It's a wonderful piebald Falabella pony

November 18, 2011 6:57 AM

Could Recent Activity and Favourites be somehow colour-coded?

I find myself using Recent Activity and other cross-site features quite a lot now, and sometimes find that I'm briefly confused (not 'where am I?' confused, more 'where did I put that thing?' confused) by the fact that the default background for those pages is a consistent blue.

So here's a thought: how about colouring items in those pages somehow to match the section of the site they're from? So, for instance, in Recent Activity, comments in the right-hand column might appear in a block matching the colour scheme of their site section, while the bulk of the page would remain in the overall blue style. Similarly in Favourites, each favourite might appear in a block using the appropriate colour scheme.

If that's too technicoloured, then how about some more subtle colour-coding of titles or something to help improve the ease of scanning of Recent Activity?

posted by le morte de bea arthur to Feature Requests at 6:57 AM (29 comments total)

Holy clashing backgrounds Batman! I think this could be quite painful on the eyes.
posted by arcticseal at 7:00 AM on November 18, 2011

I agree, hence the last paragraph/sentence
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 7:02 AM on November 18, 2011

under the title of each item in your recent activity page, the page itself is indicated in parenthesis.

(Metatalk).

Not super obvious, but fitting with the minimalist design of the recent activity experience.
posted by Think_Long at 7:02 AM on November 18, 2011

Hmm, there's already some text in brackets that indicates which part of the site each thread shown in Recent Activity is from. That suggests a Greasemonkey script could probably implement this on the client side, at least for RA.
posted by FishBike at 7:03 AM on November 18, 2011

The point I'm trying to make is that the pages as they could be clearer in the way that they present existing information, not that any information is missing (I know about the text in parentheses).

Sorry if this seems like an attempt to moderate my own thread. I'd just like to head off the obvious 'you missed this thing' responses. I'll shut up now.

Maybe I'll just go and write a Greasemonkey script, though.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 7:09 AM on November 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think probably you could highlight just the site name in parens in whichever color is appropriate. I think it would look good on the white background. I don't know about the blue background, though.
posted by empath at 7:10 AM on November 18, 2011

Yeah I'm not entirely sure that turning RA into a patchwork quilt would solve more problems than it creates, but a subtle visual indicator [more than we have right now] might be worth it? That said if this is a really smallscale thing that Greasmonkey could capably handle, that might work for everyone.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:34 AM on November 18, 2011

Yeah, I don't dislike the idea personally but I think it'd need to be something really subtle to avoid being an eyesore. Putting a little bit of color-coded emphasis on the site name bit on the left hand side would be probably about the right amount of signal, doing up the actual text block would probably just sear retinas.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:37 AM on November 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

All right. I'll do some brainstorming with the creatives, and then maybe we can run the storyboards by Bruce in marketing and see if it's got wings.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 7:46 AM on November 18, 2011 [7 favorites]

just make sure your plan is actionable le morte.
posted by Think_Long at 7:59 AM on November 18, 2011

If you can't dollarize it, then there's no point in putting it in the hopper. RA optimization is now a priority.
posted by Think_Long at 8:00 AM on November 18, 2011

Sounds like a feature-rich cross-platform best-of-breed win-win synergizing strategy right out of the box, if we can just hit the ground running with that proactively we should be able to repurpose and leverage a lot of empowerment for a sustainable next generation user-friendly cloud.

But at the end of the day, it is what it is.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:18 AM on November 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'll talk to Creative, see if we can't actualize some materiel and get together a focus group, put some eyes on this stuff. Cocaine.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:21 AM on November 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

CHARLES WHERES MY ELEVEN O CLOCK why can't anyone be on time around here
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:25 AM on November 18, 2011

I appreciate that you guys have opened the kimono backstage for us here.
posted by empath at 8:29 AM on November 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

this is just kabuki theater until we get fiscal involved.
posted by Think_Long at 8:30 AM on November 18, 2011

unfortunately fiscal was laid off last week.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:47 AM on November 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

one time i fell asleep in a staff meeting JUST LIKE THIS and when i woke up everyone was staring at me nervously.

apparently i was saying KILL KILL KILL in my sleep and giggling contentedly.
posted by elizardbits at 8:50 AM on November 18, 2011 [4 favorites]

when we have fleshed out the bones of this idea, we can run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 8:51 AM on November 18, 2011

Tokyo's on the phone. Something about global marketizationality.
posted by davidjmcgee at 8:57 AM on November 18, 2011

Someone needs to go down to the station and bail out Creative. Evidently the interns are tied up somewhere.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:58 AM on November 18, 2011

Evidently the interns are tied up somewhere.

Goddammit. HR 124 specifically dictates that interns will not be used for bondage games unless specifically related to their career exploration.
posted by Think_Long at 9:00 AM on November 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can I make a pony request that we have no pony requests until the next calendar year?
posted by nathancaswell at 9:39 AM on November 18, 2011

apparently i was saying KILL KILL KILL in my sleep and giggling contentedly.

Every once in a while, I catch my cat twitching her paws in her sleep. This is exactly what I imagine she'd be saying if she could speak person.

As opposed to my dog, who would be saying BARK BARK BARK!

(Yes, my dog is so dumb, if he could talk, it wouldn't formatively change the content of what he had to say.)
posted by quin at 9:42 AM on November 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

Cancel previous, not our Creative. Interns have been located, cowering at home. I need an Extraction Team on the tarmac in 10 minutes.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:57 AM on November 18, 2011

I like this idea (no matter what those assholes in Accounting say), and I don't think it should be relegated to the Greasemonkey Network, as I think it would be very useful on the mobile format (and you know the partners have a huge bone for mobile right now). Don Draper.
posted by Rock Steady at 12:01 PM on November 18, 2011

Do you know who you're talking to, account services? Do you know who you're speaking with? You think I'm in danger? I am the danger. Someone knocks on this door, and a guy gets shot, you think that's me? I'm the one who knocks.
posted by Think_Long at 2:25 PM on November 18, 2011

I say we give this to the Gnome 3 UX guys to kick around for a while.
posted by flabdablet at 5:30 PM on November 21, 2011

Because throwing out ALL of it and making the whole site look just like a cheesy smart phone would be AWESOME.

plus then we could get favorites changed to bookmarks
posted by flabdablet at 5:33 PM on November 21, 2011