Talk:Compact Personal Bar/Archive 1

What do you like about Compact Personal Bar?

Notification Granularity

Quiddity (talk) 22:32, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
In File:Beta Features - Compact Personal Bar Sketch.png - I like the separation of the Echo/Notification types. See w:Wikipedia_talk:Notifications#Granularity (permalink) for another take on this idea (which I prefer, for the reasons given there - particularly the larger clickable area which has better accessibility).

[Jaredzimmerman's reply from here, was moved down to #Icons vs Text in size to click on below.]

What would you change about Compact Personal Bar?

Icons vs Text in intuitiveness

Quiddity (talk) 22:42, 17 November 2013 (UTC) [edited 07:06, 17 December 2013 (UTC)]
I would [strongly oppose be hesitant about] the replacement of words with icons. We're a linguistically-oriented set of projects, and having to learn and/or remember which (often ambiguous) icon is related to which action, is very frustrating.

Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 08:06, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Quiddity as with the name "beta features" we know that some things don't translate well, into other languages, While I'm not of the mindset that everything should be iconified, due to the space constraints and sheer number of items in the personal bar it seems like an ideal place for icons in lieu of words.

Quiddity (talk) 07:06, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm... On Flow, I'm (currently) personally wondering about the possibility of replacing the word "Reply" with the reply-icon [semi-circle arrow] (to make it more visually distinct and thus ignorable from the surrounding text). That's making me reconsider my thoughts above here!

Icons are tricky beasts. So perfect when they work well, and so frustrating when they miss the mark.

Icons vs Text in size to click on

Quiddity (talk) 22:42, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
Having just-an-icon makes a very small clickable area, which frustrates users with dexterity issues (accessibility), or imperfect pointing devices (eg w:Pointing sticks). The word "Watchlist" is nice and wide.

Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 07:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Quiddity, Interesting, if you calculate the hit region for "Contributions" the largest text string it is 145px x 21px = 3045px² (retina) compared to in icon region with a 48px x 48px = 2304px² (retina) which is a bit smaller, but arguably since its square its easier to hit than the rather thin 21px text link. The echo badge is only 1292 pixels² (retina) So while icons seem smaller the hit regions are actually bigger in many cases.

Quiddity (talk) 03:33, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Jared, This http://i.imgur.com/DjdPEfW.png partially demonstrates the problem. It's a larger target to aim "in the general direction of", which is all people with fine-motor-control-difficulties can often manage. Many of them (or us, when I have wrist pain, or a bad pointing-stick-controlled laptop) will be making very rough "shoves" of the mousepointer, towards the target, and will often overshoot. Big shove up, tiny shove down, small shove left, small shove left, nearly there, overshoot. :(

(Additionally, we c/should make the clickable-link-region for those words, extend to the top of the window, to eliminate even more of the back-and-forth necessary. E.g. http://i.imgur.com/MwDDesM.png This would be good usability, as well as accessibility!)

Even though the space is clear and empty, it can still be used at the same time!

Let's do tests. Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 19:45, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

New Links

Quiddity (talk) 22:50, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
I would be hesitant about adding new links (eg. "Privacy", "Help") as we have a very large number of users who do not use javascript, and this change would (I think?) make those links show up inline with the existing links. Also, those 2 examples are not "directly related to the individual" which is what the personal toolbar is intended/used for currently.

Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 08:06, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Quiddity, These can be added only to the compact personal bar feature, we can investigate a pure CSS fallback for the menu if javascript is used for the normal version.

Inclusion criteria

Quiddity (talk) 23:05, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
I like the idea of moving the (preferences/beta/language/logout) into a flyout. However, I use the "Contributions" link quite frequently, and would prefer that remained outside of the flyout. I think the logic of "what should be in the flyout" should be more like: "what do I rarely click on?". The compacting of these less-used links would be good; however items that I want to see regularly (daily) should not be hidden in the flyout - that's the whole purpose of the personal-toolbar - to make frequently clicked items instantly accessible. (Relatedly: avoid duplication. If something is outside the flyout, it should not also appear within the flyout (e.g.)).

Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 08:06, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Quiddity, as part of the compact personal bar work we'll be instrumenting click tracking on the existing personal bar so we can gather usage information about current user behavior. good point, thats the great thing about Beta Features we'll be able to quickly change what is in and out of the menu and see how that effects how people use it.