On Friday 30 November 2007 10:23:36 Ivan M wrote: Hi Ivan,
> Hi Graham, > > > (I hope people will excuse me for posting this here as well as the wiki, > > but it seems there is little if any discussion taking place there ) > > > > As the old saying goes "You can take a Horse to water but you can't make > > him drink" > > > > And therein it seems, lies much of our problem. > > > > There is I believe a confusion of goals at the homepage. > > > > We are getting people to the download page but that is not the end goal. > > You have to give the horse a reason to drink, Either, make him thirsty, > > make the water desirable beyond his need for water or wait till he is > > thirsty before you take him there. > > My question is, what do users want - why do people come to the > homepage? Do most visitors just come to upgrade/find out if there is a > new version, or are most visitors new to OpenOffice and wanting to > find out more? Either way, the download button is probably one of the > most important elements on the website. There is a difference between old Users and New Users no doubt. The thing that is highlighting the limitations of the present site is a recent marketing campaign that was a little less successful than we would have liked. We used Google ads to aim people at the Download page, now while we got lots of Click-throughs they didn't turn into lots of Downloads. My opinion is and was that we expect too much from the casual Ad clicker. The step from a slight curiosity to Downloading an Unfamiliar hundred Megabyte piece of software is a big one, especially if that person is on Dialup, (Which is the vast majority globally). So yes, "I want to download the latest OpenOffice.org now" is for those familiar with the website but we add a link to why.openoffice labelled "I want learn more about OOo before I download" > > > The three tenets of Marketing > > *Create a need > > *Create a desire > > *Fill a present need > > > > Right now we do none of these well, we simply shove the Horse at the > > trough, only to make it doubly difficult, we blindfold him, block up his > > nose and force him to sup it through a straw after he has learned that > > drinking some types of water.will be bad for him. > > That is true, and right now, the website lacks easy access (if the > content even exists) to solid examples of OpenOffice. Maybe we could > learn a lesson from commercial office suite websites and present > things like Flash product demos or Flash product overviews that > visually answer the questions, what is OpenOffice.org, what are its > features, etc. > > > People come to a website for two main reasons > > > > *Curiosity > > *To solve a problem > > > > They will leave for more reasons: > > > > *Their curiosity has been satisfied and they leave informed > > *They find a solution to their problem > > *They can't satisfy that curiosity within a reasonable time and they > > leave frustrated > > *They can't find the solution or it is not obvious and they leave > > frustrated *Fear of the unknown > > > > Our problem is right now, and the discussions up to this point are > > reinforcing this point, we are not asking the User what he wants to do we > > are telling them what we expect them to do, We inform them where to > > download, but we don't give them information that will make them feel > > comfortable about hitting the download button, or to stretch our metaphor > > a bit further, we talk to our horse about the trough but not about how > > good the water is, while the horse is still worried about drowning.. > > > > So I've put together a draft of a front page continuing on the simplicity > > idea which I'm a fan of. The difference is that we provide "Answers to > > the Question" > > > > "You have arrived at OpenOffice.org what would you like to do now?" > > > > http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/mwiki/images/a/a3/Home_page_draft_11- > >27.jpg > > > > Native Language would be another answer if we don't get a users language > > from their browser. I like oooauthors.org method of doing this, but I'm > > not sure of the practicality of a page with 80 odd language choices. > > This would be the equivalent of a splash page, and would be bad in > terms of 'how many clicks does it take you to get to the information > you want'. Could we not have some sort of automatic geographic > detection like so many websites have and automatically display the > page in the language native to that country/region? Or a drop-down box > with a selection of languages could appear somewhere on each page? > > > I like the Quintura "Mindmapping" method (www.quintura.com : type in a > > search item you'll see what I mean) of giving choices perhaps we could > > figure a way to narrow the choices by location. > > RE: the lots of information vs simplicity - perhaps we could fit in > both with something like this: > http://moofx.mad4milk.net/ (this example does not appear to be > backwards-compatible - i.e. it doesn't work with JavaScript disabled, > which is essential) Ha! You made a fan of me, that page loaded in a jiffy and I'm on country dialup. Get 22k on a good day. Very cool. > > The accordion layout would give us the opportunity to let the user > choose what they want straight away - I want to learn about > OpenOffice.org, I already have OpenOffice.org and need some help, etc. > Each section could expand when the visitor clicks and provide numerous > links that give quick and easy access to other pages. That way, the > homepage could be both simple and rich in content. Plus, a little > interactivity would enhance the homepage. At the front end, my personal opinion is we gear to the Lowest Common Denominator, yes, as you say like a splash page. It should load in seconds even on dialup. It should sort our user types fairly coarsely The statements on my proposal basically divide them into four groups New Users being curious Old Users coming back for an upgrade New Users needing assistance Contributors From there we gear the next page at whichever group. I would use what we have at present New Users --> why.openoffice.org Old Users --> download.openoffice.org New Users needing assistance --> support.openoffice.org contributors--> contributing.openoffice.org > > Regards, > Ivan. > Cheers GL -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html INGOTs Moderator New Zealand www.theingots.org.nz GET DRESSED : GET OOOGEAR Gear for the well dressed OOo Advocate www.ooogear.co.nz --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
