Usability Suggestion

Share discussions around the Classic Local Unit Website (LUWS).
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jmorrey-p40
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Location: Port Orchard, Washington

Usability Suggestion

#1

Post by jmorrey-p40 »

I was browsing my ward's website on lds.org when I noticed the "administrator options" button on the left hand navigation pane. I clicked on it to see what happened. The following message popped up in another browser window:

Code: Select all

Please note: 
In order to speed up some of the lookup functions of the website, it was necessary to enable the Website Admin Button for all user screens. The Admin Button is only functional for users with Admin Rights. Clicking on the Admin Button will check if the user is a current admin and then go to the admin site if the user has rights to those pages.

Thank you 

LUWS - Support

I know this is a silly thing to complain about, but...

I would suggest that you display a simple "unauthorized" message instead of the preceding message. Ideally (of course), you would hide the button entirely from unauthorized users. Granted that's not possible in this case, it's worse (IMO) to try to explain the technical reasons you chose to keep the button rather than just say "unauthorized". The explanation makes a confusing customer experience even more confusing :)
matthewrlee
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Location: Tucker, Georgia USA

Usability Suggestion Reply to Thread

#2

Post by matthewrlee »

I agree and it is not a silly complaint.

However, if it must stay up please change the "LUWS - Support” signature to something that makes sense. There is no point in an abbreviation that 95% of users will not understand. It took me a while to figure out LUWS -Support stands for Local Unit Website Support - Support (I think).

If an abbreviation slows down comprehension it is best not to abbreviate. It may also help to replace "lookup functions" with "search functions." May be it is technically a lookup function returning values but again, 95% of current and future users will not understand.

Over all the message looks like the familiar software error message that made it into the final release without going through the full QA process. Makes sense to the developer so it goes in.

All of this may sound too bold so I'll close by saying you guys (and gals?) are doing a great job! These things take time to work out. There are far more organizations out there that need forums like tech.lds.org.

You are on the right track, but you knew that already. :)

Thank you,

Matthew R. Lee
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mkmurray
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#3

Post by mkmurray »

matthewrlee wrote:It took me a while to figure out LUWS -Support stands for Local Unit Website Support - Support (I think).
Actually, LUWS is Local Unit Web Site. For the small percentage of LDS members who have made it to this site, there is a list of acronyms here (found at the very, very top of this site):

http://tech.lds.org/index.php?option=co ... &Itemid=84

But it is a valid point that hardly anyone outside the membership of this site would know these acronyms.
matthewrlee wrote:If an abbreviation slows down comprehension it is best not to abbreviate. It may also help to replace "lookup functions" with "search functions." May be it is technically a lookup function returning values but again, 95% of current and future users will not understand.
I think "search function" gets further from the intended meaning. Being a developer, I think I know what is trying to be stated. It appears it would have been a time consuming call to the Church databases to know if the currently logged in user has administrative privileges just to display a button on every page of the site. So the developers opted to always display the button, and then have the check happen only when they actually click the button (which most people probably don't do or don't even see the button).

I agree the wording is awkward. I imagine that PR or Legal (or whichever group is applicable) should probably come up with the correct text for this screen. It definitely sounds like developer lingo.

To the Church developers, I don't know if I understand why you can't develop a UI smart enough to make the call only once. Perhaps you've already thought of this and there is some issue I don't see or haven't thought of, but I would think you could check once and then put the result on the session. I can see why it may be an issue with concurrent users logged into the site; maybe check on login every time and keep that for the rest of the session. Then if somebody grants administrative rights, you trigger the newly upgraded user to have to log out and login to achieve the new privileges. I don't know, just some thoughts...

Also it should be taken into consideration that this code was probably written some time ago and perhaps there is more experience now with this issue; also, it very well could be that this is fixed in LUWS version 2.0 anyway.
matthewrlee
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Joined: Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:38 am
Location: Tucker, Georgia USA

Usability Suggestion

#4

Post by matthewrlee »

Thanks for pointing out the true meaning of LUWS. At least I was close.
lajackson
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#5

Post by lajackson »

mkmurray wrote:I agree the wording is awkward.
Perhaps it could simply say, "Sorry, you are not an Administrator." Or something simple like that.

I understand leaving the button there and only checking when someone clicks on it. Most new administrators ask me where to find the button, so it is pretty well hidden in plain sight and not clicked upon very often, I would suppose.
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