Wil, I fill two roles at work -- decision maker and programmer. And I'm starting to lean more towards the PHB side of things as time goes on. Guess that happens as you get old.
Overall, the front page is just too BUSY. Too many things SCREAM FOR YOUR ATTENTION because they're too large -- even on my 24" widescreen monitor. There's no natural flow for your eyes. This is really a designerish issue, not a code issue, but the big message is that you don't want to overwhelm people -- decision makers, coders, or otherwise. -Karl On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 1:58 PM, Wil Sinclair <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > OK, I'm the one to blame for the 3 color-coded sections. J And most of > those dorky taglines. Of course, I make absolutely no claims of > non-dorkiness. :D > > I don't see 'Make the Choice' as challenging, but do you have a > suggestion? BTW, this box is supposed to be for decision makers. The center > one is for developers, and the right one is targeted at contributors. > > CodeIgniter's site is definitely good. But I wouldn't green-light > something like this for ZF because I think there is far too much text for a > front page and is extremely developer centric. > > Site conception and color-differentiated boxes were originally proposed by > me. I can assure you that I haven't seen the current opensuse.org site. > BTW, that horizontal, 3-box format is very popular right now. I have seen > the current version of the RoR site: http://www.rubyonrails.org/. It's 4 > items, but you get the idea. J Sometimes designs become popular because > they work well; I believe that's the case here, but it's pretty subjective. > > I'm glad you like the inside pages. We tried to keep them strictly > content-driven. We may add the occasional icon to liven up the text a bit. > > I really don't like the phpdoctrine.org site for several reasons, but I > don't want to make this discussion to turn in to a list of criticisms of > other people's sites. ;) > > CakePHP's site isn't my favorite, but it seems relatively effective to me. > > Please keep in mind that we are also addressing decision makers with > technical skills all across the board. I've said it before, and I'll say it > again: the Zend Framework project is great for large corporate sites and > enterprise applications. In fact, among PHP frameworks, I think these are > some of our sweet spots. Decision makers want to see our case studies and > what services we offer. We have been careful to wear the commercial side of > the project on our sleeves- even on the old site from long before I joined > the project. Ultimately, we hope ZF works as well for enterprise customers > as it does for one developer's personal or hobby site. > > Could it be that some of this criticism might be directed at the fact that > our site isn't designed for just developers? Maybe we took on too much by > trying to address 3 stakeholders with the same design. Please don't take my > answers as deflections of your comments- I'm taking this all as feedback. > The fact is that we'll never have a site that everyone likes. J > > > > ,Wil > > > > *From:* Karl Katzke [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > *Sent:* Monday, April 07, 2008 10:32 AM > *To:* Wil Sinclair > *Cc:* [email protected] > > *Subject:* Re: [fw-general] And a big thanks to Varien for the new site > design! > > > > Wil, > > I'm not a big fan of the new site's homepage either. Let me try and > explain why, from both a design perspective and a usability perspective. > > On the front page, everything is cartoony and oversized. The icons are > big, the fonts are far too big, the ZF logo (which is normally rather slick) > is big and embossed, the "MAKE THE CHOICE" is the biggest and first thing > you see. Those are challenge words, not welcoming words. The color scheme > clashes and calls your attention to too many things at once. There are far > too many choices on the front page for anyone to find where they should get > started. The subheadings under "Make the choice / get started / give back" > are dorky and un-necessary. How do you know what feels good to me? ;) > > Compare this to CodeIgniter's site: http://codeigniter.com/ ... the color > scheme is bright in areas where it wants to call your attention. The first > thing you read is a description of what CodeIgniter is, the second is a > welcome message. The icons are understated and are small enough to not > clash. You can scan the site easily and figure out where you need to go. > > On top of all the other sins we have unoriginality; the "Make the choice, > get started, and give back" tricolor scheme seems to have been stolen > directly from OpenSuse.org, which does it far better... they only give you > three choices until you've decided if you're there to download, there for > information, or there to contribute to the software factory. (I realize > they're not the same exact colors, but that's the first thing I thought when > I saw the blue top with the orange and green.) > > On the other hand, the inside pages are nice. I like the use of a block > serif font. I like the tabbed menu. I like the organized layout. The font > size is readable. > > We take the good with the bad, but I have a feeling that Code Igniter's > website and websites like phpdoctrine.org should be used as examples. > Those sites are well-organized and appeal to both decision makers and > developers. Then again, it's not like the competition's stiff -- CakePHP's > site has many of the same sins we do, and Symfony's site looks like garbage. > > > -K > > On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 12:17 PM, Wil Sinclair <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I gotta say- it's awesome that we have a forum where we can agree, > disagree, and generally figure out every way we can make the project > better. > OK, here's my take on the front page: > '1.5' will represent all the 1.5 releases; in my experience this is > common for less detailed pages. It really is meant to call out that > we've moved on from the 1.0 branch. > Keep in mind, this page may simply not be for you. It is dominated by > formatting and is meant to put the best face on ZF to new decision > makers, developers, and contributors. We've tried to make the other > pages more content driven, but it is safe to assume most of the content > on the main site PHP site will be more or less introductory. The tools > (wiki, IT, etc.) we have and will continue to keep as effective as > possible for our active users/contributors. > Ultimately, you haven't yet convinced me that the front page is not > effective at what it sets out to do. For example, having a prominent > download button makes it easy for everyone to download the project and > get started, which is exactly what we want new users to do. > Do you have more feedback on the site that might help us improve it? We > will be adding more improvements over the next few weeks as we get it to > a state we can be happy with until the next big update. > > Thanks! > ,Wil > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: thurting [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 12:39 AM > > To: [email protected] > > Subject: Re: [fw-general] And a big thanks to Varien for the new site > > design! > > > > > > I'm going to have to disagree here. The front page is an atrocity. > > The > > download header dominates, the logo is out of control, and it is > > incredibly > > hard to scan the page for information. Also, the project is on > version > > 1.5.1 now. You need to update the .jpg because that is where this > > pivotal > > and dynamic information is displayed. > > > > > > Amr Mostafa wrote: > > > > > > Thanks for making us look like rock stars, Varien! ;-) > > > > > > On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 9:28 PM, Wil Sinclair <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > >> . . .and that's what I wish I would have remembered to say in the > > 1.5 > > >> announcement. :/ Seriously, they did an excellent job on the > design; > > we > > >> asked them to take the ZF site to a completely new level, and I > > think > > >> most people would agree they did just that. This is one BIG way > that > > >> they give back to the ZF project. Thanks SO much, guys. > > >> > > >> ,Wil > > >> > > > > > > > > > > -- > > View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/And-a-big-thanks- > > to-Varien-for-the-new-site-design%21-tp16105849p16535205.html > > Sent from the Zend Framework mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > >
