A Loco Directory Review

[YoBoY]

Hi,

Today i want to make a review, a point of view on the Loco Directory 
http://loco.ubuntu.com/ . Sorry it's a long post, and my English is not 
easy to read. I presented that like I think a visitor discover the site. 
The narrative part are quoted, my reflections not.

*What is Loco Team Directory *: "The LoCo Team Directory is a place 
where you can find information regarding LoCo Teams."

*Case 1:* I'm a beginner, no LP account, i just want to find my Local 
community.

    Ubuntu on Google.fr > cool i found directly my community
    ubuntu-fr.org > no link to loco.ubuntu.com

    OK, let's try Ubuntu on Google.com > I'm on ubuntu.com official site
     > Join the Community > at the end of the page finally I found the
    "Local Ubuntu Teams" link to the wiki page.


  -> We should be able to let community sites link to the loco 
directory, too earlier now, not well translated I think. Perhaps a way 
to let teams make some loco.ubuntu-XX.org direct link, integration, make 
the different LD instance automatically share items...

  -> Something's wrong, no loco.ubuntu.com link in the official 
ubuntu.com site ?

*Case 2 :* I'm a beginner, no LP account, I heard about loco directory 
and I can found information on loco teams on this site.

    Ok, I'm on loco.ubuntu.com, great design, I love this big world map.
    But what's in the bottom ? events ? that seems cool. And English
    microblog stream ? ho... English... fear... Talking about
    frightening things, why it's written everywhere "LoCo team"? What's
    a "LoCo Team" ?

  -> I think the home page should be a neutral language page. Including 
a twitter (identi.ca ?) streamline here is breaking this neutrality. 
Event's can also break this neutrality but they are just "short titles", 
so it's fine. I think also the events could be at the same level than 
the teams, teams on left, events on right. We have these two elements on 
the menu, so they have the same importance.
  -> Using acronyms in a community is pleasant and funny. Each community 
develop their own type of acronyms. But outside the community, these 
acronyms are the opposite, unpleasant "words" making harder to 
understand what we are talking about.

    I click on my continent, and can see the list of loco teams on this
    part of the world. Not funny, who the hell make this list. Some
    teams start with an ubuntu, some teams have a country name, some
    others don't have. It's a mess. Ho wait that's not all. What's that
    "Team without country" at the bottom. They are stateless ? Finding
    my team in this list is a challenge. I try the search bar. Type my
    country name. No result.

-> We have to standardize these Loco-Team list items, and we have to put 
a small link in front of the continents to send the visitor also on the 
last list where he can perhaps find his loco team in it. My team uses 
ubuntu-fr for is name, a user who don't know the conventional 
ubuntu-XX(iso code) is lost also. But we can't change this name. Not all 
the teams have one state limited activity. It's very complex I know. 
Perhaps organising the list by country name, or placing the teams on 
continent maps.
-> I try several words on the search bar, I don't understand why 
sometime it returns a blank page, and sometimes it returns the entire 
team list page. This search bar can do search by country and team names 
I think, but something is broken.

    Before going to my Loco Team, lets see the events page. "Ubuntu LoCo
    Global Events" ? It's local or global ? Ok I see, it's more like
    type of events. This should be more explicit, it's appear more like
    the other events. Not easy to make the difference.


-> I think the Global Events should be more highlighted, with a complete 
separated presentation on the page, like a box with the name, a short 
description, the dates with a more natural form like "all the year" "the 
27th,28th and 29th august 2010", a link "learn more...", and a link 
"show me only these events". These are special type of events, give them 
some eye-candy.

    It's amazing how many events are listed here. And I can search on
    country name, city name, team name, month name, but not in my own
    language. And I can see the past events. This list is even bigger. 
    But it seems I can't yet filter it.


-> Same localisation problem on the search field.

    Let see what's a global event. Great, all I need to know is here but
    in English. I can add the hashtag for twitter and identi.ca, and
    read the stream directly,  it's in English but it's fine, it's a
    global event, so it's normal. But why the events are listed by
    country here. I can't see anymore the dates, and the teams
    organizing them. And why some events appear so many times? Ok, I
    know, they don't have the same date, but I can't see it.


