Overview:
This spec covers the bugs, usability issues, and feature requests that the community would like to address at this Wednesday’s dev chat. ( 2013.11.13 :: 6pmEST )
These are ordered by general priority, weighted by number of users reporting issue, and of course bugs come before features, and usability comes before shinyshiny. Please feel free to reorder priority as necessary.
If there are additional issues, please feel free to add comments with a summary including a description of the Issue, a potential Solution, and links to any screenshots or Examples of the issue.
As you can see, a couple issues have already been resolved by the devs, which is reflected in Status. After the dev meeting, I will update each issue with a Status of whether it has been resolved, moved to / redundant to a GitHub issue, is unfixable, etc…
Sources:
Many thanks to Brourd, mat747, Eli Fisker, Zanna, wateronthemoon, Jieux, hoglahoo, Omei Turnbull, Hyphema, jnicol, Nando, TomoeUzumaki, LFP6, steven123505, Malcolm, redsoxwy, and anyone else who has contributed to Eli’s thread or our brainstorming session.
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Transcript of chat available on request.
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Eli’s UI thread, covered in this report:
https://getsatisfaction.com/eternagam… -
mat747’s bigger UI Ideas not entirely covered in this report:
https://getsatisfaction.com/eternagam…
Sincerely,
~ machinelves
Reference of Pages:
A) Lab List:
“Active Labs” -> http://eterna.cmu.edu/web/labs/
B) Lab Project List:
“Participate” -> http://eterna.cmu.edu/web/lab/3381843/
C) Lab Project Popup:
“Show” -> [access via B) Lab Project link]
D) Lab Design List:
“Vote for the Best Designs” -> http://eterna.cmu.edu/web/browse/3381…
E) Lab Design Popup:
“[Name of Player Design]” -> [access via D) link for popup behavior] or http://eterna.cmu.edu/web/browse/view…
F) Lab Design:
“See Result” -> http://eterna.cmu.edu/game/solution/3…
G) Previous Lab List:
“Previous Labs” -> http://eterna.cmu.edu/web/labs/past/
General Assessment:
- Minimize clicks: Utilize nested content, perhaps hovertips, reduced redundancy of content to minimize total # of clicks to goal.
- Slow-loading flash: Users have wondered whether the server side is current with platform updates, or needs a cache dump, or ??? to reduce lag reported while opening and solving designs.
- HTML: Consensus is that html is the right direction, and users support the redesign overall, but express a wish to be consulted about major UI changes so that the efficacy of developers’ efforts is maximized.
Issues:
1) BUG: D) Lab Design List - Cast Votes Display as 0
Issue: In the “My Vote” column, all designs display as “0” votes cast even after casting votes. However, votes were cast and remembered by the system, as evidenced by casting all 8 votes, and the 9th is rejected despite displaying “0”. Additionally, cast votes register in the old lab browser. Issue confirmed by multiple players.
Solution: Unknown
Example: http://prntscr.com/23cu5m
Status: Resolved! Thanks devs! 
2) BUG: E) Lab Design Popup -> F) Lab Design - Javascript Image Doesn’t Match
Issue: In the popup there is a beautiful Javascript image that should essentially be a 1:1 thumbnail representing the actual design. However, the nucleotide colors do not match.
Solution: Unknown
Example:
- E) Javascript thumbnail: http://prntscr.com/23lvm7
- F) same puzzle loaded in flash: http://prntscr.com/23lvpg
Status: Unknown
3) BUG: D) Lab Design List - Base Chunking: Numbers Out of Sync
Issue: Nucleotide bases are chunked by 5s for readability, however header of correlating sequence number becomes skewed as the length progresses.
Solution: Recalibrate.
Example:
- skew marked with little lines: https://d2r1vs3d9006ap.cloudfront.net…
- additional sync issue: http://prntscr.com/23lumr
Status: Unknown
4) BUG: D) Lab Design List - Nucleotide Bases Not Correlated
Issue: Nucleotide bases are potentially not correlating.
