Re: Mockup proposal for a promoting James website
Hi Marc, On 10/23/2016 05:09 PM, Marc Chamberlin wrote: Hi Benoit - (I will follow your precedent of top posting.) Please don't ! No, the trouble with the current organization of the James website is that the only way to navigate it is to use the hierarchical tree structured table of contents that is found on the left hand side of the pages. This can make it difficult to discover where a particular topic is addressed, especially if/when that topic is found in a location that the developer thought was appropriate, but not intuitive in the mind of a user. For example, I wanted to discover what mailets are provided with James. My initial guess was to navigate to the "User Manual" > Configure James > Mailet Container and almost missed the tiny link provided/embedded at the bottom of the page to the list of mailets. Then and only then did I discover that this list was located in a surprising location under "Developers Corner" which I had assumed would be topics strictly of interest to James developers, not to users. (I am NOT criticizing this particular layout, just using it as an example of how using a tree hierarchy must be navigated, sometimes through many many branches, in order to discover where a particular topic is documented.) Using search engines can further complicate matters, especially on sites such as James where multiple versions of documents are stored. One can easily and inadvertently land on a document that is inappropriate for the version of the James that he/she is using, and waste a lot of time chasing a wrong answer. (I know, I have done it myself) What a site map is/does is to flatten the presentation of an entire website into a single page which contains links to EVERY web page associated with that website. (including orphaned web pages which sometimes crop up) That both makes it easy to see a high level view of the entire website, all at once, and provides a lot of additional clues as to the organizational model and where one may find documents on a particular subject. One measure of the ease of use of a website is to ask how many clicks does it take, to discover the answer to a question or reach a goal on that website. A site map can reduce this to a single click. Site maps are often used on large complex web sites and I am sure you can find many examples. Also I have seen tools that develop a site map automatically, some do it externally by chasing links, others do it internally on the servers by chasing documents and directories also, although these tools do have their limitations and shortcomings especially if/when a web site serves dynamic content. I am not asking that James use a site map in lieu of the hierarchical table of contents it now has, just in addition to it. I understand your point but I think the main problem is that : 1. none of us has experience into site map 2. we use a generated static site with old technologies 3. we are going the mix that with yet another static site technology If you think you can tackle this challenge, you are more than welcome, we'll try to help us on that. Anyway, keep sending us your comments, they are very valuable. Cheers, -- Matthieu Baechler - To unsubscribe, e-mail: server-user-unsubscr...@james.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: server-user-h...@james.apache.org
Re: Mockup proposal for a promoting James website
Hi Benoit - (I will follow your precedent of top posting.) No, the trouble with the current organization of the James website is that the only way to navigate it is to use the hierarchical tree structured table of contents that is found on the left hand side of the pages. This can make it difficult to discover where a particular topic is addressed, especially if/when that topic is found in a location that the developer thought was appropriate, but not intuitive in the mind of a user. For example, I wanted to discover what mailets are provided with James. My initial guess was to navigate to the "User Manual" > Configure James > Mailet Container and almost missed the tiny link provided/embedded at the bottom of the page to the list of mailets. Then and only then did I discover that this list was located in a surprising location under "Developers Corner" which I had assumed would be topics strictly of interest to James developers, not to users. (I am NOT criticizing this particular layout, just using it as an example of how using a tree hierarchy must be navigated, sometimes through many many branches, in order to discover where a particular topic is documented.) Using search engines can further complicate matters, especially on sites such as James where multiple versions of documents are stored. One can easily and inadvertently land on a document that is inappropriate for the version of the James that he/she is using, and waste a lot of time chasing a wrong answer. (I know, I have done it myself) What a site map is/does is to flatten the presentation of an entire website into a single page which contains links to EVERY web page associated with that website. (including orphaned web pages which sometimes crop up) That both makes it easy to see a high level view of the entire website, all at once, and provides a lot of additional clues as to the organizational model and where one may find documents on a particular subject. One measure of the ease of use of a website is to ask how many clicks does it take, to discover the answer to a question or reach a goal on that website. A site map can reduce this to a single click. Site maps are often used on large complex web sites and I am sure you can find many examples. Also I have seen tools that develop a site map automatically, some do it externally by chasing links, others do it internally on the servers by chasing documents and directories also, although these tools do have their limitations and shortcomings especially if/when a web site serves dynamic content. I am not asking that James use a site map in lieu of the hierarchical table of contents it now has, just in addition to it. Marc... On 10/22/2016 11:05 PM, Benoit Tellier wrote: Hi marc, This is the landing page for james.apache.org The Documentation link will point to today's james.apache.org's content, achieving what you want. (Horizontal nav bar will allow to reach each and every subproject documentation, and James logo will get you back to the first page) Were you suggesting something like this? Regards, Benoit