Improving Transifex ergonomics

[Asgeir Frimannsson]

Hi Thomas,

On Saturday 15 March 2008 08:26:59 am Thomas Canniot wrote:
> Hey, I am in charge of submitting ideas to improve translate.fp.org and
> Transifex ergonomics. The fact is that webdevelopper are not
> specialists in ergonomics and so am I. But I had a course this year in
> the university about ergonomics on internet, so let's share this
> experience to make translators lives better.
>
> Issue #1
> When you load translate.fp.org and we you go to transifex, the first
> things that breaks the tool is that it is not translated yet. This
> remains a problem for translators and for the website constituency.
>
> Issue #2
> When you are in transifex, the first things most of translators may
> have to do is : login. Then the login area should not be at the bottom
> of the menu bar, but on top of it, or on the top right handside corner.
>
> Issue #3
> Fedora is a big projet. Fedora has many web pages with a lot of
> documentation and information on it. And inevitably, Fedora websites
> suck into constituency : pick and choose three links from
> translate.fp.org left menu. By chance :
>  * Join FLP
> (http://docs.fedoraproject.org/translation-quick-start-guide/)
>  * Fedora Home (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N/)
>  * Planet (http://planet.fedoraproject.org/)
>
> And wow ! Four ways completely different to navigate. It sucks, really,
> and it hurts. People have to learn four different ways to navigate and
> four different ways to search for the information they want. This *is*
> horrible.
>
> Issue #4
> The welcome page of Transifex seems to need some improvements as well.
> Its menu bar goes into contradictions : there are two "modules" links.
> Great, these should link to the same page, as both links have the same
> word (modules). But they don't. However, you can know the difference
> between the two links when you move your mouse on them. The FLP Home >
> modules should definetely be named "translatable modules list" and the
> Submit (Tx) > modules should be name "Send your translation" or
> "submittable modules". Naming a link is very difficult because one has
> to sum up what someone may expect to see once he clicks on the link.
> There are two lists modules in our case, then we should differentiate
> them by the action people can do with these modules : get information
> about them, or submit translation.
>
> Issue #5
> On this same welcome page, the link "Jump to the modules" is not
> appropriate as well, because it does not help to know where the
> translator will be directed to. Which module page is expected to be
> loaded by the user ? Will he be redirected to the page to look at
> module statistics or to the submit a module page ? It is the second
> option, it should be named "Submit your translation".
>
> Issue #6
> Let's focus on https://translate.fedoraproject.org/submit/module/ now.
> This is quite a long module list isn't it ? The web developer thought
> the same and wanted to improve navigation for it. However, some points
> are missing. First, the button to go to the second page is not well
> positioned. It should be on the right side, not the left one. And there
> should be the same button under the module list, on the right side.
>
> Issue #7
> The "Back to home" button is not appropriate. Which home is the user
> going to be sent to as there are both "FLP Home" and "Fedora Home" in
> the menu. So, where is "home"?
>
> Issue #8
> On the same page, under the module list, on the left side or on the
> right side as well, there should be a "go to the top" button.
>
> Issue #9
> On the same page, the cursor changes when it rollover the column
> "repository". What for ? If this does not bring new information, it
> shouldn't.
>
> Issue #10
> Is the information given by this "repository" column relevant for
> translators ? It seems it is not the case, then it could be deleted. If
> it is relevant for any kind of user (for the maintainer of transifex
> for example), maybe it could only be displayed when he is looged in?
> Which means to have a profiled website.
>
> Issue #11
> The links are not well formatted on the page. Downloading the pot file
> is made trough different pattern than downloading a po file. Bug
> #427155 explains this in details.
>
> Issue #12
> Let's now pick up a module from the list at
> https://translate.fedoraproject.org/module/. Anaconda is a perfect
> example. Let's focus on the language list. You can notice the list is
> not sorted by alphabetically. It should be sorted alphabetically and
> not from the statistics of the most translated language. This way, it
> would be much easier to find the .po file of your language.
>
> Issue #13
> At the end of each branch list, there should be a "back to the top"
> button.
>
> Issue #14
> In the first part of the module statistics page, there should be a link
> to submit a translation for this module, as there is a link to display
> statistics when one is to submit a translation on each page module.
>
> Issue #15
> Let's now pick up the anaconda module from
> https://translate.fedoraproject.org/submit/module/ There two icons on
> the right side are should be just before the "Module cache" with a text
> link to click on. Icons are not used as links in the website, there is
> no reason this should change :)
>
> Issue #16
> At the bottom of the page, the "back to module" link is an issue
> either, the same as in Issue #5. The link could be called "submit
> another module".

Thanks for writing such a detailed review. Highlighting these issues are 
important, and I agree with most of what you say. These points are excellent 
examples of 'junior jobs', small tasks that are great for people new to the 
infrastructure team. If you or anyone on this list are interested in 
contributing, please join us on IRC on #fedora-l10n. Getting started with web 
design of even Python and Turbogears isn't as hard as many would think, and 
we do need more developers and UI designers :)

Many community contributors are spending 435% of their spare time on creating 
a good infrastructure, and it's not that they are not aware of the issues, 
it's simply a lack of time. 

cheers,
asgeir