Re: Conlang Flag: Voting

Arthaey Angosii wrote:

> 1. The giant single-row table is annoying. This is mostly that I
> strongly dislike horizontal scrolling anywhere. I would suggest
> including only variations of a design on the same row.
It was originally a vertical list - no table - but, as I'm sure you'll
remember, Jan van Steenbergen wrote:

    Oh, and one suggestion: place the flags in a table instead, so
    that the page will show two flags next to each other. And use a
    table border too, so that it becomes clear immediately which label
    belongs to which flag.

I changed it because of that feedback, and only for that reason.
Personally, I'm happy either way.

> 2. In the text field section, you refer to the flags by numerals. In
> the flag section, you refer to them by letters. Oops? :) It looks like
> it's really supposed to be letters, since entering numbers as my
> choices is an "invalid identification code."
I don't understand what you're referring to. There is nowhere on the
pages that the flags are referred to by numerals, unless you're
seeing something I'm not.

[Incidentally, you can view the ID codes and corresponding image URLs
by pointing your browser to <designs.ref>. This is where the code
looks them up.]

> 3. It *might* be a good idea to include a "Comments" text field with
> each preference indication, so that we have more opinions to work with
IMO, the list has been, and continues to be, the right place for
mentioning and discussing comments on flags. The voting form isn't
intended for that purpose.

> 4. To lessen the chance of invalid data entry, you could change the
> text fields to drop-down menus.
It's a thought, but thinking about it on the spot I suspect that
typing the codes is faster for most people. The more I think about it,
the more certain I am about this. Presumably people vote by scribbling
their list of preferences on a scrap piece of paper and then copying
this data into the form. Incidentally, I've never used drop-down menus
in web forms, so that would be new for me.

> 6. Also WRT the graphics, resizing *all* of the to a standard size
> would probably be a good idea, just for fairness of comparison's sake.
However, there's no escaping the necessity of viewing the flags the
way the designers intended (especially, for example, the babel tower
with the thin gold lines). If I scaled them to a standard size, I'd
have to display both the standardised version and the original. Does
this really provide any substantial benefit?

> 7. If you enter invalid data into the form and submit it, it displays
> the errant items in reverse order -- that is, preference 24, then 23,
> then 22, etc, with preference 1 at the bottom of the list.
Indeed it does (if you enter invalid codes): is this a problem? The
code is simpler that way, on account of the fact that it identifies the
last non-blank entry before deciding which entries are invalid. OTOH,
if you enter the same ID code in more than one entry, you'll find that
it reports that kind of error in the opposite order. Surely the error
messages are just as understandable no matter what order they are
presented in.

> 8. You cannot have blank entries between otherwise valid entries. I
> don't know how often people would be doing that, but perhaps it might
> be common enough that users miss one entry that it would be worthwhile
> for you to just ignore all blank entries.
I see no advantage in allowing people to skip entries. This *could* be
handled, but it's one of those situations where you have to decide if
there's a benefit that outweighs the extra effort. IMO the benefit is
negligible, and I've no intention of including slick code merely for
the purpose of showing off (for a commercial application, the
effort/benefit tradeoff could well be different). If someone does
accidentally skip an entry, I'd say the chances are considerable that
they've made some other mistake, anyway. It's easier to accidentally
enter the wrong code than it is to accidentally skip an entry.

Another suggestion I have received is to change the caption on the
first Submit button to make it clear that the vote is not submitted
immediately. I intend to do this.

Adrian.

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