On p5p this week, Ziggy quoth..
"People can read on the web, but they don't"and references Jakob Nielsen.
It's sad nothing has been learned in 7 years.
as the CPAN front page is all bulleted lists...and that's precisely what the page extols as readable. If people can't read that, then that's, again, not our problem but theirs. You know the old saying that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. CPAN is still around precisely because it hasn't been over-engineered like so many other things in perl.
P5 and P6 and Ponie and Parrot are all to the point where only people with tuits and clue can do anything so I suppose the only thing left for the people who can't do anything there is to bitch about CPAN. I'm really sorry there wasn't a new project announced at TPC this year to siphon them off to some other black hole.
Re:apparently neither of you read his page either
delegatrix on 2004-08-25T14:53:21
No, if people can't read something on your site it is EXACTLY your problem. Websites should do everything possible to enhance the user experience.
The mere presence of bulleted lists does not provide a 100 percent readable, usable solution. Consider that the items on CPAN, for example, are not all that different and can confuse people deciding which item they should select.
When our users tell us they're having a problem, we can't just say "Oh, you're all idiots". Why have such contempt for users? All user feedback is valuable.
In real world usability tests I've seen users stare right at something (yes, I do eyeball tracking) and still not see what's there in the way we presume they will. I've seen users mouse within 1 millimeter of the desired link in lists, and just retreat back and not see that item.
Users aren't as stupid as we'd like to think they are, and there are improvements to be made.Re:apparently neither of you read his page either
hfb on 2004-08-25T15:31:29
That's the point, CPAN isn't a website, it's an FTP archive that just happens to have a bit of HTML. And, no, it's not our problem.Re:apparently neither of you read his page either
delegatrix on 2004-08-25T15:44:41
There's really no difference. This isn't 1991.Re:apparently neither of you read his page either
cybrsane on 2004-08-25T15:45:45
For those "point and click" users you've mentioned in other posts, most users don't know the difference between a web site and an FTP site. As long as the browser gets them there, they haven't a clue (nor do they usually need one) about the protocol.Re:apparently neither of you read his page either
hfb on 2004-08-25T16:11:05
The archive has remained usable for almost 9 years now precisely because we have maintained a very simple objective which is to keep the archive as an archive, not as a super website that holds your hand. That's not our job. If you want to build a CPAN for dummies site that uses a mirror of the archive there's absolutely nothing stopping you but as for the archive it will remain just an archive. This is where the 'search is not CPAN' statement comes it. Google isn't the internet anymore than search.cpan is the archive. CPAN is simply an archive.Re:apparently neither of you read his page either
petdance on 2004-08-25T15:21:01
Are you suggesting that there's no room for improving CPAN?Re:apparently neither of you read his page either
jhi on 2004-08-25T15:38:31
> Are you suggesting that there's no room for improving CPAN?
No. We are not blind or deaf to good suggestions. I just haven't seen any so far from the recent rush of idle muttering.
Re:apparently neither of you read his page either
petdance on 2004-08-25T15:42:22
I just haven't seen any so far from the recent rush of idle muttering.Please don't dismiss the concerns of at least a dozen people out-of-hand as worthless. It's hardly "idle muttering", as if we're sitting around scratching our asses looking for a project to poke at.
Re:apparently neither of you read his page either
jhi on 2004-08-25T16:10:06
> as if we're sitting around scratching our asses looking for a project to poke at.
That's exactly how it looks like to me.
If you are unhappy with the "user experience" of CPAN, go grab the content of it (it's all freely redistributable, remember), and build whatever you want to build, whatever add-on info you want to add on. But CPAN itself will stay as it is: it copies files from place A to place B. It is an archive. It's not a website.
Re:apparently neither of you read his page either
petdance on 2004-08-25T18:46:15
That's exactly how it looks like to me.Trust me, it's not.
Re:apparently neither of you read his page either
TorgoX on 2004-08-26T22:48:11
My first thought is that the dualism of web site versus archive is specious. But now I think that it doesn't matter whether it's a web site or an archive or something inbetween, because I think the best point is your point about how people can put whatever front-end they want on it. And they do, and you link to the results from cpan.org/index.html !All the same, I say if people want to have cpan.org/index.html be different, they should post a suggested new page, for us all (more importantly, me) to mock or praise.
But I think it should still be something simple like it currently it. Not something over-busy like www.perl.org. I will spurn such things!
Usability is not a checkbox item
ziggy on 2004-08-26T04:46:02
There's a world of difference between using features found on a usable web page, and making a web page usable.apparently neither of you read his page either as the CPAN front page is all bulleted lists...and that's precisely what the page extols as readable.Sorry, but it is your problem, no matter how much you protest to the contrary. People who publish on the web are responsible for the usability of the pages they publish. If users cannot figure out what a web page offers, or what a web site contains, it is not the user's problem, it's the publishers problem for failing to tell them.If people can't read that, then that's, again, not our problem but theirs.This is why Ask, Robert and others have been working on a redesign for perl.org for a good number of years now. It's not perfect by any means, but it is improving, and it is a far sight better than what was there many years ago (when it was abandoned in a pique of apathy).
Yes, this is true. And the CPAN front page and the modules index no longer serve as primary entrypoints into CPAN. That role is filled modules like CPAN.pm and sites like search.cpan.org. But that says absolutely nothing about the usability of the HTML entrypoints at the top level of CPAN.CPAN is still around precisely because it hasn't been over-engineered like so many other things in perl.The only bitching I see is you complaining about the temerity of those who have anything to say about CPAN that might impugn it in some minor way. In fact, the majority of the fallout from the link I posted to that Alertbox column is about the meta-issue of whether it is reasonable to presume that users can "read and click" a web page.I suppose the only thing left for the people who can't do anything there is to bitch about CPAN.Re:Usability is not a checkbox item
hfb on 2004-08-26T07:58:54
This is personal isn't it freakboy? Listen to yourself, you're a pompous windbag. 9 years later and suddenly the FTP user experience is a concern? I wouldn't consider perl.org a pillar of usability and, again, we're not interested if people cannot read a bullet list or not. Really. There are plenty of other perl web sites, real web sites, to attack with the "think of the children" ploy. Write a CPAN for dummies site or something.
Re:Usability is not a checkbox item
ask on 2004-08-27T01:32:21
This is personal isn't it freakboy?
From where I'm sitting you are the only one who keeps turning it personal.
oh well. *whatever*, as they say over here.
- ask
