Sneak Peek at New User Profile page
LiveJournal is "improving" the design of the profile page (formerly userinfo)
lj_design is previewing the new design -- you can see what it looks like by appending ?ver=ng to the URL for your own (or any other) profile page.
Then, read the comments and/or add remarks of your own.
It's still beta; looks like you need to append &mode=full to see more than ( Read more... )
lj_design is previewing the new design -- you can see what it looks like by appending ?ver=ng to the URL for your own (or any other) profile page.
Then, read the comments and/or add remarks of your own.
It's still beta; looks like you need to append &mode=full to see more than ( Read more... )
Comments 7
I'm curious. What kind of research did you find on how people use the profile pages and what people want out of it?
When I'm looking at somebody else's profile page, I'm trying to get a sense of who they are as a person (or in the case of a community, what it's about).
Despite the famous quote "Tell me whom you love and I will tell you who you are", I'm far more interested in somebody's biography and interests than who their friends are. Yet that's the information that's hardest to see in this new version!
Under the current design, community guidelines are "above-the-fold" -- visible on the first screen without scrolling. Now, you can't even see them without scrolling and are so narrow they're hard to read.
Others have already mentioned hp100 and pornish_pixies. Contrast those info pages with the new ones: hp100 and pornish_pixies. Much less useful, burying the warnings and guidelines.
Likewise, I use painless_j's page as a portal to various story collections. Almost impossible under the new versionOh, and journal title needs to ( ... )
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Not only is the current version annoying to read, but it's just a complete mess if you have sight imparities and use a screenreader.
I hadn't even thought of that, but excellent point.
For users with screenreaders, the most important text (the bio or community guidelines) comes *after* a whole mess of irrelevant info (friendslist/watchers).
Currently, someone using a screenreader can pick up the bio and stop reading when it gets to the list of friends.
You can simulate it for yourself by using a text-only browser. I tried viewing my own profile (both versions) in Lynx. Currently, there are 93 words before my bio begins, including my title. In the new version, 431 words, including many usernames that a screenreader would probably have to spell out.
No! No! NO!
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They need to do some actual usability testing, I think. And I'm slightly puzzled by the fact that they seem to be trying to reinvent the LJ Portal page (aka My LJ), which does it better (and is my bookmarked LJ entry page).
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Accessibility
Sure, it looks ugly visually, but imagine trying to skim through a profile using a screenreader, with all the friends names before the actual bio! It would be utterly unusable. Checking my own profile under Lynx, there are nearly five times as many words in the new version before it gets to my bio...
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