Thoughts On New Approach, Please?

[Gary Lewis]

Years ago when I started this website I didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't have the tools I have now, like tabs in Weebly or the pdf scanner. So the way I captured information was not well thought out and, frankly, poor.

And as I've played with some areas of the website I've been very disappointed with the way I did them. For instance, "air cleaners". The old way has the information spread out across 8 different pages, and to add the Ford documentation I found yesterday I would have had to add another 1 or 2. And that made everything painful as to go from one of the pages to another you had to go back to the menu, scroll down to Fuel Systems, scroll to Air Cleaners, and then pick the page you wanted.

Given that I've spent two days completely revising the air cleaner area in order to get it on 1 page. And I'd like your feedback on how well you like it. Is it enough better that I should spend time cleaning up other areas?

Here's the test. Please go to Documentation/Fuel Systems/Air Cleaners. Yes, click on Air Cleaners. And check out that page. Then go to Documentation/Fuel Systems/Air Cleaners/Air Cleaner Check Valves and scan that page. Then Documentation/Fuel Systems/Air Cleaners/Air Cleaner Illustrations. And right on down the menu.

And then go to Air Cleaners in the top menu (yes, it'll get dropped down in the menu later) and see if you like the way I've crammed everything on one page. Is it logical? Is it easy to navigate? What can be better?

Oh, and there are a few things to notice. First, there's the Testing tab that has two documents I found yesterday in the 1980 shop manual. They aren't in the "old" air cleaner stuff and were the impetus for the complete revision as I'd have to have had a page for them in the old style.

Also, the Mityvac document that was on the original Air Cleaners page in poor jpg scans is now a pdf on the Operation tab. Take a look at how hard the original version is to read, and then scroll to the bottom of the new version's page, click the 100%, and make it 200%.

Anyway, how much better is it? I'm not looking for kudos, but just need to know if it is enough better to do on other areas of the website.

[85lebaront2]

Looks pretty good as far as all of them are together. One thing I didn't see, and it may be in the text pages, is the auxiliary air inlet for the 460 air cleaner.

[Gary Lewis]

Looks pretty good as far as all of them are together. One thing I didn't see, and it may be in the text pages, is the auxiliary air inlet for the 460 air cleaner.

Thanks, Bill.

You are right, the illustrations don't show the rear trap door. I'll see if I can find something about that. But do you know of anything Ford published about it?

[Ford F834]

Gary, it is hard to comment on whether the change is “worth it” since we don’t really know how much time it took you to make the changes. I don’t think the old format was bad, my only comment would be that I missed the overview that became the “description” tab on the new single page (I didn’t think to click on it at the highest level). The new format looks and works fine, but you really have to scroll around with a mobile device as not many tabs are displayed at once on a phone screen. Not an issue, just an observation. On the root menu in documentation I might prefer to see “air and fuel systems” instead of just “fuel systems” because my too-literal brain wouldn’t think to look there for air cleaners. That might be my defective system grouping though 😅

[Gary Lewis]

Gary, it is hard to comment on whether the change is “worth it” since we don’t really know how much time it took you to make the changes. I don’t think the old format was bad, my only comment would be that I missed the overview that became the “description” tab on the new single page (I didn’t think to click on it at the highest level). The new format looks and works fine, but you really have to scroll around with a mobile device as not many tabs are displayed at once on a phone screen. Not an issue, just an observation. On the root menu in documentation I might prefer to see “air and fuel systems” instead of just “fuel systems” because my too-literal brain wouldn’t think to look there for air cleaners. That might be my defective system grouping though 😅

Jonathan - Thanks for the feedback. And you are right - you don't know how hard it was for me. But, while it did take most of two days, it was rewarding as I think it is dramatically better.

And yes, not everyone knew to click on "Air Cleaners". We have a mix of un-clickable pages and pages that have content, and that is a bad thing as people don't know to click or not. And clickable ones that have sub-pages don't work for Jim, and probably others.

On the tabs, are you viewing in landscape or portrait mode? On my iPhone X the portrait view just shows 2 tabs and part of the 3rd, landscape shows all 5 tabs. And I'm careful to keep it to only 5 tabs - which is why we have a tab named "Other" as there are 3 different topics in there.

[Ford F834]

Jonathan - Thanks for the feedback. And you are right - you don't know how hard it was for me. But, while it did take most of two days, it was rewarding as I think it is dramatically better.

And yes, not everyone knew to click on "Air Cleaners". We have a mix of un-clickable pages and pages that have content, and that is a bad thing as people don't know to click or not. And clickable ones that have sub-pages don't work for Jim, and probably others.

On the tabs, are you viewing in landscape or portrait mode? On my iPhone X the portrait view just shows 2 tabs and part of the 3rd, landscape shows all 5 tabs. And I'm careful to keep it to only 5 tabs - which is why we have a tab named "Other" as there are 3 different topics in there.

You are right Gary, I did not have my phone in landscape mode. And I do agree the new format is better. Is there a way to make the click-able and non-click-able text different colors? Or add a colorful bullet or icon to differentiate which text has content? I’m sure you have thought through this… I’m just curious what options there are.

[85lebaront2]

Thanks, Bill.

You are right, the illustrations don't show the rear trap door. I'll see if I can find something about that. But do you know of anything Ford published about it?

Gary, I would have to look at my information. Owner's manual doesn't say anything about it. Maybe one of the emission ones might.

[Gary Lewis]

You are right Gary, I did not have my phone in landscape mode. And I do agree the new format is better. Is there a way to make the click-able and non-click-able text different colors? Or add a colorful bullet or icon to differentiate which text has content? I’m sure you have thought through this… I’m just curious what options there are.

Bill - The shop manual doesn't say anything about it that I can find. I'll have a look at the '86 emissions manual.

Jonathan - I like your idea about making the clickable pages stand out, but I don't know how to do it. I just placed :-) in the title of the original Air Cleaners page, and sure enough when you actually get to the page it has those characters in the title, which isn't what we need. Then I put :-) at the end of the Page Name and the URL doesn't show that nor does the menu.

Speaking of the menu, that's really where we want the clickable pages to be different. So I'll research that. But perhaps the best thing is to do away with them completely?

[grumpin]

I think it’s fine. I didn’t have trouble navigating. Makes sense to me.

Interesting what Bill mentioned about the 460 air cleaner.

[Machspeed]

I went through and looked this over. Took me a bit to figure out what you were trying to say. Honestly, while the changes are probably better, don't know that I'd spend the time re-doing it all. I can navigate easily through both. So, I guess this just depends on how much time you want to commit to the change. Do appreciate your continued desire to improve the website though.