Navigation:
The navigation can get very confusing. The forum and the site
look the same, but the logo in the top right bring back to the
site index/forum index . That is not what is expected. If it
looks the same, it should probably be doing the same.
Especially since the forum index is in the breadcrumb.
On the forum, the link to the website is in fact in the left bar,
as last position. It is probably out of screen on my laptop
screen (15').
On the website, the forum is hidden in the community menu in the
middle of the left bar called community. If it warrant its own
domain name, it should probably not be hidden.
Generally, the importance of various items doesn't seems to make
any logical sense. What is logo worthy somewhere is hidden in a
menu somewhere else, or vice versa.
Both left bar kind of look the same but aren't. That's quite
bizarre and looks amateurish. On the website, categories in the
left bar, there are + and - sign that looks like button to
open/close the category, but they aren't button. It breaks common
expectations.
Search :
The same confusion can be found in the search. One can search the
whole D website, including the forum, while the navigation
clearly split the 2 as very different entities.
There is no way to search the spec.
HTTPS:
Forum widgets on the front page are broken in https.
Various links are still in http.
Some function prompt security warning :
- Forum certification
- Search Function
Home page:
This is a mess. There is way too much here. There is an attention
budget and it is important to manage it well.
The usual for a programming language goes as follow :
- Logo, color as per branding.
- Language name, quick blurb about what it is, usually ending
with a link to tutorial.
- Big fat download button.
- Some sample code. The one we have on the front page is way too
big. It should be a piece of code that someone with 0 experience
in the language can understand.
- A menu with quick access to what more experienced users want :
stdlib reference, code repository, wiki, forum, language spec,
news, this kind of thing.
Some examples:
http://www.scala-lang.org/
https://nodejs.org/en/
https://developer.apple.com/swift/
https://golang.org/
https://www.rust-lang.org/
Our is just messed up. The download link is there, but just
doesn't stand out (same presentation as this week in D, videos
from DConf, as big as the changelog).
The code sample is so big that is doesn't fit on my laptop screen
(15'). It uses all kind of feature that don't belong as a first
exposure. When you learn English, you start with "Brian is in the
kitchen" not Shakespeare.
All of this is quite damaging to D's brand.
Even even though I'm not a webdev, I've been working in growth
for a long time and these things matter. I don't know DDoc, and
I'm not sure this is a very smart move. That raise the barrier to
contribute to the website. The intersection of people that know
webdev and DDoc is just mostly existent.
The time I can spend on this is quite limited due to SDC, work
and personal life. Learning DDoc is just too big of a barrier.
Yet I can provide support to anyone that is willing to help.
Last but not least, it wouldn't hurt to hire a designer to have
something slick.
