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authorizeWiki links - "access denied" and site feedbackI can see this page -> http://kineme.net/wiki/KinemeWiki This is the landing page, but from there none of the internal wiki links work from there, they are all freelinking external links: eg. PerformanceInspector will link to The pages that everyone will be getting linked to will simply present with a:
I presume an upgrade happened at some point (perhaps to your wiki? or the markup renderer, or renderer order) which is nuking all your links. It also means that I'm finding myself frustrated when trying to add new documentation, and if you're finding that people aren't contributing as much as you'd hoped, maybe in part it's due to this bug? Perhaps :P I hope you don't mind me trying to give help here, it's just that my job was in web development and creating sites exactly like the one you have here, so I thought you might appreciate the feedback. Anyway, moving on :D all of this is meant to be conveyed in a constructive criticism approach eh :D Here's a "use case" that is me, which highlights some things which could perhaps improve around the site. Here's an (my! hehe) example:
They say with user interfaces that consistent metaphors are useful, heres a few of the things I can remember confused me (and some of which still do).
Back to my use case :P
Please forgive my 'abrupt' manner of speaking in this post, I find that if I bog myself down in nicities I find it harder to get good feedback out of me! ta :) For some reason in my head I always think of buyable things as "products", but whichever metaphor you decide on here's what's in my head:
I, for one at least, have already come up with a lot of ideas for apps and quartz plugins/patches (like the motion gesture one I posted) that if given more attention and work would warrant selling for $ rather than giving away. Perhaps you could turn your site into a sort of QCstore? Just a thought, I mention that because if you don't, and QC remains popular, maybe someone else will :P hehe
So, I think making the least number of steps (clicks and 'visual' eye movments') between your home page and the purchase page is important, and from memory your purchases procedure was flawless once I got there, again I use the word "Products" here (for your sellables) but any word you decide on is cool, as long as it conveys what you mean to the user :) cos at this point they want to give you money, and you want to let them :D So, after purchasing QuartzBuilder, I then wanted to find the documentation. This is where I think your site could benefit a lot from top down layout refactoring "Documentation" link up the top is good, but there isn't the equivalent on the left navbar, I think either the links should exist on top or left, or both, but consistency is key here, I think. I'll try and mock up a nav bar here: [ Search Kineme.net ] (I might even put this up top right, below where "Beta Releases is now in the heading nav, a lot of sites are conforming to this layout and I'd never seen the kineme searchbox until I just saw it writing up this!) = = = = = = == = * Navigation * About Kineme.net Plugins - Production - Beta - Alpha - Contributed Compositions Documentation/Help/Wiki (*see below this menu for my comment on this) - Videos - Demos = = = = = = == Contact Us = = = = = = = = * Recent Topics * blah blah = = = = == = = * Recent Comments * blah blah *I was very tempted to put "Documentation" or "Wiki" in the left side panel, and this could work, possibly about the Plugins submenu, but on further thought a better (but more difficult I presume) approach would be to have the wiki documentation links embedded either automatically or manually - but from the actual products pages themselves. i.e. each 'product'/'patch' would get it's own wiki page which was its documentation. This would obviously warrant more thought than the 5 minutes I just gave it though. The trend on sites nowadays seems to be to put user specific navigation elements, or site 'segment' navigation elements in the top nav. So, here's my stab... (when not logged in, top right navigation) Donate | New Features | Login | Signup (when logged in, top right nav) Donate | My account | Logout Another handy layout trick is to have top right and top left navigation, like on the google home page. And making your "Kineme" logo only full size on the landing/hope page, and making it smaller on all the other pages, giving users more of their real estate back. So top left could be... About Kineme.net | Compositions | Plugins | Help ... or similar (but again, only using "Help" if that's what term you decide to use to encompass "Wiki" Documentation and such, unless it is separate, it just sprung into mind - people do tend to know what a wiki is now though, which is good) Again, as much time as I've spent doing user interface design - I'm not a designer per sé, and tend to leave explicit 'design' to the professionals :) I think that's enough feedback for one post... Back to work
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