Zugg Software :: View topic

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 873 Location: USA

Zugg asked for a separate topic, so...

Nice layout: simple, not fixed width, the topics are easy to find.

FAQ coverage is good.

Four nits to pick:

1) there should be an opt-out on notification of marketing messages- the "Your email" section of the privacy statement, specifically the "significant improvements..." notification. I know you don't spam, but the wording is less comforting than it could be to people who don't know you.

2) for some reason, on the "Compare Services" page, I have a huge chunk of blank white space after the peach block saying "This table shows..." with the table below it. IE 6, I think patched up to date.

3) the legal disclosure section only mentions fraud and criminal investigations. You also probably want to mention "legal process". Some places, such as my backup service, are quite vocal about only complying with valid subpoenas issued by a court with jurisdiction. Others (such as most online social sites) just say that they'll act using their own judgement. Privacy Statement, "Will SlightlyMorbid disclose information it collects to others?"

4) Compare Services page: describing the length of service, "3-years" with the hyphen is repeated a few times. It feels strange with the hyphen when trying to read text like "After 3-years, your account remains..."

-Tarn

Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 4:58 pm

Good stuff.

1) I didn't want to do any "opt-out" because sending the reminders for keeping contact information updated is an important part of the service. But I can see what you mean about the "improvements" notifications being closer to the marketing side. So I have modified the Privacy agreement to just remove that part and we just won't send out these kind of emails.

In reality, if this service takes off like we hope, there will be too many users to send those kind of emails to anyway. And this system isn't like CMUD where there is lots of functionality added over time. So there really wasn't much of a need for that kind of email.

2) Stupid IE6 cannot seem to handle a 100% table next to a floating sidebar. I changed the table to 99% and then it seems to work. I'm glad someone is testing with IE6...I expect you'll some issues. I only have one computer left in this house with IE6 still on it, so I haven't gotten a lot of detailed testing with it yet. Fixed now.

3) I'll pass that one to Chiara to see what she can find from similar services. She's been spending a lot of time reading various license agreements. I think there is more detail on this issue in the Terms and Conditions.

4) Quite correct. Fixed.

Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 5:57 pm

Grammar semantics possibly American/British divide so feel free to ignore or implement as you wish:

1. will be emailed to designated recipient automatically

will be emailed to a designated recipient automatically ...or
will be emailed to designated recipients automatically

2. nds to use it. But a service like this cannot be free (and beware of any similar service that promises to be free).

nds to use it but a service like this cannot be free, beware of any similar service that promises to be free.

3. ad things that might happen. But all of us would want to know

ad things that might happen but all of us would want to know ...or
ad things that might happen, but all of us would want to know

4. On /help/about ... r friend turned up un-harmed, it c

r friend turned up unharmed, it c

5. On /help/faq ... You shouldn't need to cancel your account. Since we already have a free trial, no refunds are given after an account is purchased. And your account remains active even if you never renew it. But if, for some reason, yo

There should be no need to cancel your account. Since there is a free trial no refunds are given once an account is purchased. Your account remains active even if you never renew it but if, for some reason, yo

6. On /help/faq ... ou can change, add, or delete con

ou can change, add or delete con

7. On /help/faq ... In the case of a prank (which is an illegal use of this system), an email messa

In the case of a prank, which is an illegal use of this system, an email messa

Ooops:

/help/terms

ite and its contents are provided "as is" â€œwith all faultsâ€ and "as available" witho ...ff 3.0.3

Other than the above I'm not sure about the mix of square boxed section with round boxed section, wouldn't it be better to stick to one or the other.

Site Admin Joined: 29 Sep 2000 Posts: 389 Location: USA

Thanks Taz. Zugg wrote the FAQ after his tech writer went to bed.

Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 6:40 pm

OK, grammar issues from Taz have been corrected.

Give me more specifics on the square box vs round box issue. The side-bar must be square because the only way to have a left side-bar that stretches the entire height of the content in CSS is via a background image that is repeated vertically, so there is no way to give the left-side bar a rounded look unless I allowed it to terminate at the bottom of the sidebar help section. And I really wanted a full color "strip" on the left side of the page.