Le 22/10/2016 à 16:29, Marc Chamberlin a écrit : On 10/18/2016 6:42 AM, Laura Royet wrote: Hi everyone, I have been working for a few weeks now on a promoting website for James. Today, I would like to share with you my proposal mockup : please see file attached in https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JAMES-1837 The aim is to have this page as the James website home page. In this way, a user interested by James (curious developers and network administrators for example) will directly access tofundamental information about the product and could try it thanks to the Getting Started part. He will also find quickly all the links to contact James Community. And what about the current James website? Actually, the marketing website menu bar contains the link "Documentation" leading to it. For your information, I am currently working on cleaning the existing website in order not to have duplicates with the marketing page and also in order to adopt the same graphic charter. Thanks in advance for your feedbacks. Regards, Hi Laura - May I suggest adding a link to a site map so that all the all the web pages associated with and maintained by Apache James are discover-able from a single point? The site map(s) should be organized by version releases also, which is often the drawback of using Google searches that can lead to finding outdated information.. Marc... - To unsubscribe, e-mail: server-user-unsubscr...@james.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: server-user-h...@james.apache.org -- "The Truth is out there" - Spooky - To unsubscribe, e-mail: server-user-unsubscr...@james.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: server-user-h...@james.apache.org
Re: Mockup proposal for a promoting James website
Hi marc, This is the landing page for james.apache.org The Documentation link will point to today's james.apache.org's content, achieving what you want. (Horizontal nav bar will allow to reach each and every subproject documentation, and James logo will get you back to the first page) Were you suggesting something like this? Regards, Benoit Le 22/10/2016 à 16:29, Marc Chamberlin a écrit : > On 10/18/2016 6:42 AM, Laura Royet wrote: >> Hi everyone, >> >> I have been working for a few weeks now on a promoting website for James. >> Today, I would like to share with you my proposal mockup : please see >> file attached in https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JAMES-1837 >> >> The aim is to have this page as the James website home page. >> In this way, a user interested by James (curious developers and >> network administrators for example) will directly access tofundamental >> information about the product and could try it thanks to the Getting >> Started part. >> He will also find quickly all the links to contact James Community. >> >> And what about the current James website? Actually, the marketing >> website menu bar contains the link "Documentation" leading to it. >> For your information, I am currently working on cleaning the existing >> website in order not to have duplicates with the marketing page and >> also in order to adopt the same graphic charter. >> >> Thanks in advance for your feedbacks. >> >> Regards, >> > > Hi Laura - May I suggest adding a link to a site map so that all the > all the web pages associated with and maintained by Apache James are > discover-able from a single point? The site map(s) should be organized > by version releases also, which is often the drawback of using Google > searches that can lead to finding outdated information.. > > Marc... > > - To unsubscribe, e-mail: server-user-unsubscr...@james.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: server-user-h...@james.apache.org
Re: Mockup proposal for a promoting James website
On 10/18/2016 6:42 AM, Laura Royet wrote: Hi everyone, I have been working for a few weeks now on a promoting website for James. Today, I would like to share with you my proposal mockup : please see file attached in https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JAMES-1837 The aim is to have this page as the James website home page. In this way, a user interested by James (curious developers and network administrators for example) will directly access tofundamental information about the product and could try it thanks to the Getting Started part. He will also find quickly all the links to contact James Community. And what about the current James website? Actually, the marketing website menu bar contains the link "Documentation" leading to it. For your information, I am currently working on cleaning the existing website in order not to have duplicates with the marketing page and also in order to adopt the same graphic charter. Thanks in advance for your feedbacks. Regards, Hi Laura - May I suggest adding a link to a site map so that all the all the web pages associated with and maintained by Apache James are discover-able from a single point? The site map(s) should be organized by version releases also, which is often the drawback of using Google searches that can lead to finding outdated information.. Marc... -- "The Truth is out there" - Spooky - To unsubscribe, e-mail: server-user-unsubscr...@james.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: server-user-h...@james.apache.org
Mockup proposal for a promoting James website
Hi everyone, I have been working for a few weeks now on a promoting website for James. Today, I would like to share with you my proposal mockup : please see file attached in https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JAMES-1837 The aim is to have this page as the James website home page. In this way, a user interested by James (curious developers and network administrators for example) will directly access tofundamental information about the product and could try it thanks to the Getting Started part. He will also find quickly all the links to contact James Community. And what about the current James website? Actually, the marketing website menu bar contains the link "Documentation" leading to it. For your information, I am currently working on cleaning the existing website in order not to have duplicates with the marketing page and also in order to adopt the same graphic charter. Thanks in advance for your feedbacks. Regards, -- Laura Royet - To unsubscribe, e-mail: server-user-unsubscr...@james.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: server-user-h...@james.apache.org
