Ian Wilker's dashboard

Kyle -- throwing my hat in here, too. This would be especially helpful now that you have bit.ly integration...

Any idea whether you'll implement it with something like the bit.ly sidebar or su.pr page-top frame?

Hi Eli,

Just looking at the Consumables section is a little painful for us right now — sooner rather than later, we want users to be able to dial it in to accurately reflect the unique specifics of their life-styles, much as the Transportation section now does (for Cars and Flights, at least). The framework's ready, but we've still got some work to do sourcing data for specific subcomponents of Consumables. Stay tuned.

Thanks for taking the time to leave some feedback!

Felipe,

I checked with our developers about this, and the long and short of it is that -- with Brighter Planet's limited time and resources and a very ambitious project ahead -- a decision was made early on to require javascript. The site won't function properly with javascript disabled.

At this point we're certainly not alone in doing so. Other more mature sites may degrade more gracefully than we do with JS off, but we're doing all that we can handle for the time moment.

Hope you'll understand, and stay with us!

- Ian @ Brighter Planet

Hi Jan,

Thanks for adding your voice to the chorus asking for internationalization of our site (right now, our data only supports U.S. residents -- we had to start somewhere.) As I've said elsewhere, we'd love to fully support users in other parts of the world; it's just a matter of finding time and resources to get it done.

cheers,
Ian @ Brighter Planet

Hi Jan,

Would the "1 LOAD OR LESS THIS WEEK" option work, for 'occasionally'?



Appreciate the feedback, and hey -- as the above image shows, looking at this detail of the site brought a spelling error to my attention!

cheers,
Ian @ Brighter Planet

Thanks for saying so Prentiss! Very kind of you. Really appreciate your observations. More, please! (just kidding -- but we're all ears if you have more thoughts.) – Ian Wilker, on July 22, 2009 21:26

Mitzie -- awesome feedback. One piece at a time:

I wish there was a way to link to the next item after I've added my autos, to link directly on to flights and then to residence, consumables, etc....right now, I have to click the back button and start again...

Good point -- some sort of navigation that would illuminate a linear path through the calculator would probably be really helpful. We'll think about this.

what if I could see a breadcrumb or map of what I've done and how much I need to do to complete the process along the top of the page as I go?

Really good ideas, but tricky stuff: we want users to understand first and foremost that — though their footprint will become more accurate as they provide more info — they'll get a footprint figure to work with no matter how little time they have at the moment to load info into the calculator, and that they can always return and add more detail in dribs and drabs over time.

In other words, we don't want new users to see their interaction with the calculator in terms of the whole of the data load process -- this can be a real turn-off to all but the most determined folks.

fyi, we do have a basic breadcrumb nav at present ... (see circled text on image below)



... it doesn't lead you from one step to the next, or give you an overall sense of your progress with data load -- it just tells you how deep your dive is into one of the calculator's four main "components" (Transportation, Shelter, etc).

We'll have to consider if and how we can offer users a look — a visualization — of their progress through the data load process. Maybe something that stays hidden until the user summons it, via mouseover or click. We'll see.

Lastly, it would be great if these could be saved in case I need to stop the process and come back later.

This should be exactly what's happening for you, as a registered user — you should be able to leave off anywhere at all, come back at any time and click on the name of the car (or house, or "diet") you want to fine-tune, and add or edit the form as you wish. If this isn't what you're seeing, please let me know.

Thanks so much!

cheers,
Ian @ Brighter Planet

Dave -- thanks for pointin' that out. We'll double-check that each of these little illustrations is an accurate fit for what it's supposed to depict!

More broadly, we're planning to improve the illustrations site-wide -- we did the best we could within the time we had to work with, but an upgrade is definitely in order.

cheers,
Ian @ Brighter Planet

Another great idea -- thanks, Tanya! (Scooters are becoming hugely popular where I live -- Asheville NC.) – Ian Wilker, on July 22, 2009 20:06

Chris -- really glad you suggested this.

GetSatisfaction very helpfully tells us what page you were on when you clicked the "Feedback" button to offer your thoughts, and I see you were on the home page -- http://beta.brighterplanet.com. Your reaction — "Where's the 'motorcycle' option?" — tells me (a) that the wording of this first question needs to be more precise, and (b) that the 'mini-calculator' on the homepage needs some further tweaking. We're going to have to puzzle over this a little.

fyi, once you get further into the 'Transportation' section of the calculator (and you need to register to do this), you'd see that we actually do have a 'Motorcycle' section:



(We don't yet have a full data set for motorcycles, so for now the section either applies to your footprint the average emissions a U.S. motorcycle owner racks up annually, or — if you click on 'Motorcycles' and then select "I never drive motorcycles" — it zeroes out your footprint in this category.)

Felipe -- thanks so much for reporting this. Duped it myself, in FF3 on OSX 10.5.7:



We'll get on it.

cheers,
Ian @ Brighter Planet

Prentiss,

Really thoughtful feedback, and greatly appreciated. There's actually a link in the first paragraph of the carbon offsets section to a Projects page that answers the questions you raise, but we clearly missed the boat here -- it should be an obvious, can't-miss-it link from any page having anything to do with offsets. And come to think of it, that Projects page needs to be much richer. We'll get on it; expect improvement in this area.

Sarah -

Yipe. Yeah, I've had similar experiences with the sliders; we've got some work to do here.

I'll share your feedback with our developers, we'll huddle and try to figure out how to improve this tool.

Thanks!
Ian @ Brighter Planet

Brandon,

I do indeed see your point. There may well be a more graceful way for us to encourage people to share their stories; we'll stew on this a while.

Hi Pierrette,

This might help: After you type a city name or airport code ("Toronto" for example) into the 'What Airport' field, wait a second, and you should see a list of airports pop out below the field you've typed in.

Like this:



If you see a list, great, just use mouse or keyboard to select the right airport, then save.

If you don't see such a list after you've typed a city or airport name, and you're sure of your spelling, it's possible that our database is incomplete. (I've seen at least one instance of this myself.)

If you've got time, please let me know what you find!

thanks,
Ian @ Brighter Planet

Gee, that sounds like something is indeed broken ;-)

Thanks for reporting, Bart -- this'll go off to our developers for investigation.

Cheers,
Ian @ Brighter Planet

jkling - Good question, and something I'm sure our science guys can answer. I'll go fetch an answer and return shortly.

Thanks for ID'ing something that's not made clear enough! I'll add it to our (long) list of spots that need better textual explanation.

Cheers,
Ian @ Brighter Planet

I hear you. But actually taking charge of one's carbon footprint -- which is what the site's about -- isn't a one-time event. Whittling it down and offsetting the rest is something that happens over time. So we felt it was critical for the data users enter while interacting with the site be persistent. Particulars:

» Footprint really only becomes specific to you by interacting with the "Your Footprint" calculator and answering questions. Which takes time, and the more time the user invests the more accurate the footprint becomes. Without registration, time invested is tossed away at the end of the user session -- the system won't remember you.

» Without registration and persistence of data, users lose the ability to track progress -- no record of footprint over time, no record of conservation actions completed over time, no record of offsets purchased over time.

I hope the registration process isn't too onerous, and that you stick around -- rapid-fire improvements are on the way.

Thanks,
- Ian @ Brighter Planet

jkling --

ah-HAH! You've put your finger on a slippery-text problem that was nagging at me and I couldn't quite bring to consciousness. Thanks so much!

This should be easy enough to fix by clarifying the text. I'll check with the team and give you a definitive answer, which we can then work into the site.

Great catch, thanks.
- Ian @ Brighter Planet