Notes From Nature Talk

Is there a place to provide interface feedback

  • angostura by angostura

    I have a bit if experience in usability, and I have a few simple suggestions which I think would improve the ease of data input (I'm sure I'm not the only one). Where's the appropriate place to provide such feedback and suggestions.

    ... and yes, I've only just found the ornithology project just as its wrapping up 😦

    Posted

  • wreness by wreness

    Good luck to you, angstura. There's a board called "bug reports", I posted there not long ago, as did a few others addressing this (someone named Rene started it saying he'd be happy to rewrite the code for the menu and make it easier, then I said I'd do it, too). If you read around a bit you'll see people have been yelling/asking/begging/screaming/pleading for Them to fix it around here for almost a YEAR now, which blew me away when I saw how long this has gone on (I'm kind of new-ish here). The menu input is a pain, and also a few of us are waxing eloquent about that it seems we're getting the same bugs several times over and over to the point where it's getting suspicious, like we all died and this is Hell, maybe like the 4th ring or so. Please feel free to go to the Bug Reports and find that board and type away. I LOVED the ornithology area and was working on that a lot and I'm with you, all of a sudden it was like "what??" If you want to really get depressed, go on over toe Galaxy Zoo (I do a lot over there ) where it is like Grand Central Station. Their boards have thousands of posts, there are people of Authority there posting every day if not hourly, it's hopping like Starbucks at 7 am. Then you have ...here. So hi! The more Pitchforks and lit torches we can amass on the lawn, and yell loudly, maybe they'll hear 😃

    Posted

  • ltrbrooks by ltrbrooks

    Hi angostura, wreness,

    I can't speak to the usability issues sadly, but I can say that if you're keen on the Ornithology projects, there're now 6 more registers ready and waiting, and plenty more after that (powers that be willing).

    Also, to not just whip you to more work at the beat of our drum, can I say that as a recipient of the data output from this project, we here at the NHM (London) are extremely grateful for all your hard work and persistence. It's an enormous help to us in surmounting the challenge of digitising our collections and making them more widely available.

    Posted

  • wreness by wreness

    Hi ltrbrooks! I appreciate that, thank you! I think the ongoing grumbling here has been that the input menu is such a big, big hassle, at least in the Bug area. There have been several of us who have been plugging away an incredible amount and many who have come and gone, and who have left out of utter frustration because that menu is a horror. I have offered as well as one other (maybe two others!) to fix the menu - literally recode the thing - so that we are not out here doing redundant keystrokes, having to tkae our hands off the mouse constantly, scrolling through 400 countries we don't need to get to the 5 or 6 we use, basically fixing the "bugs" to make it more user friendly. I gave up when I started reading and saw people have been posting these same complaints for almost a YEAR. There, to me, is no excuse for not sticking your head in and helping the people who are helping you (I'm not speaking of you - I'm speaking of whoever is running the bug place 😃) We have posted, begged, asked. Many of the sections here are busy, busy, busy with the people behind them posting every day if not all the time. They are bursting at the seams. They address issues.

    We all know you folks need the data and we are happy to get it to you. It's just not working here in the Bug section. It's becoming a cumbersome mess, even having server issues, getting the same bugs over and over and over. No one replies when we post. People are leaving.

    I have done a lot of Ornithology pages and love that, too, tho my brain can only handle one at a time. I hope around, as do most of us here, I think. Usually you find a project or two you become loyal to, the point being that (myself included) many were devoted to the Bug classifications and have felt driven out due to being ignored, issues not being addressed and that menu interface being a nightmare. There's a LOT to do yet, and it's impossible with the way it's set up now. It takes 10 times longer to do one record than it has to, and it's easily fixable.

    thanks for your Kudos..and Kudos to YOU folks, too! I can't imagine your patience! 😃

    Posted

  • reddder by reddder in response to wreness's comment.

    you took the bytes right out of my PC. You are so right on the mark.

    Posted

  • Noharrr by Noharrr

    I've been away from CalBug for a few months. I'm very happy with the "prompts" or whatever they're properly called, in selecting Country, State, and county. I got wrist-burn scrolling through every country in the world to get to USofA. Now, tapping "u" twice leads me to the head of the "U" countries, and down-cursor puts me there in a few clicks.

    For states & counties, I no longer need my sticky-notes cheater lists on my desktop -- hooray! At least in this regard, I see a big improvement.

    Posted

  • Noharrr by Noharrr

    The MacroFungi interface urgently needs to take a few lessons from CalBug.
    MacroFungi has no "back" button in the classification tabs. So if you make an error, you're stuck with it.

    I find all the interface functions on CalBug useful and easy to work with. So why not transfer the concepts to MacroFungi?
    That would include a "Discuss this" tab a la CalBug, among other missing bits.

    Posted