CUNY Academic Commons

We could maybe call the field itself "About" on the edit form - but I wonder - can we get rid of the grid layout (field name - field value) on the Profile Page? It's pretty obvious what most of the fields contain, and we could save some space for other good stuff by eliminating field names.

I agree with Scott that the layout of this part of the profile page could use some rethinking. It seems to me that Academic Interests and the social media fields probably do need labels (though in the latter case maybe not if #407 is resolved). But the others probably do not. Basic stuff like contact info and title could be compressed without losing clarity. Those fields might even be integrated into the profile header, which in my view is not being used in the most efficient way and is not displaying the most salient info about a member.

Technical note: If profile layout changes are rolled into this ticket, the version number will have to be bumped to 1.2.

A few other notes:

• Before our official launch in Dec. 2009, we had planned to have our designer rework the profile pages. I think we even have some wireframes that we didn't wind up using.

• I was talking to Michael Smith the other day, and he noted that frienship still had no real function on our site. If we wanted to created a facebook-like activity feed of a member's friends, we could add it to the profile page.

• I agree with both of you that some profile field names could be deleted, and I like Boone's idea of using the header space more effectively.

I guess that the question is whether Boone feels like he wants to implement this stuff without a designer, or whether we should asks CIC to give it a once-over. A third option would be to ask Michael Smith to take a crack at it. That might be the quickest option.

Let's ask Michael if he wants to look at it. The one guideline I'd suggest is that we try to stick with the visual themes and metaphors already in use on the site. Between this and the proposed wiki design, I fear we'll end up with a jumble of designs throughout the site.

I also think we should decide whether the original issue here can be resolved independently of a grand profile redesign. If so, someone open a new ticket. If not, someone update the ticket name and description so that it more accurately reflects the issue at hand. I think maybe the answer to this question will depend on the kind of timeline Michael can realistically give us. There is some benefit to rolling out changes like this en masse, but not necessarily enough to warrant delaying a quick and easy change.

When I was speaking with Matt about friendship, at the time I hadn't noticed that you can follow what your friends are up to through the news link and filter friends. I think that others possibly don't notice this either. And it might make more sense if the users were able to see this information through their profile page. This could be useful for blogs and groups you would like to follow as well.

I can work with the existing design elements and propose some ideas with a couple of mock-ups. I don't know what you need for deliverables, but can create them if there is agreement on a design.

Cool, thanks for taking the initiative, Michael.

For discussion with the group, feel free to mock up using whatever tools you want. When it comes time for real deliverables, I can work with a number of things: HTML/CSS markup makes my life easier, but I can work with whatever you can give me.