UX overview from Obormot via #lesswrong

[shadowcat-mst]

(loosely edited from IRC stream of consciousness, all useful UX understanding credited to Obormot, any incoherence or editing failure blamed on mst please)

This is not in any kind of order, btw; overall analysis second, specific things first ("heuristic analysis" style)

1. "Read the Sequences" is not underlined - why? Other links are; weird.
2. "There's also an abridged and edited epub version available here." (and "here" is the link) - violates guidelines for hyperlinking; the description of the thing being linked (i.e. "abridged and edited epub") should be the link
3. No search box on the main page? No good. Search is tremendously important for site nav (reference: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/search-and-you-may-find/ )
4. "Sequences" should not just be a link in the middle of a block of text in the middle of the main page, it should ALSO be an element in something that clearly looks like a nav UI (due to where users' eyes go when doing site nav; and due to principles of redundancy, maximizing use of UI bandwidth, etc.)
5. "about page", same deal. Should be an element in a nav UI.
6. In fact the main page just shouldn't be this different from most pages. A user needs to see the nav UI immediately upon going to the site. immediately.
   (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/readers-comments-on-the-new-top-10-design-mistakes/ here's Jakob Nielsen saying "splash pages are a sure sign of bad Web design". It's super bad)
7. How do I find an article on the site? By name? By keyword? By author? In any way at all? Who knows! The front page is very uninformative on this (and is it even possible?)
   no
8. In short, from the main page - from ANY page, but especially the main page - the user ought to be able to get to all the important areas of the site (and ideally to ALL areas), and in multiple ways - search; nav UI; clear links from a "highlighted things" main area.

Basically: fix (add Sequences and About to) and standardize nav UI; put it on the front page (and make it look the same as every page; put a search box on the front page; correct issues with that main-page splash text block...

"Read the Sequences" takes you to one place, clicking "Sequences" in the nav bar takes you to a totally different place
This is manifestly incorrect
Ok well, it's bad.
a) These things should be consistent
b) Things should do what the user expects
If I click "Read the Sequences" and end up at a blog post "The Martial Art of Rationality", with no obvious link to anything else
That's unexpected

Here is the core principle of navigation systems, folks:
A nav UI needs to always, at all times, immediately and effortlessly convey to the user two important things:

1. Where am I?
2. What else exists?
   At ALL times.

If I can't take one look at the UI and immediately know what places exist for me to be, and where in the structure of those places I am right now
Then the UI is broken (in terms of navigation)

(The nav UI should of course also provide me with an intuitive and efficient way to GET to any of those other places)
(intuitive: I can immediately see how to use the UI to get to those other places; efficient: it doesn't take a kajillion clicks to do so)

Right now, if I'm at "The Martial Art of Rationality", are the above criteria satisfied?

1. Where am I? Who knows - some random fucking post
2. What else is there? idk, lol
   ^ fail.

Nav links are important - and not just on the bottom of the post - on top, where the user can see it instantly

Yes, text is easier to change than design, but rearranging deck chairs on the titanic is also easier than what needs doing
Look, fix (add) the search, fix the nav UI, and THEN worry about the details of the main page text
I assure you that is of entirely secondary importance

[vaniver]

First off, some context: the current main page is optimized for Nate's model of a new reader. I agree with him that we want to put that person in front of Eliezer writing as soon as possible, and not have them poking around at the recent stuff. This is the root of most of the bad web design. (I've heard a lot of reports of people recommending LW to their friends, their friends checking the site out and looking at recent comments / recent discussion posts, and deciding that it looks bad / not as cool as advertised. We want that person to be judging LW based on Eliezer's writing.)

Ideally, if the session is from a logged in user, then we'd show them the sidebar on the main page, because they want to check their inbox / see recent comments / etc.; I think this is currently beyond our ability to easily do. (I am putting as little effort as possible into improving reddit-based LW, so that I can put as much effort as possible into making Vulcan/Telescope-based LW.) And if we successfully revitalize the recent material, to the point where it's the sort of stuff we want to show off to newcomers, then we'll add in all the nav capabilities.

On the specific points, just one comment:

1. In my original conception, this looked like a button instead of a text link. I agree that the current state might be the worst of both worlds.