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Robrt (1414)

Robrt
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robert at perl dot org

Journal of Robrt (1414)

Wednesday August 25, 2004
12:23 AM

Presumption

[ #20553 ]

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.


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  • 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 lef

    • 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 u
    • Are you suggesting that there's no room for improving CPAN?
      --

      --
      xoa

      • > 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.

        • 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.

          --

          --
          xoa

          • > 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.

            • That's exactly how it looks like to me.

              Trust me, it's not.

              --

              --
              xoa

            • 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

    • 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.

      There's a world of difference between using features found on a usable web page, and making a web page usable.

      If people can't read that, then that's, again, not our problem but theirs.

      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 publis

      • 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.

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