hello again all...
:murb: [maarten brouwers] wrote:
Hi Graham,
you have always said that buttons on the main page could directly refer
to the most appropriate subdomains. I think this is a bad idea, and I
would keep things more under control of one 'authority', being this
group. Only then we can guarantee style consistency, which is important
for the user experience as well. Maybe you don't think this is that
interesting, but I don't think the landing on the why page, which has a
totally different lay-out than the normal OpenOffice.org website (~first
page ;) ) is communicating quality. Imho, this years redesign should
include subpages for the main buttons, thus including learn, download
etc.
I have no issue with that, the important thing with the Why page is the
richness of the content. We have nothing anywhere that approaches it in
terms of information for newbies
Well, I don't want to throw it away, I only think that if you have a
minimalist first page and you get thrown at the why page (less good
example to make my point), or the support page (better example)... the
pages we send most people to (which are connected to the 5 action
statements) should follow the same guidelines as the main page. Else...
We have to be careful that we don't isolate the Homepage from all of the
project pages, that would simply be bad management.
We were using the shop metaphor. Not including the subsequent pages in the
redesign would be comparable to window dressing a factory warehouse.
Redesigning ALL the site will take an enormous amount of time. I don't
even think we should consider most of the product pages *at all* in this
discussion as much of their "look and feel" is in the hands of the
individual project managers and collabnet. The audience for many of
these is very different than the average visitor to OOo. In some ways,
isolating the home page from various project pages is bad amnagement,
and in some ways, not. Again, the audiences are NOT the same.
Maybe we need to think about our "marketing" in terms of something like
a multi-level department store. Not everyone is interested in everything
on every floor. We need to make the first floor appealing and friendly,
but we shouldn't get overly about how specific departments are presented
to everyone, most of whom could care less.
The homepage is the gateway to the rest of the site. It is true that
we should have some Interface Guidelines, however uniformity can be
viewed as conservative, lacking in imagination, lacking in Dynamism when
in fact OOo is completely the opposite
I am only talking about the first pages, not about the entire site, that
would also simply be impossible. I only think it is a bad idea that just
after the welcome you should send users into grey hallways, second door
left, and there you'll find it probably.
Well then we should design links on the home page so this doesn't
happen. We have the technology! :)
[...]
It certainly doesn't seem to worry Microsoft
http://support.microsoft.com/
http://www.msn.com/
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/default.aspx
That is an unfair comparison, since it is about totally different
products, and even these pages have things in common like the use of blue.
I don't want to adhere to the Sun website guidelines, even though I like
the visual appeal of it.
I'm also mindful of the timeframe. Creating a new Homepage that leverages
what we have already is achievable within the timeframe, then downstream
we update the others. They are a resource that should not be wasted
The timeframe can be extended if we need more time, we shouldn't launch a
half-baken website. I think what Louis wanted is merely a good proposal.
Before going online it probably has to go through the community council
and or project leads etc. So we need to come with a convincing proposal. I
don't see why, given the activity we have seen lately, that creating a
good proposal is impossible before the 15th.
In some sense, website development of ANY site is never finished. We
should strive for optimal meshing but nothing is "ideal" at this point.
The SUPPORT area could use a little tweaking (too wordy) but really the
layout is not too bad.
Assuming we could agree on a front page approach, some of the rest of us
could work on making the immediate underlying pages, whatever we decide
that to be, more friendly and congruent with the home page.
cheers!
g.,
Maarten
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