I had a couple thoughts/questions/suggestions on the website design
There seems to be lots of layers in this website. Is it possible when links are posted that “open in new window” is selected. I know I can right mouse and choose that option but as a visual person I’m better when I have multiple tabs open – across my two screens 🙂 that having to move back to my original screen.
Also, is it possible to get additional features added to comments. Right now I can only leave text-based comments. I’d love to be able to edit the text, use colour, shape and style to keep the reader engaged 🙂 and add links, images, videos.
Thanks
Kendra
Points taken. David V. is meeting with our developer team next week, and he’ll be looking for inputs.
dp
There’s also a glitch with the new secondary layout on mobile, where div container for the four secondary nav items (analyst bootcamp, entrepreneur bootcamp, emerging markets, venture forum) are made a fixed width of 1000px rather than being a width % with a float:left attribute. The rest of the layout is controlled by percentages (fluid/responsive to re-juggle content to fit better on mobile) however, this forces the screen to be too wide on mobile (to accommodate the fixed element size) making the rest of the website content really really tiny and unreadable without zooming. You can see what I mean here:
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/05/photo.png
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/05/fixed-width.jpg
Also it would be great to be permitted to edit our comments, which I can’t find a way to do currently. Is this turned off? I tend to have a number of typo’s or spell-check fails on mobile lol.
A couple other responsive/mobile issues in the custom CSS:
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/05/clear-both.jpg
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/05/clear-left.jpg
.homeimagebox {
text-align: center;
height: 220px;
width: 100%; /* to fix width adjustment issue on mobile */
clear: both !important; /* to fix icons being pushed down by search box @980px and smaller */
}
.hentry {
margin-bottom: 50px;
clear: left !important; /* to stop entry heading content from wrapping or floating into secondary nav space */
}
Thanks much for all of these – keep them coming…
DavidV
The sidebar is behaving inconsistently. For example, it appears on the right on most pages however on the page linked below, it behaves like the mobile layout. The sidebar moves to the bottom of the page which is a desired effect for MOBILE layouts… except this happens on all views. This is sometimes a container width or float problem.
Screenshot here:
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/05/responsive-sidebar.jpg
Link to the offending page here (this happens on most pages except categories/archive)
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/stage2/activity-research-reports/
On a cross-browser check this only happens on Firefox. On Chrome, Safari, and IE it doesn’t juggle to the bottom, except that all content is pushed quite far out into the margins (so It could be a rather a margin issue, or a spot of CSS needed to make margins behave similarly across browsers). Below (IE) screenshot the content is pushed out pretty far to the edges but doesn’t cause overlap.
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/05/ie-margins-too-close.jpg
It’s weird that it’s fine on the home page in FF but misbehaves elsewhere. :
Manuel Dias our web developer / designer has made some navigation fixes that may address some of the issues you flagged, Bobbi.
Let us know.
dp
Sure thing David. The layout on mobile already looks much better. The secondary nav issue seems to be resolved. Here’s how it looks on iphone with the fixed secondary nav:
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/05/almost-full-width2.png
You can see the contents now stretch almost to full-width, and it is much more readable, although there’s still a minor hick-up. Looks like something else is still forcing a div/contents to push off the layout affecting mobile. After scrolling down I noticed that long URLS are not breaking/wrapping. This could perhaps be the cause of the last little bit of content overflow? Please see this screenshot:
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/05/almost-full-width.png
I cleared browser cache, but sidebar bumping to bottom unnecessarily on full resolution still remains on firefox. I’m using the latest version 29.0.1 on windows if that helps at all.
Also still have a float clearing issue on category archive pages:
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/05/clear-float.jpg
Also just noticed that the Harvard Business School’s Elevator Pitch Builder resource URL from this page is now unfortunately moved/dead (too bad looked like a good resource!):
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/stage2/pitch-deconstruction/
A simple STATIC post somewhere (maybe with a screenshot?) showing where content “reviews” are supposed to go, and explaining that “posts” are to be used for new artifacts only, might be extremely helpful?
It’s fairly common for people to misunderstand the difference between pages/posts/comments in WordPress as the terminology is similar. With “reviews” boxes added this might be a bit more unclear. Also there’s a bit of confusion with regards to this terminology in the assignment:
” First, RATE each pitch according to the EVA criteria and Participation Guidelines. The POST your Review,”
When I see “rate” I think stars, so this seems pretty straight-forward. The confusion in the second bit might be due to POST (not specifying using the review box located underneath each item on the item page). Students new to WP will see “new post” at the top of their screen, and likely think.. “great, this is probably how I’m supposed to POST my review?”
Explaining that POSTS are used for new artifacts only might help distinguish between a rating and a new post?
Thanks for the clarification Bobbi!
You’re welcome, I absolutely love your avatar by the way… it’s awesome : )
I found this tree on the Juan de Fuca trail and thought it was pretty awesome too : )
I’d suggest that comments are disabled by default, so they can be turned on only when needed. The activity stream is a bit of a mess of half comments and half reviews. http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/06/half-comments-half-reviews.jpg I can only “recommend” peer reviews if they are entered as reviews, not comments. Since comments appear ABOVE reviews, many are using this field to put in their reviews, not realizing the difference. If reviews are the primary activity needed, would it make better sense from a usability standpoint to have the thing we use the most turned on, and the thing we use the least turned off by default? People are also not seeing/reading other peoples reviews because they don’t see them all the way at the bottom of the page. This was not an issue in ETEC 565M previously, because comments were not enabled on by default in the settings.
This is something only a full administrator can change:
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/06/discussion-settings.jpg
http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/06/overriden.jpg
Users can still turn comments on, on a per-post basis when needed, but they won’t appear everywhere all the time disrupting the flow and confusing those that don’t realize the difference.