Dear Lazyweb: Help with Lifestream Design
I've got a new feature in my lifestream, but I don't know how to expose it. Currently, the lifestream entries look like this:
I like this look, because it's uncluttered. There are only two noticeable links when you hover over stuff. The text in the middle is a link to the original entry, and the little icon to the right takes you to my account at that site.
However, I decided it would be handy to be able to have lifestream pages that show only entries from livejournal, my family blog, delicious, or plurk, or any of the others. I made it so. Yay! There they are!
But now the problem: From where should I put links to them? It's the same issue as with the lifestream legend. The lifestream legend is meant to be just a little table to help the reader know which services are being tracked. It's a handy thing, but it doesn't belong on the lifestream page. So I left it out.
But it seems like I should be able to put links to the filtered pages somewhere. Hopefully from the lifestream itself, because that's the handiest. But a new link from that page will hurt the current design. Here are some examples that would put the link just to the left of the little icon at the end:
I don't know what I should do. In the picture above there's a picture of a funnel, which apparently is geek code for "filter." Below that is an icon of a page with a green "go" arrow (from famfamfam), and below that is a down arrow unicode character. Below that is a nebulous, mysterious box. I'm not really pleased with any of these. I like the feature, but just don't know how to expose it.
Do you have any ideas of what would look good? Should I leave those links out of the lifestream and put them in from the legend? Maybe I should change the link of the icon at the end to be to the filtered page instead of my account page at the remote service?
[Edit] Currently, I changed the link of the icon at the end to point to the filtered page. I'll see how that works.
I like this look, because it's uncluttered. There are only two noticeable links when you hover over stuff. The text in the middle is a link to the original entry, and the little icon to the right takes you to my account at that site.
However, I decided it would be handy to be able to have lifestream pages that show only entries from livejournal, my family blog, delicious, or plurk, or any of the others. I made it so. Yay! There they are!
But now the problem: From where should I put links to them? It's the same issue as with the lifestream legend. The lifestream legend is meant to be just a little table to help the reader know which services are being tracked. It's a handy thing, but it doesn't belong on the lifestream page. So I left it out.
But it seems like I should be able to put links to the filtered pages somewhere. Hopefully from the lifestream itself, because that's the handiest. But a new link from that page will hurt the current design. Here are some examples that would put the link just to the left of the little icon at the end:
I don't know what I should do. In the picture above there's a picture of a funnel, which apparently is geek code for "filter." Below that is an icon of a page with a green "go" arrow (from famfamfam), and below that is a down arrow unicode character. Below that is a nebulous, mysterious box. I'm not really pleased with any of these. I like the feature, but just don't know how to expose it.
Do you have any ideas of what would look good? Should I leave those links out of the lifestream and put them in from the legend? Maybe I should change the link of the icon at the end to be to the filtered page instead of my account page at the remote service?
[Edit] Currently, I changed the link of the icon at the end to point to the filtered page. I'll see how that works.