Plankton Portal Talk

Interface suggestions

  • yshish by yshish moderator, translator

    Well, here are some suggestions for the new version:

    1. It would be great if the marks were movable after being placed in the image. Then we could see the plankter while going through the listed categories without the necessity to cancel the mark to check its shape again until we find the correct category. (This worked perfectly in the previous version.)
    2. It would be helpful if the mark was partially transparent so we could see the creature hidden behind it. (This worked perfectly in the previous version.)
    3. The colour of the marks changes to a light blue after choosing the species which isn't very well visible on the white background of opaque bodies among all the marine snow.. I'd appreciate to have it better visible (red / orange / or at least more saturated blue would be fine).
    4. The mention of the Field Guide in the Tutorial could be make as a hyperlink to that page so the users could just click on it..

    That's all for now..

    Zuzi

    Posted

  • Quia by Quia

    No surprise, yshish has given all the suggestions I was thinking up, and a few more. 😃

    1 and 2 are super helpful for when you're not sure what you're going to be marking the plankton as when you click on it, AKA new users.

    3 I don't mind the colour terribly, but it is rather muted. When I run into an image with 10+ plankton in it I will probably agree with yshish that it'd be better off as a brighter colour that's easier to see.

    4 Agreed that the Field Guide needs to be pushed heavily! With the tutorial not showing many plankton in it, new users need to know where to go to find more examples.



    completely unrelated This topic was 'Started a year ago by sgreenway206@gmail.com'

    err... sure it was, Talk. Whatever you say. 😃

    Posted

  • yshish by yshish moderator, translator

    (I wanted to start such a thread myself, but then I noticed this old one exists already - which made me happy - and that it's completely empty haha! 😉)

    Posted

  • areinders by areinders

    Yes, please make it possible to either move the little window with the categories or move the mark after it has been set. It would make looking through some different options and directly comparing them to the organism so much easier.

    Posted

  • yshish by yshish moderator, translator in response to areinders's comment.

    Hi @areinders

    Thanks for your post.

    We should be actually able to move the marks, but only before selecting the category (you can move it as long as the category menu is opened). Doesn't it work for you?

    Cheers, Zuzi

    Posted

  • Jonsku99 by Jonsku99

    It would be nice if the selection panel was transparent. There is also no option for 'something else'. I saw something that was shaped like a virus; a ball with spikes protruding from it. One other thing is the discuss-button. I sometimes click it on accident when trying to click next.

    Posted

  • yshish by yshish moderator, translator in response to Jonsku99's comment.

    Hi @Jonsku99

    Thanks for your suggestions.

    As for the transparency of the selection panel, I'm not sure it would be as useful as it may sound to you 😕 it could become quite confusing and make the classification more difficult if you saw both, the background and the image in the selection menu at the same time, obscuring each other. Don't you think?

    Actually, there is a purpose why the 'something else' option is not available. The results wouldn't be very useful for the scientists - volunteers would use that option too much and wouldn't try their guesses, which are actually usually quite correct. It was tested on another Zooniverse project, and there is a nice blog post about it somewhere. Let me know if you were interested in reading it and I'll look for it. (I'm in the fieldwork at this moment, too busy to look for it 😦) So if you see something which doesn't look exactly like organisms in our categories, you can always choose the closest option - try your best guess. In cases when you do know what animal is present in the image and you are sure it is something else then the selection offers, then you can leave it unmarked and post a comment on the Talk. For example, that spiked ball-like structure you mentioned is most probably a Protist (we often see some with spikes and they are very common). We don't have to care about them for this project, we don't have to comment on them either. But if you saw for example an octopus, or a seahorse, or .. an adult fish.. or some other animal out of categories, which you can ID, then please, don't mark it and put a comment. We do want to know about it! 😃

    As for the Discuss button, when you hit it by an accident, you can always go back (by using the browser back button, or by clicking on the blue Return to the classification button on the top right of the Talk page). Your classification won't get lost when this happens either. I don't find the Discuss button location problematical at all.

    Thanks again for thinking how to make this project better/more user-friendly. Sorry we are not about to make your suggestions real 😦

    Cheers,

    Zuzi

    Posted

  • gardenmaeve by gardenmaeve

    Hi, @Jonsku99- I suspect yshish is thinking of the following explanation of why we aren't usually given choices like "Something else" or I don't know" in these projects. If this isn't the one she was thinking of I'm sure she'll follow-up when she can. 😃
    Why not "I don't know..."

    Posted

  • yshish by yshish moderator, translator in response to gardenmaeve's comment.

    Yes, that's the one I was thinking of! I was just about to look for it. Thank you very much @gardenmaeve 😃

    Posted

  • JoyKidd by JoyKidd moderator

    I've trained myself to click the far right side of the "finished" button, which has the added benefit of having the cursor already sitting in place on the "next" button.

    Posted