-> Like I wrote before, global events should be treated differently. 
These "type" of events need to have translated content. The list of 
events under a global events should appear like the other list of events 
also. Having too much way to present the same elements is disturbing. 
And only seeing the title is more disturbing when they appear more than 
once without reason.

    Lets go to the Local Community team page I think it's for me, to
    know more about this community, what they do, what they offer, who I
    have to contact, where I can talk with them, where I can follow them
    on my social networks. Ok I'm on the page, reading it. Location,
    language, well I already know that. Launchpad page, Launchpad Team
    Owner, what's that, I keep that for later. Expires date, hum it's
    some kind of milk bottle ? Provides local support, yes, I don't know
    what it is but seems great. Launchpad Team Admins, another "strange
    word" field in relation to the administration. Resources, finally,
    some interesting information presented with strange icons. And to
    finish, the more interesting part, Events. Well, having to pass on
    top of the icons to know what they stand for is boring. I chose the
    first one, a link to an English wiki, on a page with more
    informations on it. This team seems great, I click on the "Join this
    team" link. Crap, this Launchpad thing again. Seems to be an account
    service, in English. Let do the registration. ok, an email, a
    validation, a password, ... what the hell, I can't join the team.
    It's restricted. But I'm on the Launchpad English thing. Overview,
    Code, Bugs, Blueprints, Translations, Answers. I go back where I
    came from seems better.


-> We need to put more information accessible to the team pages, the 
icons are great but not everyone understand what it's a puzzle piece, a 
pen, a world, some text should be added. On some field, some teams need 
to add more than one entry, like in mailing lists, or irc channels. The 
official website of the team should be the first link, not just an icon. 
All the Launchpad stuff is impossible to understand when you don't know 
what it's launchpad and it's appearing 3 times.

-> The systematic use of Launchpad is a big fail for me. This is not an 
account provider. This is not a localised tool.

-> The join this team link should only be present when you can 
effectively join a team.

-> The "Launchpad Team owner" is one of the field I dislike the most. 
Nobody can own a team.

-> Provides local support. Lot of teams say Yes. But what is local support ?

    Looking the event list is great, I can search for an event near me
    to assist and meet other users. It's cool on the team detail page I
    can see the city hover the title. Let see all the events. I can't
    see the city in this list. History, same problem, no city
    information. Going to an event page to have more informations, I
    can't go back to the last page with a menu like before, the go back
    is for the events page, not the team events page where I was before.
    OK, looking at this page event, like for the team page, no link to
    social networks, very basic informations. I can go to the venue
    detail page, to see same basic informations. Same problem, I need to
    use the prev of my browser to go back, the menu link "back to the
    venues list" is not where I came from. It's strange, some people are
    registered to attend to the event.


-> The informations presented are too basic, and having to go to 2 pages 
to have all the information of an event (the description and the 
location) is not fun. Like dedicated web page / sites, some events have 
hashtags, a social network integration like the one for the global events.

-> The venue page should provide more information, first one the 
accessibility of the venue. Transportation information could be good 
also. These information can appear or not on the event page. And where 
is the address of the venue? (it's a bug)

-> A reminder to log in, or a link to register to attendance should be 
great on the top of the Attendees list if the visitor is not logged in.

    Ok, let see the other menu entries on the top of the window. LoCo
    Council. Seem to be the people behind the "LoCo"s. Talking about the
    members of this council, but no list, and no link to know who they
    are. Next, the classic About, this one talk about the tool, and the
    guys developing it. And finaly the log in menu. Great he want to use
    my freshly created account from Launchpad. I'm logged in. I have new
    entries on the menus. But they are not all working. I can't add an
    event. But I can now put some comments on an event and register to
    it. Great.


-> We have to be more careful to the links we present to the users, a 
registered user can't add events, but he can see the link to do that.

-> The loco council page need some work.


That's all for today. Some of the reflections are already bug reports / 
whishes reported by others. Thanks you for reading me.

YoBoY

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