've gotten this done awhile back but anh, we're all busy. aren't we? ;)

Chris

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Drupal Usability Grand Poobah
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