Written by wolterh the 27 Jan 09 at 05:58.

The feel of ubuntu would look cleaner. Besides, is it that hard a thing to do?

Imagine if brainstorm.ubuntu.com was hosted as ubuntubrainstorm.com ... Which do you prefer? I prefer brainstorm.ubuntu.com. It gives me a feeling that it is official. It gives me the feeling that ubuntu is an organized OS and that I will find whatever I need at ubuntu.com, by being linked to either the forums section, the brainstorm section, or any other branch I need. Maybe even an irc.ubuntu.com could be made to provide users the excellence of service that the irc channel provides on the comfort of their internet browser.

The feel of ubuntu would look cleaner. Besides, is it that hard a thing to do? Imagine if brainstorm.ubuntu.com was hosted as ubuntubrainstorm.com ... Which do you prefer? I prefer brainstorm.ubuntu.com. It gives me a feeling that it is official. It gives me the feeling that ubuntu is an organized OS and that I will find whatever I need at ubuntu.com, by being linked to either the forums section, the brainstorm section, or any other branch I need. Maybe even an irc.ubuntu.com could be made to provide users the excellence of service that the irc channel provides on the comfort of their internet browser.

Written by andruk the 27 Jan 09 at 08:56.

(Copied from my comment below:)
Direct forums.ubuntu.com, forum.ubuntu.com, help.ubuntu.com, etc. to ubuntuforums.org. That way people can still access ubuntuforums.org via its domain, and converts can access a better domain name (imho). I would also try to get an optional single sign-on going for all of the official websites.

I would also have irc.ubuntu.com be a web-based IRC client that connects to #ubuntu on freenode. Include the links to the support websites (including the wiki) on the default home page for Firefox.

(Copied from my comment below:) Direct forums.ubuntu.com, forum.ubuntu.com, help.ubuntu.com, etc. to ubuntuforums.org. That way people can still access ubuntuforums.org via its domain, and converts can access a better domain name (imho). I would also try to get an optional single sign-on going for all of the official websites. I would also have irc.ubuntu.com be a web-based IRC client that connects to #ubuntu on freenode. Include the links to the support websites (including the wiki) on the default home page for Firefox.

Written by srippon the 7 Jun 09 at 05:01.

The W3C has a Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The WAI publishes a set of guidelines called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG2.0). These guidelines contain information on how to create web sites/applications that can be accessed by people with disabilities. Pages that don't pass certain guidelines maybe totally inaccessible to certain users. Besides being a very big equality issue in many countries there is policy/legislation which make it against the law to produce/publish inaccessible content.

Perform a compliance check of the Ubuntu Forum against WCAG2.0. Start with just checking compliance against the level A Success Criteria. Once compliance with that level is achieved investigate evaluating and passing level AA and AAA.

The <a href="http://www.w3.org/"><abbr title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</abbr></a> has a <a href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/">Web Accessibility Initiative (<abbr>WAI</abbr>)</a>. The <abbr title="Web Accessibility Initiative">WAI</abbr> publishes a set of guidelines called the <a href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php">Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG2.0)</a>. These guidelines contain information on how to create web sites/applications that can be accessed by people with disabilities. Pages that don't pass certain guidelines maybe totally inaccessible to certain users. Besides being a very big equality issue in many countries there is <a title="Policies Relating to Web Accessibility" href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/Policy/">policy/legislation</a> which make it against the law to produce/publish inaccessible content. Perform a compliance check of the Ubuntu Forum against WCAG2.0. Start with just checking compliance against the level A Success Criteria. Once compliance with that level is achieved investigate evaluating and passing level AA and AAA.

Written by srippon the 7 Jun 09 at 05:02.

Ensuring that a web site complies with the W3C WCAG2.0 guidelines is very important but it should just be the start. Just like it is with the various interface design guidelines/heuristics (eg Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics) it is possible to follow these guidelines and create a site/application which has poor usability (ISO 9241-11: extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use). This is why usability testing ( http://www.usability.gov/refine/learnusa.html |http://deyalexander.com.au/resources/uxd/usability-testing.html ) with real users is strongly recommended to ensure good usability.

A usability test of the Ubuntu Forums should be performed with different users who have disabilities.

The Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design online book by Shawn Henry is a fantastic resource on User Centred Design (UCD) and accessibility.

Ensuring that a web site complies with the <abbr title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</abbr> <abbr title="Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0">WCAG2.0</abbr> guidelines is very important but it should just be the start. Just like it is with the various interface design guidelines/heuristics (eg <a href="http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html">Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics</a>) it is possible to follow these guidelines and create a site/application which has poor usability (ISO 9241-11: extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use). This is why usability testing ( http://www.usability.gov/refine/learnusa.html |http://deyalexander.com.au/resources/uxd/usability-testing.html ) with real users is strongly recommended to ensure good usability. A usability test of the Ubuntu Forums should be performed with different users who have disabilities. The <a href="http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/">Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design</a> online book by Shawn Henry is a fantastic resource on User Centred Design (UCD) and accessibility.

Written by OscarFoxtrot the 24 Jun 09 at 14:31.

Provide an NNTP interface so that users can use their own choice of newsreader to follow discussions, mark posts and threads as read/unread/ etc.

There are established means of providing authentication and moderation on Usenet and these could be used too.

This would also greatly facilitate offline reading.

Provide an NNTP interface so that users can use their own choice of newsreader to follow discussions, mark posts and threads as read/unread/ etc. There are established means of providing authentication and moderation on Usenet and these could be used too. This would also greatly facilitate offline reading.