Hello all, [CC'd to the UX list, whose input would be appreciated too] A while ago I posted a mockup [1] to show some possible improvements that could be made to the OOo website, many of which were in response to user's feedback [2]. Now, you can see those proposed changes and many more live on test.openoffice.org! (see http://test.openoffice.org/servlets/ProjectIssues to see how the new changes would look on project pages)
Please add your thoughts, especially if you find something odd. Ideally, please respond to each of the changes (which are listed below), with a comment or a +1 if you like it/agree, and a -1 if you don't. There are no drastic changes - just lots of fine-tuning. It'd be great to get these updates live before OOo 3 launches. Once they have been decided upon, I'll write up the style guide for the website [3]. I have tested this in IE 6, Firefox 3, Opera 9.5 and Safari 3 (Win XP) and everything worked as expected. Since the the HTML is untouched (with the exception of the homepage action statements) and changes to the CSS are minor, there should be no major problems. ----------------------------------------------------------- The updates, in order of notability, are: * Homepage icons have been replaced with much nicer Galaxy equivalents (many thanks to Stella for making these!) [4]. Which icon do you prefer for the community/join action statement (I want to join OpenOffice.org)? * The key words in the action statements are a lighter color than the rest of the action statement text. Action statements' text is also more colorful on rollover * New, vertically-flexible, proportional width (24%) #campaign style (uses the same HTML as before). A seagull graphic would limit horizontal text space and increase the vertical space required for announcements - what do you think? * Homepage features a new download button (please endure through the javascript messages - not sure why it's doing that, since it uses the same .js file as the homepage... and the JS will probably be changed soon anyway) * Tabs are visually more distinctive; it is now easier to distinguish between unselected, mouse-over and active (selected) tabs * Minitabs CSS has been simplified considerably, and the bug involving the blinking pointer 'showing through' has disappeared (at least, on my computer - to test this, please click inside the search box, then hover over the Log In tab - can you see the pointer from the search box (which has the focus) showing through intermittently as it blinks?) The minitabs (Search, Change Language, Log In) should now be more accessible - they have high-contrast background colors for when background images are disabled (see http://www.patentpending.co.nz/images/openoffice/minitabs-hicontrast.png) - however Konqueror does not show background images on form fields so all Konqueror users will see high contrast text fields and buttons in minitabs. For even greater accessibility, could someone with access to the HTML add "for" values to each label specifying which form field they represent? (this would include the search text field being given an alt attribute as it has no label). * Mouse-over effect on #navcol links (left-hand side project menu), for all 3 different ways that these have been implemented throughout the website (see website.openoffice.org, ui.openoffice.org, and test.openoffice.org/project_discuss.html to see all 3 semantic variations). This makes the CSS a little more tricky to read, but offers much greater consistency. * Gradient background on #navcol headers (e.g. Project Tools, Search, How do I...) and navcol wrappers (fades down to white, semi-transparent 2 gulls motif from the OOo logo at the bottom-right) * New a:hover style for standard links in #bodycol. What do you think about adding an a:visited style, and what would be a good color? Green? Orange? Another blue? * #navcol no longer has a small 2px white left margin * Spacing of text, lists, etc improved for #rightcol (appears under My Pages) and #startpage * 15px page margin for text is enforced on #navcol headings and #breadcrumbs * Minor re-arranging of CSS to make it more straightforward ----------------------------------------------------------- Minor changes that have already been implemented but not announced: * Removed top-margin from <h2>, as many pages use it as the first heading and it was creating unnecessary whitespace. * Reduced the number of 'highlighted' (background color + top and bottom borders) items in mailing list/issuezilla * Made body & #content background color white, which will override the browser's default background color if it's set to anything other than white * A few small but notable improvements to print.css, with regard to the positioner, and fonts (now sans-serif instead of serif) ----------------------------------------------------------- I believe these changes address the majority of comments and enhance the design. Now, over to you! Regards, Ivan. ----------------------------------------------------------- [1] - http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/w/images/6/6e/Website-refresh-mockup.png [2] - http://website.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=9778 [3] - http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Website/Style_Guide [4] - http://ui.openoffice.org/VisualDesign/OOo_Web_icons.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
