ethank
04-12-2002, 11:19 PM
I programmed a sub-system for our site to keep track of user location based on the concept of rooms. Rooms can be nested within each other.
For instance a forum is a room, a thread is a room in it. This applies to our entire site and the layout for rooms and their hierarchy is in the database. WIth this, everything on the page can be drawn dynamically corresponding to where the user is, and it can be nested, so a menu can apply to a room and all rooms under it.
A bit complex, but it works fantastically. It is isolated from vBulletin, and all the code in one include file.
It also lets us do things like what is shown in the attachment.
To rundown, at the very bottom you see a few things that use this architecture. The "YOU ARE HERE" is built dynamically for the entire site, including as you traverse the boards.
The four icons on the right are a "Visual History." It shows the last four places the user has been in icon form. Every forum has an icon associated with it, just as every page on the main site will too. The goal is to use signifiers to root people in the virtual space. So far usability experiments have been postitive. Users make judicious use of the history thing to keep track of where they were. We will also have a page that will show the users room-travels for their entire session. It will look like a big quilt. The reason we did four icons is to experiment with functional aesthetics.
On the left you'll see the There are 6 people here with you and 3 near you. This represents people that are in your current room (which can be a forum, a thread or a page) and one room below that one (so if you're in a forum, the "near" people are in threads or a sub forum).
The Friends list are buddies that are near or with you. The Hosts list is showing mods, super mods and admins that are near or with you on that page/room.
For privacy sake, the friends list functions in that you have to be on that users buddy list for them to show up as a friend. That way people have implicit control over who can see their whereabouts. We considered having a seperate list for location awareness, but decided the buddy list is simplist at the outset. I still might do a seperate list though.
We've had all these features up for two weeks and people really dig them. Location and proximity awareness has given people a sense of not being alone, and gives the site less of a "ghost town" feeling at low-periods. The Visual History is great for providing stateful awareness.
/attachment.php?postid=240048
For instance a forum is a room, a thread is a room in it. This applies to our entire site and the layout for rooms and their hierarchy is in the database. WIth this, everything on the page can be drawn dynamically corresponding to where the user is, and it can be nested, so a menu can apply to a room and all rooms under it.
A bit complex, but it works fantastically. It is isolated from vBulletin, and all the code in one include file.
It also lets us do things like what is shown in the attachment.
To rundown, at the very bottom you see a few things that use this architecture. The "YOU ARE HERE" is built dynamically for the entire site, including as you traverse the boards.
The four icons on the right are a "Visual History." It shows the last four places the user has been in icon form. Every forum has an icon associated with it, just as every page on the main site will too. The goal is to use signifiers to root people in the virtual space. So far usability experiments have been postitive. Users make judicious use of the history thing to keep track of where they were. We will also have a page that will show the users room-travels for their entire session. It will look like a big quilt. The reason we did four icons is to experiment with functional aesthetics.
On the left you'll see the There are 6 people here with you and 3 near you. This represents people that are in your current room (which can be a forum, a thread or a page) and one room below that one (so if you're in a forum, the "near" people are in threads or a sub forum).
The Friends list are buddies that are near or with you. The Hosts list is showing mods, super mods and admins that are near or with you on that page/room.
For privacy sake, the friends list functions in that you have to be on that users buddy list for them to show up as a friend. That way people have implicit control over who can see their whereabouts. We considered having a seperate list for location awareness, but decided the buddy list is simplist at the outset. I still might do a seperate list though.
We've had all these features up for two weeks and people really dig them. Location and proximity awareness has given people a sense of not being alone, and gives the site less of a "ghost town" feeling at low-periods. The Visual History is great for providing stateful awareness.
/attachment.php?postid=240048