Topic: Uniform Layout Across AoF Portals (AoF Portal Template)
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Bowo,
Some thoughts on the portal: 1. I think Discussion should be higher up after news to promote immediacy of involvement 2. Keywords could go at the bottom ... 3. Image gallery could be higher up on page 4. There is a lot of space in center top of page before page title ... i am wondering if Edit Library (Upload File) and possibly even Edit Page could be tabs next to Main gallery which would open up the page to an editable version? 5. I think that the template's uniformity is important but I think it should be possible for stewards to drag and drop different components into the particular section of the page they want (kinda like you can do with Google home page)... 6. Love having news.... can this hook up to an RSS feed? 7. No wiki page option? 8. Still like the idea of being able to actually determine if fellow members are Online Now, (like facebook does) and having some way to engage in threaded active discussions/chats Goals Create a vital, energetic timely and comprehensive virtual home for organizations, scholars, experts, students and interested parties to learn, share, discuss, promote and evolve the work, developments and challenges in their particular AofF. Engage members in finding the resources to ensure that content on the AofF is accessible to and inclusive of all members of global community sharing interest in this particular topic. Publicize the work and activities of the AofF in traditional media and subject specific media. Tasks: Aggregate, update and prioritize content within the parameters of templates Reach out to organzations and resources to inform them of their selection as part of the AofF and invite them to participate in updating information about their organization and participating in dicussions at WE in their AofF with other organizations in their AofF Provide regularly updated news and events information Involve others in promoting and sustaining the comprehensiveness and timeliness of AofF Work on creating a schedule for virtual meetings of members of AofF Participate in regular discussion with other AofF stewards to ensure cohesivness of overall structure and report on progress |
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Hey all,
It does seem that 'customization' in the items included will be needed, as some AoF are knowledge-oriented, some are advocacy-oriented, and some others are action-oriented. Another obvious 'customization' will be the choice of color themes. Water related portals will naturally be better of with light-blue colored theme, while portals for soil management will benefit from brown colored theme, etc., though I personally don't mind if the color remains the same across portals as long as it's visually and functionally satisfactory. Images/illustrations can be used to make each portal unique to respective area of focus. The layout however (how items are positioned, how links are presented, etc.) should I think remain relatively similar across portals, so visitors won't have to adapt each time they visit a portal. Observing many AoF portal and the kind of content that can be displayed in a portal, I've finished sketching up a portal template that hopefully can meet the following requirements: - Comprehensive enough to be a learning portal for an area of focus, and thus, help visitors researching topics relating to an area of focus - But easy on the eyes, in other words, easy to peruse and read - Help visitors to stay updated on the latest development in that area of focus - Can entice visitors to help improve, update and add new content relating to that area of focus - Make it easy for visitors to add content - Can help visitors meet other WiserEarth users interested in similar area of focus - Can inspire visitors to take action relating to that area of focus - Can pull out the best WiserEarth content relating to an area of focus - Help aggregate scattered discussions, and encourage new ones relating to an area of focus - Encourage visitors to share their personal experience relating to an area of focus - Encourage visitors to steward that area of focus The area of focus used is the "Human Population Growth and Impacts", and here is the template (with most links live, and has child pages linked): http://www.wiserearth.org/article/a64b8397f89acb0c57d9da3a65ad591b The current portal is located at http://www.wiserearth.org/aof/118 You can observe that the left pane of the portal, more or less, is dedicated to "bringing out" the "best" WiserEarth content, while the right pane is dedicated to "bringing in" the best content from without WiserEarth (and from users). The requirements are difficult to meet, so please make suggestions and edits on how to improve the template (what kind of items need to be added, layout improvements, navigation, etc.). Or better yet, come up with a totally different template design that can really meet those requirements. Another thing, the template I made above is visually bland/simple, I'll try to make other versions which are visually more appealing.. Ideas, suggestions and edits on this front is also welcomed (including samples of websites/webpages that we can learn from). Looking forward to hear your thoughts. P.S. I decided not to start with the mock-up Adam created because Mike (MichaelK) informed us the other day that the mock-up was actually used in the design of groups. But I do incorporate some aspects from it, namely the idea of aggregating discussions scattered across the site, and the people section (which consist of simply interested, experience activists and workers, and experts). |
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I agree that a more uniform template would help. However, it should allow for 'customization' of the portal so that they do not all look identical. We invite AoF stewards to submit their ideas for what the areas of focus portals should look like. e.g. how should the design mock-up that was created by Adam
http://www.wiserearth.org/article/74e8b37279c057c969dc47f0ee40ac1e) be changed to be more useful to the community? |
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At present, the layout of AoF portals is not uniform, and the items in each portal is not the same (e.g. some have a "Quotations" section, some don't). It would be more intuitive for users if we can have a uniform layout for the same set of items across all 379 AoF portals, in other words, a template.
This would make the job of AoF stewards to update the portals much easier, as the need for AoF stewards with advanced HTML skills will be greatly reduced. If the template have been applied to all AoF portals, and someone messed up the layout or other editing trouble occurs, they can request help to these AoF stewards with HTML skills to fix the problem (based on the template), instead of relying on their own limited skills. We can work on a template (with clear instructions embedded in the HTML code), and provide instructions on how stewards can update each section of the layout with new contents. Some elements, especially the "manual" (not software-based) ones, from the template design that is put on hold at the moment (http://www.wiserearth.org/article/74e8b37279c057c969dc47f0ee40ac1e) can be incorporated into this "temporary" template. We can then setup a "Newest Queue" wikipage (which is formatted according to the template) for each AoF portal, which will function as a place to put suggested content before it is loaded onto the actual portal. An example of this is the "Newest Queue" wikipage for WiserEarth's Homepage at http://www.wiserearth.org/article/5aa0797576b307918266a9527bdce1b0 A question: Is it OK if we (AoF stewards in this group) craft a portal template of our own and then apply it across all 379 AoF portals? Or should we wait for the one already crafted (linked above) to be ready (not just the looks, but also the underlying software updates)? If it's OK, then lets first decide on what items (definition, quotations, featured resources, etc.) to be included in the template. Thoughts? |
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Those are some great input Deborah!
Just got a chance to revisit this thread after quite a while and just wanted to report back here a quick finding of alternative layout. This one is from the ManyOne beta site for the Pax Natura portal.
http://beta.manyone.net/paxnatura/
The layout looks clean, and easy to read.
Will coment back more thoroughly in the coming days and leave a comment for this feedback of yours:
6. Love having news.... can this hook up to an RSS feed?
Yes, it can. We have feeds for discussion now, so I imagine that we can post news items as comment in a "news discussion" for each AoF, and post the RSS link to the portal. The discussion will need to be "locked" (editors can do this), and posting limited strictly to headlines and a short excerpt of news.
Bowo