As an aside, I just made a couple of edits. I replaced the seagull graphic by another one that's not a screenshot (courtesy of Alexandro) and removed the Mission Statement, as Alexandro suggested (again, not front-page material).
Cheers, Daniel. On Sat, Jan 15, 2005 at 08:48:37PM -0500, Daniel Carrera wrote: > Hello, > > I think I should explain the mockup I made in more detail: > > http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/openoffice/website/HomePage/tryout01.html > > I think that people are focusing on totally the wrong things, like > colours, and not enough on the things I really changed. > > First, let me start by laying out objectives. What do we want from the > website? I'll divide the main tasks into 3 groups, one is specific, two > are broad: > > (a) Download the software. > > (b) Community/people (for lack of a better term). I'm referring to > people wanting to learn how to use the software, or become part of the > community, or the like. Specifically, I'm referring to mailing lists, > forums, documentation, and all the native-lang communities. Since I > don't have a good name for this group, I'll just call it "(b)". > > (c) About OOo. Another broad category, but less broad than (b). I'm > referring to decision makers, journalists, and people wanting to learn > about the organization, about open source, etc. > > > We start by figuring out what our priorities for the home page are. I > layed them out like this: > > 1. Download the software. > 2. Everything in category (b). > 3. Everything in category (c). > > Now, before discussing the specific changes, I want to list some general > points about usability. > > * Don't rely on fore-knowledge of the project's internal structure. > > * A logical organization is good for usability. > > * Don't ask "are grahics good?", that's asking the wrong question. > Graphics are neither inherently good, or inherently bad. A graphic that > draws the user away from the important content is bad. A grpahic that > draws the user towards important content is good. > > * Same for colours. Colour is not inherently good or bad. But you have to > pay attention to how you use it, so that the user can access the important > things. Some general tips: > - Draw the user towards the most important things. > - Contrast. A significant portion of the population struggle with > contrast. > - Daltonics. Don't mix red and green unless it's in a way that does not > carry part of the information you need to convey. > > A good test is to see the page in grayscale and see if you lose anything > important. > > * Short term memmory. When you read a sentence, your brain stores each > word in short term memmory, and assembles them into a coherent meaning > when you reach a period. Words are parsed similarly. So are colours, > boxes, and everything that the human brain identifies as distinct objects. > Short term memmory is finite, and actually quite small. It is a precious > resource, and should be spared as much as possible. The basic ways to do > that are: > - Reduce the number of elements on the page. > - Rely more on the user's already existing long-term memmory (e.g. use > familiar terms, instead of terms which the user has to figure out). > > > With these things in mind, let's move on to the mockup. Please open a > window with the current OOo site, and another with the mockup: > > http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/openoffice/website/HomePage/tryout01.html > > 1) The first thing I did was give the download link the most prominent > position on the page. This was done through a box. I made the text for the > "unstable" link shorter, so as to focus more on the stable link. I added > an image on the right, but inside the box, to make the box as a whole more > significant. Since an image had to be chosen, I figured that showing our > logo was a reasonable choice. The exact image is not crucial to this > effect, as long as it has some measure of relevance. > > 2) I then made the Native-lang section more dominant, but not more than > the download. I added an explanation (the only time I did this on this > site) so emphasize "community". I also added an icon that re-inforces the > community aspect while adding prominence to it. > > 3) Now take a look at the left panel. I removed several links that were > redundant, and rephrased others to make the clearer: > - To Do's should be inside the Contributing page. How that's done is not > at issue, but one way would be to replace the "Programming" link. > - Donating Funds are also in the Contributing page. > - Likewise I removed Project Guidelines and Licenses. They should be > elsewhere on the site. > - I changed "Bugs & Issues" by "Report a bug", which is more > comprehensible. > - I replaced "Articles, Blogs and Newsletter" by "What's new at OOo". > This phrase is short enough to fit on one line, which helps give it > only as much prominence as other links. > - I added a "For the Press" link. This link could link to the licenses > for example (though the licenses should also be behind the About > OOo link). > - I replaced "About us" by "About OpenOffice.org" to help reinforce > the name, and also so that the "what's new at OOo" make more sense. > > 4) I removed the login link above. This causes endless confusion at the > users list (CPH already described this). > > 5) Now let's move on to the right panel. Most changes are in the > "community resources" box. I removed Product Information (should be behind > Press), screenshots, awards, roadmap and statistics. Of those, the only > one that is really a "community resource" is statistics, which is hardly > front-page news. The others can be put elsewhere (the About OOo and For > the Press links are good places). > > The only thing I kept was "OOoForum", which I replaced by "Web Forums", > hence relying more on long term memmory instead of STM. With the newly > oppened space I migrated the "Mailing list" link from the left panel to > "community resouces", where it really belongs. And I added a Documentation > link. Since the links were all self explanatory, I removed the right > sub-column with the explanations, reducing the number of items on the > page. > > 6) Now move down to Upcomming Events. First, I rewrote all the dates from > the American format to a format that everyone who knows some English will > understand. This format also takes up less space, incidentally. > > I also removed the location, but I admit that this is a fuzzy point. We > need to decide if there's a real reason to have that information on the > *front* page. Maybe if we just included the country... > > 7) Next box down. I replaced "The Press" by "OOo on the Press", which is > clearer, and easier to distinguish from "For the Press". I also removed > all the dates. > > 8) Yes, I did change the colours. But there's nothing special about the > particular shades of blue I chose. All I was looking for was to: > > - Reduce the total number of distinct colours. > - Improve contrast. > - Not divert attention away from the download box. > > Any colour scheme that achieves thos goals would be just as good. > > 9) Alexandro pointed out that the Mission Statement is not front page news > either. I agree with him, that should be in the About OOo page and/or the > For the Press page. > > I hope that this email helps people focus on the things I'm really trying > to propose, which centre on usability, and not on the colours and > graphics, which is not my area anyways. > > Cheers, > -- > Daniel Carrera | I know everything, I just can't remember > Join OOoAuthors today! | it all at once. > http://www.oooauthors.org | :-) > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Daniel Carrera | I know everything, I just can't remember Join OOoAuthors today! | it all at once. http://www.oooauthors.org | :-) --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
