On May 26, Owen Winkler <[email protected]> wrote: > There are actually FOUR types of users who visit our > site. (I documented this long ago > athttp://wiki.habariproject.org/en/Designs/Habari_Home)
I'll volunteer my anecdotal experience. I'd never have installed Habari if I hadn't seen the Monolith videos at Viddler. What really brought me here were the silos, the loupe and the clean entry-editing pages. These things are not *adequately* represented on the home page. (Mentioning "silo" as a Feature bullet-item doesn't tell me what it is. Only after seeing it at viddler did I fall in love.) Don't get me wrong: I'm not suggesting we clutter the home page. Just saying that "silo" and "loupe" don't mean anything to me there. The install video? Not so useful until after I was interested. (It still really needs the so.addvariable( "image"...) too.) The install video to me was less important than seeing screenshots of the admin panels, editing page, and videos of the loupe and silo interactions. I mean, regarding installing, I just assumed installing wouldn't be any more difficult than most other blog engines. Php, database, what else should I need? An easy install is a prerequisite. Not so much a top-item feature. I always scan for a feed icon. May be nice to put one (with a link to the feed of course) next to "Community Blog". In the sidebar, it'd reinforce the idea that what follows there comes from a blog, and that this index page is not itself a blog page. > We need also to keep in mind that our home page (as distasteful as it > may seem) must include some SEO. If a goal of the site is to attract > new users, and they never find our site when searching, we've already > failed. So true. Searching for "habari screenshots" "habari panel" and "habari admin" really didn't put me where I wanted to be. If I haven't installed it yet, I'd want to see current screenshots, to know if I want to bother downloading. > There are some claims being made by folks about what users want to see. > I made this Crazyegg heatmap a while back, showing where people > actually click on our site: > > http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3178/2817018229_663dc042c1_o.png That's exactly how I clicked. I feel like it was recording me. If the word "screenshots" had been there, it'd have been pretty hot, too, I'd guess. If "plugins" and "themes" were links, you'd have seen significant heat there, too, I'd wager. I wasn't interested in the community. I wanted to learn about the product Habari. The community is awesome, but that's not what I was originally investigating. > Nonetheless, I like the idea of portals for the separate user types, > because it caters to the idea that there is more than one type of > visitor to the site. I'm not sure that those should be automatically > presented based on user preference, but a "developer center" that > appears after you log in would be useful. > > On the other hand, I oppose the idea of draggable, personalized, > configurable interface elements. Habari is not Netvibes, and I don't > see that we have that much information to drag around anyway. Please > also keep in mind that this site will require maintenance. Phew. I'm glad you said that last bit. > And finally: Tag Clouds-- At the blog? Whatever. At the home page? Not really applicable. --David --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/habari-users -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