Solution: Recalibrate.
Example: https://getsatisfaction.com/eternagam…
Status: Unknown
5) USABILITY: Assign Central Hub for Bug / Feature Reporting
Issue: Currently unclear where issues should be centrally reported, as discussions and ideas take place in chat, groups, blogs, wikis, forums, PMs, bug tracker spreadsheet, getsatisfaction, github etc…
- While the dev chats do give a spot opportunity to raise hot topics, it would be good to have an agreed upon issue-tracking protocol so that issues don’t slip through the cracks.
- Should players post issues directly to github, or filter through other channels first?
- Do devs depend on forum comments and/or still reference the bug spreadsheet? Or would it be more helpful to the devs to assign a central hub for feedback?
Solution: - It appears that if a central hub exists already, it is github and/or the bug spreadsheet; therefore the solution may be as simple as placing a more prominent link or guideline to such.
- Ownership could be assigned to a player or dev to update priority & status of bugs in the spreadsheet. Or is the spreadsheet deprecated? ( there is no year in the date fields )
- Assign official protocol for full life-cycle of reporting bugs & feature requests:
i.e.
A) Brainstorm: chat, groups, blogs, PMs
B) Define Issues: forums
C) Formal Issue Filing: dev chat, bug tracker spreadsheet, github
D) Reference of Current Functionality: wiki
Examples: - player submitted issue: https://getsatisfaction.com/eternagam…
- GitHub: https://github.com/EteRNAgame/EteRNA-…
- current bug spreadsheet: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k…
- example of foldit feedback portal: http://fold.it/portal/feedback
Status: Unknown
6) USABILITY: E) Lab Design Popup - Exit / Close Button
Issue: Difficult to navigate out of Lab popup window, currently must click outside of popup.
Solution: Add Exit button at the top, same style as Prev / Next green buttons.
Examples: http://prntscr.com/23ky6t
Status: Unknown
7) USABILITY: E) Lab Design Popup - Vote Button
Issue: Old popup allowed clicking of vote button without scrolling; currently for players in smaller resolution browsers, one must scroll down to see the vote button, thus increasing time and disorientation in navigation.
Solution: Add Vote button at the top, same style as Prev / Next green buttons.
Examples:
- old browser: http://prntscr.com/23kxka
- new browser: http://prntscr.com/23kxr7 + scrolling http://prntscr.com/23kxvc
- desired button access: http://prntscr.com/23ky6t
Status: Unknown
8) USABILITY: D) Lab Design List - Bottom Scroller Offscreen
Issue: One must scroll down to use the bottom scroller, players request for the Lab Design List to fit the screen, to prevent a lot of extra moving & clicking.
Solution: Resize window according to user resolution, so that users not on a widescreen desktop monitor can still play. Or could look at Google Analytics and see what what range of screen resolutions people have, and then target the UI design to be easily usable for lower mid-range and up.
Examples:
- issue up close: http://prntscr.com/23lqqo
- comparison of old & new browsers: http://prntscr.com/23lqsn
Status: Unknown
9) USABILITY: D) Lab Design List - View Options
Issue: Players feel inspired to drag & drop the options from left to right, as opposed to using the arrows.
Solution: If possible, enable drag & drop across the chasm.
Examples: http://prntscr.com/23m5da
Status: Unknown
10) USABILITY: D) Lab Design List - Horizontal Guide Lines: Chunking x5
Issue: There used to be horizontal guidelines that chunked the list of user designs in 5s. Without this guidelines, especially with increasing lab participation, it is difficult to navigate the browser.
Solution: Return the guide lines.
Example:
https://d2r1vs3d9006ap.cloudfront.net…
Status: Resolved! Thanks devs!
11) USABILITY: E) Lab Design Popup -> F) Lab Design - Load in New Window
Issue: Old E) flash browser loaded F) flash design window quickly; however, since redesign change to E) html browser, now the F) flash design window takes at least 5x as long to load. Therefore, players find the back and forth loading between html & flash to be cumbersome.
