Vote track

[Michael Allan]

Thomas von der Elbe said:
> Very good! .... and again, what a difference to try to imagine something 
> working compared to actually play with it!

Thanks Thomas.  For me too, it makes a big difference!

> And I take back my request to stick the link-track to the top of the 
> screen. It would ruin this floating impression of the vote-track. Which 
> is perfect to make clear some of its functionality (or at least let 
> people start to suspect its yet undiscovered functionalities :-)
> 
> One question: why not sort the vote-arrows by size? It would make some 
> sense, wouldn't it?

We'll need a visual ranking at some point, I agree.  Currently I'm
following the new votespace design, which sorts by dart sector:
http://zelea.com/project/votorola/s/gwt/scene/vote/_/3.xht

We were brainstorming ideas for ranking earlier:
http://zelea.com/project/votorola/s/gwt/scene/vote/_/1a.xht
http://zelea.com/project/votorola/s/gwt/scene/vote/_/1c.xht
We also have progress tracking and decision mechanisms to visualize at
some point.  But what I like about this votespace design (mainly your
design) is its naturalism.  It isn't ruled by administrative forms.
It forces us to add those as decorations.  I think that's good.

> Are the placeholdersjust to make it look better for small polls with 2 
> or 3 people or is there another reason?

Yes.  And more stable for orientation.  And socially more inviting.
Initially I was just trying to solve the problem of mosquito voters
and candidates shifting the layout.  That got me thinking about
installing permanent placeholders for the mosquitos.  Then I recalled
your idea of radial placeholders (flower petals):
http://metagovernment.org/pipermail/start_metagovernment.org/2011-May/003954.html

Maybe that's what brought me back into the votespace fold.  I pictured
running the mouse along the track and seeing the spotlight trace an
arc across the votespace scene.  The empty spaces turn out to be
important.


NEW WORK
--------
I coded the default stage interactions.  Currently these suffice only
for the poll page.  Here's a poll page for example:
http://zelea.com/w/Sys/p/sandbox

Mostly all I added was navigation.  Initially it shows only the end
candidates on the poll page.  But you can click around and navigate
anywhere in votespace.  One problem: the horizontal shifts are a
little disorienting.  Maybe we need to animate them.

The track isn't quite right on other pages, yet.  Nor are the
transitions from page to page.  More soon...

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, +1 416-699-9528
http://zelea.com/