MichaelHoffmann/AGORA — Issue #188: usability feedback from Feb 27
Author: MichaelHoffmann
Created: 2012-03-01 18:02:14+00:00
State: open

In my class PubP 6010, I asked for feedback. The following points came up:

- the system is very slow. Especially in working with objections, and in longer arguments, and when more people work at the same time. However, the system is even much slower as it was in the past when I am working on it at other times. Try to type something fast, it lags behind, even in arguments with only 3 boxes. Moving boxes or sets of boxes sometimes takes several attempts before anything happens. Often you see the watch running without knowing why.
- it would be excellent if reasons could be relocated. Say you have 5 reasons but you realize that your last one should be in the second position. This could be combined with the copy and paste function for entire chunks of argumentation that still needs to be done, but it could also be done separately to simplify things.
- overall, students wished for more flexibility, like in cmap. This is partly limited by design (e.g. when it comes to offering only logical argument schemes), but some things could be improved by providing more options like "support" and "comment" text boxes
- navigation on large maps is slow and cumbersome. A navigation window like in cmap would be great. Also: speed up the effect of using the scroll wheel on your mouse.
- the future perspective of Flash came up and the suggestion to shift to Java and XML5 (is this the name?)
- even though there will be no "undo" function based on the collaborative character of the software, it would be great if it would be possible to call up the history of the mapping process. This way things that have been discarded could be found and used again
- automatic organization of boxes on a map would be great. You add an objection or another argument to something, and the system moves things automatically so that you do not always get overlaps
- it is possible to delete boxes to which objections are added. If you do so, the objections remain freely floating on the map, and if the author of the objection tries to delete it, he gets an error message. But after doing it twice and reloading the map the objection is gone