Solution: Open to suggestions. Current idea is to make the “See Result” button in E) load the F) flash design in a new window, so that F) can simply be closed, and E) does not have to be reloaded.
Examples: Opening a link in a new window is already implemented for loading the D) Lab Design List from F) the Lab Design itself, i.e. http://prntscr.com/23ctxn
Status: Unknown
12) USABILITY: F) Lab Design -> D) Lab Design List - Load in Same Window
Issue: Players find navigating back to Lab Design List tedious due to new UI opening D) in a new window.
Solution: Load D) in same window as F).
Examples: http://prntscr.com/23luv8
Status: Unknown
13) USABILITY: A) Lab List - Navigating Back
Issue: The new UI works seems to work like a google browser session. It used to be that when the user was finished in a lab, they could click the browser ‘back’ button to get back to the Lab List overview, in order to select from the other active labs. Now, since the game remembers each step B) - F), the user must click back through all the pages to return to A), or re-navigate through the parent menu.
Solution: If not possible to revert this behavior while keeping new UI elements, could add Return to Lab List button.
Example: http://prntscr.com/23lu2p
Status: Unknown
14) USABILITY: D) Lab Design List - Global Lab SHAPE Preference
Issue: Global Lab SHAPE preference now resets to disordered when reloading page in new UI, whereas old lab remembered this preference once set.
Solution: Remember global lab SHAPE preference.
Example: http://prntscr.com/23lt8f
Status: Unknown
15) FEATURE: E) Lab Design Popup - Increase Size of Popup
Issue: Currently the popup contains some information that is useful enough that players do not want to lose it, but the increased clicking is not quite outweighing the benefits. In order to move forward with this new direction in development, they would like to ‘run with it’ and increase the size of the popup so that more useful information can be included without cluttering, and potentially obviate the need to load the slow-loading F) Lab Design every time one inspects an E) Lab Design Popup.
Solution: Increase size of E) Lab Design Popup.
Examples: http://prntscr.com/23cr9k
Status: Unknown
16) FEATURE: E) Lab Design Popup - Increase Size of Javascript Image
Issue: Currently must open slow-loading F) Lab Design to view sequence image clearly.
Solution: Increase size of javascript image in popup.
Examples: http://prntscr.com/23coif
Status: Unknown
17) FEATURE: E) Lab Design Popup - Lightbox Javascript Images
Issue: Currently must open slow-loading F) Lab Design to view sequence image clearly. Also, navigating between designs requires many clicks; this would provide an additional navigation method intuitive to how we browse images in slideshow-style services.
Solution: Implement lightbox toggle for javascript image in popup, including prev / next for all designs in that lab.
Examples:“flickRNA”
Status: Unknown
18) FEATURE: E) Lab Design Popup - Add Plot Graphs
Issue: Currently must open slow-loading F) Lab Design to view plot graphs.
Solution: Add plot graphs field to popup.
Examples: http://prntscr.com/23kwqs
Status: Unknown
19) FEATURE: F) Lab Design - Toggle Modules
Issue: Players requesting to have a dashboard view of data, with the option to toggle modules desired to be shown.
Solution: There could be description, melt, dot plot, temp module, author/title module, etc… so the user can choose to display an always-on view of exactly what one needs and nothing more.
Examples: http://prntscr.com/23lx82
https://github.com/EteRNAgame/EteRNA-…
Status: Unknown
20) FEATURE: G) Previous Labs - Sort by Cloud Lab Round
Issue: In the ‘Previous labs’ tab, would like sorting option ‘Sort by Cloud Lab Round’, as the default.
Solution: Add sorting option.
Examples: http://prntscr.com/23m34o
Status: Unknown
21) FEATURE: E) Lab Design Popup - Copy Sequence
Issue: Currently must open slow-loading F) Lab Design to copy sequence.
Solution: Add Copy Sequence field to popup.
Examples: http://prntscr.com/23l19p
Status: Unknown
