On 2007-11-24, at 10:09 , :murb: [maarten brouwers] wrote:
Hi Louis,
I see you are not talking any more about either the portal and the
homepage?
Hm. I'm not communicating well. I'm actually talking about both. Let's
focus on homepage for now, extracted from the discussions in the
requirements page. My focus and interest right now is on the homepage.
Portal can be also discussed but given the persistent confusion I
think we need to disambiguate.
I consider this as discussing the homepage then... the user
requirements page for the website is a page describing what users of
the website need, in general. The type of pages needed to make sure
these requirements are met are not yet of importance.
A. To enable efficient downloading, especially for naive Windows
users.
This usually translates to one-click downloading. And one click
downloading means that users do not learn of cdroms, p2p, etc. The
resolution is to do what we do now, modulated: after the click,
user is sent to the contribution page, which can have other
elements, such as, "Consider buying a CDROM or downloading via P2P
if you experience difficulty downloading".
The contribution page seems like a good place to advertise for CD-
Roms and P2P, but it should be advertised at other places as well.
And although P2P is not on most peoples mind, CD-Roms are. Office
suites are normally sold in boxes. So why not OOo?
Okay....
I would rather skip the contribution page, though, OR, and that is
imho the biggest problem, make sure downloads start automatically. I
think the contribution page is the biggest issue at the moment.
Followed by the fact that we do not promote downloads that much,
thus force people to think about how they need to proceed (euh...
P2P, CDRom, aaah, download, <click>)
By contribution page I mean the page that comes up after one clicks on
downloading OOo but before the downloading commences.
RESOLUTION: Open download by default and remove contribution page
(cost: none, just remove the javascript)
I guess I'm not persuaded by the resolution. But I do want automatic
downloads, if it comes down to it. Still, the great virtue of the
contribution page is that it actually does work: people contribute
money. It's also a good place for informing users of useful things. It
need not be and ought not to be the only place.
I'm open to being persuaded: I pride myself on being rational, right
or wrong (that's a joke). :-)
B. To inform users of OpenOffice.org, the product and community/
project and how they can participate.
I do not like buttons everywhere, and this is still rather fague, as
Leonard pointed out:
a) Is it a marketing page (convince people of using it)?
b) Is it a participating page (he called it the tech savvy page, but
I'd think it is a bit more)?
and I would add:
c) Is it a community page (create 'Fans of OOo' with (advanced)
help, tips, extensions etc.)
I think the homepage (www) should be mainly a marketing page (a). We
need to sell OOo here.
agreed; but also inform.
The participating and community pages we can discuss in another
thread. But besides marketing it is also the first stop for anyone
wanting to do something with OOo, so we need very quick links to the
other important places. Tabs accommodate for some of this needs
already, but e.g. people who just downloaded OOo for the first time
may also resort to www-page.
I think that is what Louis describes here:
I envision a page that has links for support, participation,
language communities; extensions are important. "Support" can be in
the end "portal" or we may end up having a big link to 'portal'
once we have more content there--and that's going to happen. :-)
(...)
Secondary pages can add more information. Thus, portal can provide
all that "new to OOo?" promises, as well as other useful
information and links.
Of course the question is to what extent :)
* Process
David also raised the idea that I'd considered at one point of
paying for a usability testing. I'm open to that; we can pay for it
and that may help. I do confess to being skeptical, however. What
do others think?
As Leonard pointed out, usability testing is only worth it when we
know what we want. Therefore, in this stage I wouldn't start about it.
Really? I guess I am puzzled. I think we do know what we want. I agree
we have to come up with suitable mockups--and we can be doing that.
But we know what we want: to "sell" OOo and (me) to inform.
Assuming we do not use usability testing--or even if we do--I'd
like to still impose a deadline, and make it a hard one: 15
December. Note, I first introduced this idea in September ;-),
though I recognize the time consuming nature of work like this....
Maybe we need a, 'or otherwise...' ;)
nothing happens :-) Just more of this fiddle-faddle.
* homepage requirements: what goes on the homepage
And (imho) with homepage we think of homepage + the prominently
linked pages. For this I would promote keeping all these pages on
the www-domain and have all responsibility in one group. If
information is lacking we should apologize for this and only then
forward them to less well maintained corners of openoffice.org's
website. Keeping these pages somewhat centralized allows us also to
develop a good web identity, with predictable behaviour.
* and the established user page requirements: what goes on the
portal (assuming that is what it is) and ancillary pages (note:
more than one).
(I assume that is not bound to the deadline of the 15th?)
No. Portal is probably something next year and ought to be also a
landing page for people "registering" OOo. Homepage is more important.
I also think it makes sense for someone to own this. I can (more or
less futilely) drive this but I think it makes more sense for a
designer to own it. And we have some quite talented people
here ;-), including Maarten, Christian, Filip, William, Kay,
Matthias, Kay, et al.
I am willing to volunteer as a coordinator (or 'owner'). But I won't
have time to design a lot... I am kind of restricted to e-mail
contributions only.
Thanks! I'd ask then Filip.
Finally, as to payment: Sun wants a better homepage for OOo and
that is, among other things, my goad. They are willing to pay for
the design. My interest is in ensuring it is a community thing,
owned and maintained by the community. But that does not mean that
Sun can't pay for the labour required for the design and
implementation.
I think we should try to do it without financial support (this is
better for keeping it within the community imho),
I agree, but it also depends on the labour expended. Eg, if we have to
do a fair amount of javascript, that can be reimbursed....
but if things are not moving forward, we should hire someone.
yes.
But in that case we need to be able to tell this person/company what
is required, hence the importance of requirements.
Yes.
A coordinator imho should be able to specify this, I think I can.
Thanks.
After the homepage (www), we can rethink the portal page again,
since I have some ideas about that as well... but I would keep that
completely separated from the homepage discussion.
If no one objects, I'd like to name Maarten then as coordinating the
homepage effort.
g.,
Maarten
Thanks, Maarten!
best
louis
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