Hi Daniel,
Thanks for your comments. Here are my arguments:
1) Download box is very deeply hidden, so everyone is going to click on the stupid Download tab which is not what we want. Furthermore, it makes the download lessp rominent.I have noticed some problems on low resolution display (or not-maximized browser screens), maybe that's what you are referring to? Because I find the download button not really 'unfindable'. I might experiment with some color (as suggested also by Kay) or even pictures. Furthermore I believe the page which is seen under download currently displays completely the opposite of what a user might want to find there. I've already said I'm a huge fan of the mozilla.org site. A great site for a great product. An intuitive site for an intuitive product. This also needs to match @ openoffice.org
2) There is no way to access top-priority items like web forums, mailing lists and documentation.No way to access top-priority. Let's state first; i have not done any testing on my site, but I think the average (english understanding) user (i'm not yet satisfied with any of the suggestions pointing non-english people to HP's 'counterparts' in their own language) will look at my site and will go to support for user support (and forums for end-user support, end-user documentation). And i'd guess developpers will go to 'development' to see how they can help, how OOo works technically, or just to see how development is going... etc...
I have to note that my premise here is the average computer probably understands a navigation bar.
3) The explanatory paragraph is long. People don't tend to read much when they visit a page.I'm not satisfied, and am looking to other options, as stated in my reply to Kay. Maybe a bulleted list, maybe another way to get more information on the program they are about to download. Because I want to know what I am downloading, and I think most users do.
4) There are few links to futher information, and they are not prominent at all.What type of further information do you want? You've got the development page for developpers, you've got a personal page which can (maybe better in the future) customised to everyones needs, you've got a support page for end-user support... See my point. I know that the pages behind these links aren't any good. But I think this is not a problem we should try to solve solemly at only the homepage. In a first reaction, I think it was, Matthew already suggested that a good clean up of the site might be hard work, but I think that's just a problem we have to face. Else the whole home page is just a 'workaround'. Workarounds don't look pretty.
5) There is no space given to a press kit, or media relations.See point 2. I think all other sites have this type of information at the 'about' section. Here is our target-group 'journalists', and they will know that. The site behind about should help /them/ further.
6) There is no space used to try to gather more volunteers. We depend on volunteers, and need to encourage people to come and help out.I've been thinking that, I didn't formulate that well... but I tend to. It's difficult to explain the way opensource works in a few words to novice users. Maybe people who want to get involved already know the brand, maybe the term opensource is sufficient for people to browse the development page to look some further?
7) There is no way for people to contact anyone. Not the community, not the developers. They can't report a bug.I'd suggest people having problems would go to the support page, try to find an answer, and if they don't find an answer, try to find a contact otherwise... these ways to accomplish such should be on a prominent place at the support page.
Each of those points could be expanded extensively. The gist of the problem is, this page gives up usability and usefullness for visual design. I don't deny that the page is beautiful. But it's going to infuriate people trying to accomplish something.I really disagree with you that this page is giving up usability. I think intuitiveness has greatly increased with this site. Again, maybe you're facing some problems which are due to compatibility problems (low screenres, browser type i didn't anticipate on), but I believe the site as i made it (primary created on Firefox 1.0 full screen on WinXP with a screenresolution of 1152x864 on a 17" display) is usable. On understanding usability and how complex it is, i really liked this paper: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~martijn/gta/docs/Interact99.pdf
g.,
Maarten
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