A Look at the GLAST Software Home Page

In order to make the GLAST software home page - and the logical organization of the entire software web - more useful, I think we need to more consciously and explicitly aim for a hierarchical organization. It's too much to expect all the information to fit neatly into such an organization, particularly in a way displayable on a single page, but it's maybe a reasonable goal for at least top-level categories.

I find it difficult to read an unstructured list of more than 6 or 8 items without losing focus. We're currently up to 14 rows in the table on the existing home page. Longer lists are tolerable with a clear organizing principle, for example alphabetization, but here the category names (in the left column) are too vague and arbitrary for that to work well. Several entries in the right column of the existing table are organized in rows to express a second level of hierarchy, but this is not done uniformly and also has the problem that it can be obscured by a narrow browser window. We should go for a format that will clearly display at least 3 levels, maybe 4 (but not all at once; see remarks below).

How do we organize everything into a hierarchy which will seem natural to most of its intended readers, that is, most of the GLAST collaboration? It's not easy or obvious. We're engaged in a form of group improvisation. Besides, no strict hierarchy can present such a motley collection of information in a way which seems natural from all points of view. At best we can hope to get the higher levels to be complete and logical enough that human readers won't have too difficult a time searching for what they want and writers mostly will be able to figure out where a new node should go.

Design Guidelines

After thinking about this on and off for some weeks now, I've come up with a set of guidelines. Some are abstract; others speak directly to the physical presentation. The only way to see if a software home page making use of these techniques is an improvement is to make one and encourage people to try it. I made a test home page which incorporates most of the guildelines. A few suggested links (to proposed but still non-existent pages) are necessarily virtual. The presentation could use more spiffing up but should be good enough to give you an idea of how this plays.

• There is too much information to be presented clearly in a single screen; however the reader should always be able to see all reasonable choices for the next level of searching in a single screen. In practical terms, this means it might take a couple mouse clicks to get to the page you're after, but you should never have to scroll. (Well, hardly ever. Partly depends on how big your browser window is, your font, and screen resolution.) The next two or three points are a strategy to achieve this goal.
• The overall organization, at least for two or three levels, should be clearly and explicitly hierarchical.
• Categories in the hierarchy should be chosen so that, for the most part, the user doesn't have to consider more than two levels at a time.
• The hierarchy should not be too wide. At higher levels there should be no more than about 8 peer nodes.
• Don't attempt to cram too much in, in order to make use of every visible square mm. Things are easier to find if space is (frugally) used to show relationships within the hierarchy (but only needs to show relationships involving one or two levels of hierarchy).
• Use internal links so that longish lists of child nodes don't clutter up the overall view, but instead are out of the way (and still quickly accessible.)
• It can be a good idea put the same link in a couple places if both are places someone might naturally look for it. Remember no one is going to have the whole hierarchy memorized. The trick is to keep all pieces of it locally meaningful and relatively complete.
• Might want to use little icons (in addition to, not instead of, words) for the top couple levels in the hierarchy, but only if we can make such natural choices that most people instantly understand what they mean.
• Stay away from vague terms like "Tips and Tricks" (aaarrgh) or "Projects".
• Don't allow too much clutter at the top for hot topics. If there are more than one or two we should provide an internal link at the top to a news section below.

Searching

Assuming we can come up with a collection of categories for the first two or three levels of the hierarchy that we can all agree on, these would suggest a set of keywords we could recommend for use in the page's metadata.

Here is a starter set of keywords from the test home page in its current state. Most but not all are derived from the categories. One could also add the names of the more pervasive tools (CVS, CMT, ROOT, etc.) to the list.

• calendar
• calorimeter
• communication
• convention
• data_analysis
• documentation
• external_tool
• geometry
• GLAST
• help
• how-to
• index
• Linux
• meeting
• minutes
• people
• policy
• review
• schedule
• requirements
• specification
• recommendation
• software
• software_development
• tracker
• Windows
• working_group or task_force (we should pick just one for a keyword)
• workshop

Maintenance

Anyone wishing to add something to the home page should take a look at the keywords, most of which should correspond to the upper levels of the hierarchy. If it's not immediately obvious where the new node should go (keeping in mind that it can be put in more than one place if that's the sort of node it is), the writer should consult with some responsible person or group to determine where in the existing hierarchy it goes or perhaps to add a new keyword to the list and corresponding new section to the hierarchy.

Back to GLAST Software Home

J. Bogart
Created 10 Mar 2002
Last modified: