Hi,
I know I come a bit late into this discussion, so, apologies if I ask things that were already answered.
inline...
Daniel Carrera wrote:
Jacqueline McNally wrote:
The OpenOffice.org web site, and especially our home page is one of our most important and effective marketing tools.
We should design the website with the mindset of meeting visitor's needs. It's not about what you (or me) want to tell them, but about what they are wanting from us.
Hmmm..has anybody asked visitors about what they are loooking for when they come to the site ? Or, what they would like to see on the homepage most ?
Has anybody collected a list of questions related to the website that people asked most the first time they got on the lists ? If yes, this would be an invaluable feedback which we all should study prior to deciding changes.
I'll browse the archive of this HP discussion to find such answers, but I am asking, just in case they can't be found in it.
Building such a study should have been a marketing task: to collect feedback, judge it, prioritize the needs based on facts and then work with the website designers and usability specialists to reach the best HP formula, no matter if the initiative came from Website project or from Marketing project.
Indeed the website is the most effective marketing tool we have both for community and for what it produces.
In the user survey the Website is on top as the primary place from where people find out about OOo.
Reorganizing the website/HP *should be* a task accomplished in close cooperation with Marketing. We are talking here about different specialities working together to produce what is best for OOo.
Through our web site we hope to communicate that we have a great office productivity suite and a huge diverse community that thinks so too.
... instead of whatever might actually came here for...
I disagree.
The page we are talking about is referred to as a home page, but I think we need to consider it more of a door page to the huge amount of projects, activity and people behind that door.
We should put the user first, not the marketing department. Our top priority should be to meet the visitor's needs. Especially on the HP.
Aren't these (Jacqueline's and Daniel's) two ways of saying the same thing regarding to what is needed on the HP ?
Daniel,
the way you put it seemed to me at first like marketing was asking for a proeminent link on top of others.
Maybe it's just my impression, don't you agree that the site should be a balance between what a user needs and in the same time a friendly introduction for those who *do not* know what OOo is ? And the latter aspect isn't one that fully belongs to Marketing ?
The links or content to which you are referring (mailing lists, forums, doco) are important and are already accessible off the home/door page through the "Support" tab.
"Support" is not the place I'd expect to find documentation. Documentation is not tech support, it's documentation. Tech support imvolves another human you talk to.
I remember that when moving from the old SourceCast there was a discussion as to how to name this tab. At that time after a long thread we reached an agreement that "Support" is the most expresive word for it.
You say that *you* would not expect to find documentation under this name. But if we do not take into consideration what was decided months ago, then at least try to answer to this question: how does the visitor feels about it (the Support tab) ?
Why not first study the OOo site's visitors needs ? Analize the results and then decide the best HP formula ?
Don't we need a clear document based on facts first so that we decide knowing the real needs ?
One idea:
How about building an usability survey and link it from the HP for a while to get answers from the real visitor ? Just a one week survey could give us lots of data simply because in 5 minutes you get more than 300 answers if you advertise the survey on the HP well.
- mailing lists - I feel that we need to let people know of our mailing lists,
You feel? What is that feeling based on?
Isn't this the same as your above "I'd expect" ?
Just because *you* know about them doesn't mean that new users do. In fact, people new to open source are not even familiar with the concept of mailing lists. Just looking at the people who actually make it as far as posting to users@ or discuss@ you'll see that a significant number of them are rather lost.
Sending people to the "New to OpenOffice.org" section does not give you the possibility to explain there about the existence of these lists ?
And it could be with a greater success as you can have more space to do it.
How many people realy find out about the lists and their usage from the general links ? and how many from the Introduction page or others ?
- forums - The current forums are on an external site. It's crazy to have a link on your home/door page that leads people off your domain onto another.
No, it's not cracy. The forums are an important part of the community, and the fact that they have a different domain is no reason to exclude them. OOoForum provides a very valuable service that can't quite be replaced by mailing lists or documentation. I think we should welcome OOoForum as a valuable and integral part of the OOo community.
The current SourceCast does have forums included. Only that they are not used. Why ?
It is very confusing for new visitors who have expectations of what to find on www.openoffice.org.
If they have downloaded the software, they probably expect to be able to get help on it, and perhaps read a manual.
Same as the new ones who would expect to find out what it is. Isn't it ?
- documentation - Is important, and of course I am going to say that as one of my roles in real life is that of a technical author :) But, I don't think it belongs on our door page.
A significant number of new users would be looking for that. But instead of answering their question ("how do I do xyz?") you want to tell them how great we are.
It's infurating when a website removes useful services so they can spend more time telling you how much they care about visitors.
Again, based on what facts ? Let's put up a poll on the HP for a while with a question like:
What did you expect to find on the OpenOffice.org Home Page? 1. What is OpenOffice.org 2. Documentation 3. How to download 4. News 5. Technical support 6. ... etc
and see what they say,
or,
create an extended survey so that we know aspects like:
- first time visitor
- knows what OOo is or not,
- has downloaded OOo or not
- registered site user or not
- what he wants to find on the site {predefined list}
- what he wants to find on the site {textarea so that he writes his own thoughts}
- did he find what he looked for ?
- etc
We have the opportunity to be more welcoming on a landing page (New to OpenOffice.org) and guide people to resources that they may find useful.
... by hiding them?
Isn't it only by guiding the main categories of users to a specialized place for them where you can put much more info ? Like some sort of sub-portal page ?
I think it is not necessary to clog everything on HP trying to accomodate all ideas. Breaking it appart into sub-portal pages could be more effective.
I don't consider it just as marketing content, but that of organising information such that when people visit www.openoffice.org:
- if they were looking for OpenOffice.org they are reassured immediately they have the right place (OpenOffice.org is ...)
The logo at the top wouldn't tell them that?
In the case of Matthew's page, wouldn't the big bold letters that say "OpenOffice.org 2.0" and an icon taht says "download free" tell them that?
- they are confident that it is a successful and vibrant project/community (community articles and presence in other publications)
... by hiding the community links?
see my above
- they are made to feel welcome if it is their first visit or unsure where to go next (New to Openoffice.org)
*that* link was good.
Put similar ones for other major categories of users.
- if English is not their first language, confident that your language
The mockup we were working on had the NLC icon higher up, in a more central place.
Btw, articles on the current home page are "Buttons" and "OOoRegiCon North America". I think it is very important to be proud of our successes and share the news about our community.
... instead of telling them how to use the software they just downloaded...
I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree with a lot of what you suggested.
Sincerely,
Hope I do not upset anybody with my observations and questions, I see too much tension here and I do not fully understand why.
On the other hand, I think it worths having statistics about what users want and send them along with the HP proposals to the Project Leads for review.
Also, I believe that cross-project cooperation is mandatory for the website and it would prove that we are a *Community* and not heterogenous projects which barely know each other and which disregard the purpose for which a project was created.
In this respect I like the way Jacqueline made her proposal:
- a *drawing*, showing no intention of mixing with the HTML/CSS knowledge which belongs to Website Project designers/artists, etc.
It is a proposal about content in the first place. Bringing it to life would be the Art of the Website specialists. Accommodating the usability needs would be the Art of the usability specialists we also have on this list.
Hoping for the best, Cristian
-- Cristian DRIGA -- www.openoffice.org ro.openoffice.org marketing.openoffice.org/art/
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