There is also a square box for important notes (like in the comparison chart page), and I found that it stands out more than the rounded background. I haven't found a good way to make rounded CSS boxes with borders using my current cross-browser method. All of the methods I found on the net that included borders had various browser issues.

But maybe I'll try a rounded box with the yellow "note" background and see how I can make it look a bit better.

Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:09 pm

I guess it really comes down to personal preference in the end. I write a lot of web apps but they are very utilitarian rather than good looking so it may be that round edged sections for the content to the right of square edged side panels is something quite good. I’d have stuck to all square edges but then like I say I just get the job done. [rant]I shouldn't really rant here but the less my marketing department can change the better especially when a lot of my apps are for internal use so it doesn’t really matter what they look like.[/rant]

Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:14 pm

I had all square panels for a while, and I just didn't like how it looked. It was just too blocky. So that's why I spent a lot of time making a set of cross-browser CSS for the rounded panels.

I'd love to figure out how to make the sidebar on the left rounded too. I think I can do it with a table-based layout, but not with just CSS. In fact, don't even get me started on "table-based" vs "CSS-based". While I ran into the IE Table bug that *forced* me to use CSS instead, I'm really sick and tired with how obscure some CSS is compared to tables. So my rant is about what the CSS designers were thinking sometimes. Seems like it was designed by people more interested in browser implementation that actual web designers trying to achieve various visual effects.

It they were trying to make it easier for designers, then they would have done some sort of "panel" interface like we have in Delphi and .NET where you can have panels that align with each other, stretch, etc. But I know that's nearly impossible to implement properly in a browser where you want to render the page as you go and not wait till you've received the entire page.

Anyway, sorry for the side track on that. The bottom line is that I'm still potentially interested in making the sidebar on the left rounded if I can find a way. This site needs to be *both* utilitarian and good looking because it's definitely a site for the masses, and first impressions will matter.

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 1:55 am

Hah! Take that! You'll now see that the side bar is nicely rounded. Everything except the bottom, which there is no way to control (because it's a repeated vertical image that fills the left side of the main window and no way to place an "element" at that bottom position).

The trick was to just place another image with rounded top corners at the top of the side bar and absolutely position it. The I used the normal rounded box CSS for the orange title bars.

Is it my imagination, or does the background color look a bit more pink that it should on my laptop. Hmm, maybe just a contrast setting. But the pink doesn't look as good for the background of the sidebar as compared to my desktop system.

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 7:58 am

I'm on FF3, and what I believe to be the latest version. The text in the left hand column for Username, Password, Recover Password, About Us, Contact Us etc.s very tiny. My resolution is 1600 X 1200.

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 1:37 pm

Excellent and you don't really notice the square edges at the bottom. Erm the colour looks fairly peach to me, is that right?

Tech: It's certainly smaller than the rest of the text on the page but not tiny, I'm also using FF3 but at 1280x1024

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 4:15 pm

Seems like you have the reso too big for your monitor, Taz ;)

I have a 19" monitor at 1440x900 and a 22" monitor at 1680x1050 and there's no appreciable difference between the two. It's small text, sure - the same size as the text I'm typing now, and same as the info under your username on the forums - but not too small to read.

Perhaps it's too small a link for the FAQ - I can see that being missed down there - but the rest of the stuff is really small-print info that belongs down there.

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 4:34 pm

I'm going to experiment with a slightly larger font size in the login area to see how it looks.

The FAQ is a bit of a puzzle. I think I'm going to also link the "Help" title text to the same FAQ page. The "Frequently Asked Questions" is the text that is responsible for the small font size, since it's such a long link name. I didn't want to use just "FAQ" because I was worried that some people might not look for that. But I agree that I need to find some additional way to get people looking at the FAQ which is where all of the documentation for the site really is.

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 4:38 am

I looked at the text IE6 before I posted and it was quite a bit more legible there. So it's something specific to FF3.

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:29 am

I actually increased the font size in the login area a bit during the day. Does it still look too small on FF3? The Help links are still small, but the Username/password/recover text is larger. I made the Help title into an FAQ link, and I also expanded the "hot" area of the help links to use the entire width of the panel to make them easier to click on.

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:14 pm

I see the difference in the changes now. Username/password is much mor elegible now.