EOLv3 beta test

July 23, 2018 Update

The beta test period for EOL version 3 has begun. You can visit the EOL beta website at https://beta.eol.org

Thank you to all of the alpha testers who provided us with outstanding feedback during the early phases of testing. We learned a lot, and we have implemented a number of your recommendations for the beta and plan to implement more for the full production release.

Unlike the alpha test, the beta offers you an opportunity to explore the full site and provide feedback here.

Members of the EOL team will provide additional guidance in this forum. If you have any questions at this point, however, please feel free to ask here.


GOOGLE CHROME ONLY - Please use the latest version of the Google Chrome browser for testing until further notice. Support for additional browsers will be added later on in the beta test.

Why is this?

We are limiting early beta testing to Chrome because cross-browser testing is developmentally expensive - it’s not worth doing it until the design elements are more settled.

1 Like

It isn’t clear if the sample pages are intended to be fairly complete (I’m assuming they would be if this is currently in beta). If they are, I find the new version quite disappointing.

Some suggestions from my initial impressions of the v3 interface:

  1. Re-design the page generally to highlight key areas. Currently, the design draws your eye all over the page. The image, depending on the window size, is too dominant, and takes up too much real estate.

  2. The map is positioned poorly when the screen size is such that it sits beneath the row of taxon characteristics. The map interferes with the scroll wheel of a mouse, making scrolling down the page frustrating. The map is also too large for the limited value it currently offers.

  3. There is no obvious short introduction/summary to the species.

  4. The previous version, with more thumbnail images, was more interesting and would draw viewers in better.

  5. v2 had a lot more information immediately available. With v3, the page seems quite devoid of interesting content.

  6. The taxon characteristics appear to be random and the labels are mixed in terms of case, making the information appear to lack scientific rigor.

  7. The use of shadowing around some window elements (e.g., in the names tab), makes the site appear dated.

2 Likes

@BobCorrigan, should we be able to login to the beta site with our existing user credentials?

I’m wondering about how to test the various signed-in user experience pieces without signing in.

1 Like

Quite like my first initial peek at v3. I try to correct common names quite a bit in my own language, so it would be good if possible to float the current user language to the top of the common names tab somehow?

Also, I just tried to log in (on chrome) via Encyclopedia of Life → Sign In with Google, and I get

“Google: 400. That’s an error.” - Error: redirect_uri_mismatch

1 Like

(and the rest of the google message, which I couldn’t post because I’m only allowed 2 links in a post ATM, was:

The redirect URI in the request, http://beta.eol.org/users/auth/google_oauth2/callback, does not match the ones authorized for the OAuth client. To update the authorized redirect URIs, visit: http://console.developers.google.com/apis/credentials/oauthclient/867896515251-fqndt93sjdeqe1ekrs24j6p0vu9b32l6.apps.googleusercontent.com?project=867896515251
)

1 Like

Your old credentials have not yet been implemented, but they will be. For the time being please test the universal experiences.

Thanks Jeff. Responsive design is a series of tradeoffs.

  1. When you scale the screen down to mobile sizes, it gets very tight. We will look at how folks respond to the layout and adapt as needed.

  2. We’ve made some changes to make it easier to scroll the screen when the map is displayed. Give it another try.

  3. There are text objects that will be introduced soon from EOLv2, but our goal is to use traits as the foundation for a procedurally-created description that we can then apply across the site without having to rely on someone to write it.

  4. Check out the media tab. Based on our analysis of site traffic, the majority of users arrive on an EOL page as a result of a Google search, get what they want, then leave. Data users will make use of faceted search and then explore specific taxa. So this time around we are less concerned with drawing people in as we are with making the interface clean, usable and responsive.

  5. We’ve heard lots of complaints that v2 was too busy :slight_smile:

  6. The taxon characteristics are currently selected randomly, but our plan is to show the most important characteristics on the overview tab, based on a number of criteria to include curator action. We can also inherit traits “painted” on the tree further up, which will give us more to work with.

  7. We are using the latest version of a very modern web framework, so it would be odd for it to be dated already - that said we will peer at it.