Design Rationale

It’s worth reiterating that the CDG probably isn’t intended for casual, non-scientific users.  However, the bigger problem from a user interface viewpoint is the fact that it can’t seem to decide whether it’s intended for frequent users.

As a result, it has an ongoing identity crisis about how accessible it wants to be, and how easily it wants to allow users to provide input and new content.

Based on those factors, we’d suggest posting a YouTube tutorial right up front, to help walk through a variety of problematic user populations: casual users, non-web-savvy ecological science folks, and first-time users.

This would also have the benefit of showing off the various features of the site, and provide a more immediate multimedia presence on the front page than the existing slide show.

New Media

Since we last looked at the front page, the CDG added a pretty cool new slide, so there’s definitely no change from a multimedia presence right up front.

Sort of final graphics

This gallery contains 5 photos.

For now, you’re just going to have to imagine the slideshow graphics.

3C Comment Reply

In response to the suggestions, we decided to break down our main page into three basic content boxes (excluding the logo/header):

1. Simplified dropdown menu.  This means: a) renaming the “External” category to something less confusing, such as “resources”, etc.; b) limiting each dropdown column to no more than two levels.

2.  Expanded JavaScript slideshow, featuring: a) an initial slide describing “what is” the CDG; b) additional content relocated from the “popular data sets” and “featured topics” boxes; c) and additional slides for rotating content.

3.  A very bright/distinct, aggressive box sharing the central part of the screen with the slideshow, containing an invitation for new users, and/or a login for existing ones.  This will be the touchstone that all users can recognize as a starting point.  This will link to the same “About” page as the “about” header in the dropdown, as well as the initial slide in the slideshow.

Let’s see what this looks like.

Where do these links go?

The “search” “share” and “join” buttons seem to be very user friendly. They are large, easy to see, and users should be able to guess where the link will take them.

The “search” button does do what a user would expect. It takes you to the search page. However, the “join” button takes the user to a log in page with no other explanation.

To improve usability this page should have some instructions about joining the site.

The “share” button and the “Ten questions about data sets” slide both take users to the same page and the page is confusing to navigate. There are quotes at the top that I’m guessing are meant to promote the need for contributors, but there is no real explanation for why they are there. The “ten questions” are on that page but users need to scroll way down to the bottom. In addition, the slide show blurb makes it appear as though scientists are actually answering these questions, but the questions act more as contributor guidelines. The side bar to the right clutters the page further.

 

 

 

To improve usability the “share” and “ten questions” pages need to be made two separate pages. Include the quotes on the “share” page to make them more of a marketing tool. The right side bar should be removed. A new page featuring the “ten questions” needs to be created. This page should link to data sets on the site that feature scientists/researchers addressing these questions.

Menu Bar, Revisited

But the top menu bar is still confusing, with weird categories like “external” and a poorly functioning search element.  So let’s get rid of those:

Stop Dropping

We also looked at cancelling out the dropdown overload taking place.  This would entail each individual menu bar target having its own, more comprehensive page.  This would also require more clickthroughs, but less user fatigue, since each intermediate page would require less intense examination.

This might require a brief sidebar of popular links at the left or bottom of the front page, or a breakdown of the “Popular Data Sets” box.  Another possibility would be a direct navbar to the various data sets, which could possibly fit next to the slimmed down main page:

No-Scroll Frontpage

One idea was to eliminate virtually all of the non-logo elements, and stick with a non-dropdown menu bar, the existing slideshow, and not a whole lot else:

This would allow the user to view the entire frontpage without scrolling; condense the page width, to make for a cleaner look; and avoid scattering the user’s attention.

Better searching through technology

The search page begs for faceted searching. WorldCat.org demonstrates faceted search interface for bibliographic data. This site would be a great model for a redesign of the search functionality for the Climate Data Guide.

Users enter keyword(s) into the search bar and limiters appear to the left. The number of results returned on clicking a limiter are displayed next to the specific limiter. Leaving the search bar blank returns all data sets. Clicking a limiter will update the returned results in the main body of the page. Using faceted searching in this manner allows for greater search functionality and displays results so that users can more readily see them.

Priority Table