Usability Issues

[russellhltn]

Add http://www.lds.org/institutes to the list.

Two links I've added to all of our unit pages is a direct link to our local temple and Institute.

[kennard]

I have problems finding things on the site, too, even though I would consider myself fairly familiar with it. My suggestion would be to add a detailed "site map" feature. The A-Z index is not all that useful because you have to know what something is listed as to find it. The menus are hard to navigate, (going up and down and then to a page you think is where the information would be, only to find out that it does not have what you are looking for anyway).

I suggest bringing back the site map, so we can see *at a glance* the structure of the site. The site map needs to be detailed enough, though (not just a couple levels deep) or it won't do much good.

Doug

[greenwoodkl]

If a site map is created, an AJAX-like interface would be nice to allow such a detailed map to not be too unwieldy to traverse or interact with.

[thedqs]

AJAX-like interface

What do you mean by an AJAX-like interface?
Are you meaning the page be Javascripted (I just made Javascript a verb now) so that you go down the topics expanding each one?
Or do you really mean AJAX in that you have a search or some type of input which posts back requests using the xmlhttprequest object and gets new content from the page?

And for either one how would you want the interface implemented?

[greenwoodkl]

I am no AJAX expert, I had in mind some combination of search capabilities but at a minimum a tree like interface perhaps to expand and collapse the tree as I imagine the list of sites available would be extensive.

[jconklin]

In the previous incarnation, the Relief Society Visiting Teaching message link was in the right-hand column of the main page. Now it's buried and from month to month I can never remember where it is [actually Gospel Library/magazines/Visiting teaching]. I second the motion for a site map link on the main page.

[scion-p40]

Once I found the VT message, I learned that it lacks a feature to readily format for printing. For some reason a one page article is now needlessly longer than one page (not more writing, but more white space). Therefore, for my mail only visiting teachees, I copy & paste into a Word doc, then format it to print.

Ditto for my Primary lesson. Whatever was used to create a table put an extra blank line into every single row of the tables in the lesson. I type up any tables in Excel & replace the existing On the other hand, at least the info is there. That said, iIt's pretty easy to just change the font size & take out the extra space between the headings, etc.

[kennard]

If a site map is created, an AJAX-like interface would be nice to allow such a detailed map to not be too unwieldy to traverse or interact with.

To me that seems like it would defeat the purpose... then the site map would just be like another set of menus that you have to traverse. I think the most useful site map would be comprehensive and all on one page (even if the page had to be pretty long to do it) without having to click on anything.

Doug

[greenwoodkl]

To me that seems like it would defeat the purpose... then the site map would just be like another set of menus that you have to traverse. I think the most useful site map would be comprehensive and all on one page (even if the page had to be pretty long to do it) without having to click on anything.

Doug

Agreed. The only reason I thought of a menu was an easy way to traverse the amount of detail. But if put in one long list, this could be managed by a summarized topic list at the top and "Back to top" links throughout... it could either be a hierarchical list or an alphabetized A-Z list.

[edwardlalone]

To me that seems like it would defeat the purpose... then the site map would just be like another set of menus that you have to traverse. I think the most useful site map would be comprehensive and all on one page (even if the page had to be pretty long to do it) without having to click on anything.

Doug

A general rule of thumb is that a website should be no more than three levels deep and it seems to hold true of menus and site maps as well. Here I think it would make sense to create a site map that is three level's deep and anything deeper than that should not be included on the site map (i.e., articles, etc).