529267 - Poor and confusing layout of search results page.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 528962

(Bugzilla :: User Interface, defect)

Description

[Mark Clements]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: 3.4.3

The layout of the search results page is incredibly cluttered and hard to read, at least under the Dusk theme (have not tried other skins).  See the above URL, or the screenshot that I am about to upload, to see what I mean.

First there is an ugly site notice, then the current date/time, then a random quip - all in different font styles and colours.

Then you get an ad-hoc block of confusing information, which describes what you searched for but doesn't actually tell you that's what it was (I initially thought something had gone wrong!).  Preceding it with "You searched for: " would perhaps alleviate the confusion, but the ugliness would still need to be addressed.

Then there is a thick dotted horizontal line for some reason.

Then we get a table with no indication that it is a table (no grid lines or anything).  In the given example where only one row is returned, it doesn't even look like a table.  The header row is randomly coloured in different shades of grey, and looks a bit more like a bar chart then anything else.

Then you get a line indicating how many bugs were found, which you will almost definitely overlook due to its position.

Finally you get the options block, which is not too bad - could be improved (why are the two big buttons on top of each other on the left-hand side?) and could be better integrated into the page, but is probably the least concerning part of the layout at the moment.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Mark Clements]

Attachment: Screenshot of the current search results page in Dusk

Comment 3

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

by the way, to be clear about why I marked this a dup:

The site notice is site-specific.

The block of confusing information is the only new thing.

The "table doesn't look like a table" isn't something that I consider to be a significant issue. Actual usability problems are welcome as separate bugs, specified as a problem a user experiences.

I have done a little bit with the layout of this page on HEAD, though.

Comment 4

[Mark Clements]

Thanks for the explanation.  I will keep an eye on how that bug pans out, and also the updates you have made.  If once these changes go live I still feel there are usability issues with this page I will either add a comment here or log a new bug for the specific issues (if no one else has already done so by that time).