[OSM-talk] comments on new map widget on main page

[Michal Migurski]

On Jul 29, 2013, at 12:13 AM, Richard Fairhurst wrote:

> Michal Migurski wrote:
>> Provable evidence that the view tab is not sufficiently 
>> informing visitors of its functionality? Having a button 
>> that says “link” is a great clue that there is an option 
>> to link vs. hunting around. 
> 
> Perhaps, but this is definitely a pro feature. There _is_ a button that says
> "link" (or rather, an icon that indicates "link").

How do we know that? Since we perform no systematic user testing in advance of these changes (http://teczno.com/s/92x), we're not really sure what a pro user is. I bet Google does user testing, though, and they've chosen a little chain-link icon for theirs and put it in a prominent place. An image search for "link icon" unscientifically supports their choice:

	http://www.google.com/search?q=link+icon&tbm=isch

Ours is the mystery iOS "swoosh-box" which on my phone browser means "share this page to another service" (don't get me started on Flickr's adoption of this icon). Sharing is not totally unrelated, but the image is borrowed from a pocket device where my parasympathetic nervous system does most of the remembering.


> What a small number of
> existing OSM pro users are asking for is, additionally, a way of retaining
> the single-click behaviour rather than having to open the panel, and the
> View tab does that. Surfacing everything that pro users might want isn't a
> good way of building a design that appeals to potential newcomers.

This question came up once during the SF editathon as well, among a group of mixed Pro and not-Pro users, and when I explained that the view tab allows for linking to the view, the consensus I heard was that a tab is a weird place to put it ("I've already chosen that tab, why would I click it again?").

I do want to underscore the point that we lack any systematic way of understanding who our users actually are, or a stated strategy for deciding who we want them to be. In my design experience, "pro" is often used as a short-hand for "I don't know where to put that thing, let's call it a pro feature so we can hide it someplace" so I'm pushing a little to make sure we know why we're using the word here.

-mike.

----------------------------------------------------------------
michal migurski- contact info and pgp key:
sf/ca            http://mike.teczno.com/contact.html