User Interface Changes a Foot

I am so, SO glad you're here. :)

Awesome!  I'm looking forward to it!

Agree with every word! There are many various issues yet to be solved. Wiewing the site text-only? No java? Limited bandwith (600+kb per page)? And Gaia, such a big, no HUGE thing coming up… Ah, the excitement! I'm sick of the love towards the status quo in our culture. All politics is about is keeping the status quo, everyone is just so afraid of change, especially when we need it the most. Go go go!

Look forward to this change. Ease of use makes changes that we're looking for, so much easier to accept.
Otherwise people get bogged down with having to try to hard to get where they really want to go. Why don't you start a pod discussion on the Think Tank about it, jxn?
Looking fw to all those oopses going! [Not that I don't admire their charming wording]

SO looking forward to what you are going to bring!!! 

Congratulations - looking forward to your contributions.
Have fun!

Awesome Jackson! 

So glad to have you here.  Looking forward to collaborating and merging the idea flow.

Sounds good…you are a brave soul to take this on ….after all the “seed”ie drama….good luck to you :)

Wonder-ful Jaxxson!

I am looking forward to seeing what design changes you bring. Thanks for taking this project on.

Conscious change (what you speak of, jaxxon) is an invitation for improvement under all our terms.

On the other hand, if we wait for other environmental elements to change around us, and then we transition to keep up; our opportunity to co-create and navigate through this constant process is less dynamic.

Let's go for dynamic change!

“For one thing, the interface doesn't reflect our innerface.”

exactly. Jake has been doing some reflecting on this issue as well. i especially like his idea f user-creativity-centric design. looking forward to what design genius you going to come up with.

in the meantime, i dig the simplicy of Tumblr :)

~C

Lovely to read this….. and very much looking forward to changes (even though I am normally one who hates change.. at least before the change happens. Once it's a given, then I seem to lose my short-sightedness).

Thanks Jaxxon!
Sandra

Awesome! I love easy, simple, usability.

It all sounds exciting to this Perfectionist!!!! I so appreciate all that you and Jake and others on the Team are doing and we are the beneficiaries!!!! Well, actually, the WORLD is the beneficiary, eh?

I start by saying I am a Dummy, so I don't fully understand what matters fall under UI/ useability and which fall under Development, or the exact relationship of those concepts.

Therefore, the following suggestion might not be relevant. HOWEVER

in addition to browing through the Ideas section pool, I think you would find shall we say lots of food for thought just reading through the How Tos and FAQs pod, and the Thinktank pod, and the Zaadz Support pod. It appears to me there are HUNDREDS of explicit and implicit user-interface issues and suggestions there. Many of us have poured our hearts and minds into the suggestions and “complaints” and questions there, and those pods represent the collective wisdom of Zaadzsters about what they find difficult, obscure, troublesome, unclear, awkward, puzzling, missing, or desirable, about using the site. A significantly better UI would, I would hope, render at least half the instructions and issues and complaints and suggestions in those pods, moot, no longer applicable or relevant, because DEALT WITH by the new UI.

This is not a complaint about the site as it is and has been. I adore it here, and lots of folks are putting the existing system to really good use, and the amount of time spent to bring us what we have is treasured and incalculable. So we are just talking about improvements, upgrades, not fixing something bad or defective or broken. I wish to be perfectly clear about that!!!!

A second suggestion is that no matter how intuitive a UI is, I still think there is a need for a User's Manual type of collected How Tos, one that is better organized, more intuitively useable, if you will, than the present system of several pods with topics scattered all over in hundreds of different posts and threads, and an iffy search system which depends on your coming up with an exact right phrase to get you the info you want. I envision a real book-type thing, with table of contents, as well as searchability. I would lend my time and talents to the creation of such, and am already co-creating in that direction, with others here.

I said in my Ambassador application, and can repeat here, IMO Zaadz already has plenty of great tools. More tools would be adding more stuff to an infrastructure that is not optimally capable of handling the existing tools. The two areas I think need attention/improvement are functionality of those tools, and user knowledge of how to use the durn tools. And the specifics of those two areas are to be found in the ideas pool, and the three pods mentioned above.
 
And then, the How to/User Manual type of thing has to smack new Members over the head with its presence. I see over and over how few of them seem to register the info they are sent upon joining. There must be some way to get them to pay more attention to User-skills issues. Maybe THAT's the arena for the stuff that BLINKS, LOL!!!!!

Thanks for the opportunity to make these suggestions.

Extreme gratefulness,

OM Bastet

Om, great poins imo.

Somewhere I have suggested that all new members of Gaia have to do a little 'tour' – something like what happens when you start up a brand new Apple computer.

Something dynamic, fun, brief, which just points the new member to the various possibilities (community guidelines, pods, help boards, some ideas on how to make your profile fun etc).

This would not be instead of a user's Manual, which would exist for perfectionist types (!), and be place to visit on the 'tour' —  but my sense is that most people do the trial and error method, as you say, Om, so few of us register the info we are sent on joining, so force us to actually have a look, in a visual way rather than a textual way. I am sure if members  were already 'guided' through some of the highways and byways it would save some work down the line for all.

Love,
Sandra

Hmmmm. Interesting!

Hey Jaxxon, thanks for all your efforts and have a wonder-full now year.

Two suggestions, one which I keep bringing up but it may not be workable here, not sure:

Establish a help channel which ambassadors can log into if they're on and have some free time, and people can ask questions/get help real-time.  The “official” helpers would need to show up in a different color, but anyone on the channel could take a shot at answering questions if they're able to help.

And:

A tip-of-the-day pop-up (or maybe more than one a day) with links to additional info if relevant - everything from “hey, did you know you can imbed photos on your blog? Here's how” to “Typing in all caps is generally considered shouting in the online community.  Here are some other ways to emphasize your point that work better.”

People will not read and often cannot find the information about how stuff works that is, yes, available all over the site. But if it jumps out at ya, that can help.

Huge ditto to rapunzels suggestions.
S.

jaxxon, it's good for us to be reminded that our Wish Lists are subject to limited resources of fulfillment, and it's crucial for us to understand that whatever we see early on will be only the beginning!!!!

Holy Moly, Sandra's and rapunzel's ideas are so awesome-squared they bring tears to me very eyes!! Guess this user-orientation/education thing must be important to me!!!

And that these suggestions were at least in part posted previously elsewhere just underscores my thought that those three pods are goldmines of ideas. For anyone willing to wade through them!!! Panning for gold, eh?

Blessings abounding to all in 2008, OM Bastet

I cannot remember the last time I was involved with a community whose members are soul-connected. This IS a very moving experience. I am happy to be a witness to an intuitive-integral process in action!

Jaxxon's the MAN!

Blessings to all!