[WG: Accessibility] [DG: User Experience] Nice article on URL design

Thu Jan 6 09:07:56 PST 2011

Hi Everyone--

I'm a bit out of the Sakai accessibility loop these days, but meaningful 
URLs are something that we've promoted for a long time.

An important aspect of this issue is ensuring that page titles are 
descriptive and relevant to page content. One of the problems with using 
iFrames has been that content within a frame will change, but page 
titles will not. This, along with garbled URLs, removes context for both 
sighted and non-sighted users.

These two elements seem to be related. Is this something that Sakai 3 
will address? Or, better yet, is this something that has already been 
resolved?

Mike

On 1/6/2011 9:39 AM, Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 7:31 AM, N. Matthijs
> <nicolaas.matthijs at caret.cam.ac.uk>  wrote:
>> Couldn't agree more that there is a lot more work to be done, but
>> I think we're further ahead than your e-mail indicates.
>>
>> First of all, we have URLs like http://3akai.sakaiproject.org/~nicolaas that
>> brings you to my personal site and URLs like
>> http://3akai.sakaiproject.org/~biology101 that brings you to the site
>> for my Biology 101 course.
> Two questions:
>
> 1) why is there a ~ in those fragments?
>
> 2) what is the "course" in this context? Is it:
>
> a. the generic course?
> b. the specific course instance I happen to offer in Fall term of 2010?
>
> Because if, as I assume, it's the latter, then I would expect the URL
> design to reflect that.
>
> http://3akai.sakaiproject.org/courses/2000/fall/biology101/section1
>
> Bruce
>
>> Of course, given the current BL7 work, that
>> might change a bit, but I think it shows a step in the right direction.
>>
>> Next, there is a small mistake in the top level content URL you give.
>> Even though [2] will work as a top-level URL, we will not offer that
>> URL through the UI, but will instead offer [3]. This at least gives some
>> idea of what you'll get.
>>
>> Even given this, I still fully agree that this is not ideal. It is therefore
>> important not to think that the current implementation is the complete
>> final solution. In my mind, it's only the first step. The URL we're showing
>> is only the primary URL. We now have to introduce the concept of
>> secondary "more readable" alias URLs that point to the same primary URL,
>> which is a piece of work that I assume will be part of one of the upcoming
>> sprints.
>>
>> (At the time, it was important to introduce these primary URLs to ensure
>> pieces of content to be easily re-usable and have fine-grained permission)
>>
>> So I agree that there's a lot more work to be done, but we shouldn't forget
>> about the things we have done.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Nicolaas
>>
>> [3] http://3akai.sakaiproject.org/p/HqK8oqTOozKanU9iUWAqDsR/mathematical.jpg
>>
>>
>>> The article and Sling are in 100% agreement, as are most users of Sling
>>> and the article describes perfectly the core principal on which Sakai 3
>>> was based.
>>>
>>> Unfortunately reality isnt quite matching the ideal, since we have urls
>>> like [1] and [2] as primary urls, and less than perfect.
>>> To prove a point, who can tell me what those links go to without clicking
>>> on them ?
>>> And for lots of bonus points, who can dictate the URL over the phone ?
>>>
>>> The url should be
>>> http://3akai.sakaiproject.org/p/cam/bridges/mathematical.jpg
>>>
>>> there are some tags but those URLs are not that nice and they certainly
>>> wont scale when 25K users upload 100 pictures.
>>> http://3akai.sakaiproject.org/dev/search.html#tag=/tags/picture
>>> http://3akai.sakaiproject.org/dev/search.html#tag=/tags/queens
>>> http://3akai.sakaiproject.org/dev/search.html#tag=/tags/mathematical
>>>
>>> I think there is more work to do in Sakai OAE.
>>> WDYT?
>>>
>>>
>>> 1
>>> http://3akai.sakaiproject.org/dev/content_profile.html#content_path=/p/HqK8oqTOozKanU9iUWAqDsR
>>> 2 http://3akai.sakaiproject.org/p/HqK8oqTOozKanU9iUWAqDsR
>>>
>>>
>>> On 4 Jan 2011, at 17:19, Eli Cochran wrote:
>>>
>>>> Sorry forgot the link:
>>>>
>>>>       http://warpspire.com/posts/url-design/
>>>>
>>>> - Eli
>>>>
>>>> On Jan 4, 2011, at 9:11 AM, Eli Cochran wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I really like this guy's take on URLs being an important part of your
>>>>> user experience that needs to be given attention.
>>>>>
>>>>> He also has some practical code examples of how to implement good URL
>>>>> design in an AJAX environment.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Eli
>>>>>
>>>>> . . . . . . . . . . .  .  .   .    .      .         .              .
>>>>>                   .
>>>>>
>>>>> Eli Cochran
>>>>> manager of user experience design
>>>>> user interaction developer
>>>>> Educational Technology Services, UC Berkeley
>>>>>
>>>>> "Progressive Enhancement: An escalator can never break, it can only
>>>>> become stairs."
>>>>>      - Mitch Hedberg
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> . . . . . . . . . . .  .  .   .    .      .         .              .
>>>>                  .
>>>>
>>>> Eli Cochran
>>>> manager of user experience
>>>> user interaction developer
>>>> ETS, UC Berkeley
>>>>
>>>> "Do not solve the problem that�s asked of you. It�s almost always the
>>>> wrong problem."
>>>>      - Don Norman
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> sakai-ui-dev mailing list
>>>> sakai-ui-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org
>>>> http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai-ui-dev
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> sakai-ui-dev mailing list
>>> sakai-ui-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org
>>> http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai-ui-dev
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> sakai-ux mailing list
>> sakai-ux at collab.sakaiproject.org
>> http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai-ux
>>
>> TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send email to sakai-ux-unsubscribe at collab.sakaiproject.org with a subject of "unsubscribe"
> _______________________________________________
> sakai-ux mailing list
> sakai-ux at collab.sakaiproject.org
> http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai-ux
>
> TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send email to sakai-ux-unsubscribe at collab.sakaiproject.org with a subject of "unsubscribe"