I was just thinking about this today - and wanted to point everyone in
the direction of a mighty empty Wiki page that we started a while back
to facilitate this discussion.
Currently I can't get to the Wiki at docs.ofbiz.org - as I'm sure that
Confluence is probably hung up. Could someone give it a kick?
Anyways, when it's back up - there is a page already started with some
interesting questions (offered up by Si Chen a while back) that I think
that we should answer in order to understand where we're headed.
The audience will be such a large driving force in the general
reorganization of this information - that we need to understand who
we're talking to first. Just my two cents.
Cheers,
Tim
--
Tim Ruppert
HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
o:801.649.6594
f:801.649.6595
David E Jones wrote:
I very much agree that the ofbiz.org web site could use some
improvement, although I rather think that at this point it needs more
of a planned re-design rather than iterative improvements.
First maybe some background of the current site:
1. the structure of the site, except for reorganizing and adding some
color to the home page about a year and a half ago (looks like April
2005), has not changed in a few years and is basically the original
structure of the site
2. the intent of the web site from the beginning of the project has
been to serve the needs of developers and hopefully attract
contributors, ie people that are detail oriented and have the skills
and/or interest necessary to be able, and likely to, contribute to the
project in a meaningful way
3. the project is now reaching a point where we do want to attract
more end-users that will likely not contribute directly to the
project, or even interact directly with it, but that are certainly
still extremely important to the long term success and stability of
the project
4. the web site has been created and maintained by a single person
(yours truly and sincerely) with little feedback except for occasional
small mistakes or needs for change or contributions like testimonials
and case studies (which we could use a LOT more of); the person who
has created and is maintaining the site has done quite a bit of
research on web site usability including reviewing various case
studies (the current "big page" design for the home page was based on
a case study of amazon.com) and studied human-computer interaction in
his one semester of graduate school, and so he knows very well that
one of the big problems with the current site is that it has had no
usability studies, and not enough feedback from actual users to
substitute for that; he is also not a graphic designer and has
demonstrated this by creating the current layout and color scheme of
the ofbiz site
Because of this history of the site and the changing direction of the
project, my opinion is that instead of starting with what we've got
and talking about moving things around, perhaps we should start with
more of a blank slate and talk about what we'd like the site to look
like, and then after something is in place there review the current
stuff and decide where everything should go (including a trash bin
option...).
With iterative changes at this point, like the ones you've proposed
which are individually good, I think it could hide resources or make
the site more difficult to navigate for a while, ie until it finally
settles down, and during that period it could be even worse than it is
now in terms of usability, find-ability, et cetera.
-David
On Sep 15, 2006, at 4:31 AM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
Hi all,
what about simplifying the main page of the OFBiz website:
http://incubator.apache.org/ofbiz/
?
I've started reviewing the links in the left column (that for your
convenience I've copied at the bottom of this message), and I think
that some of them are unnecessary and can be removed or at least
moved to a new web page named "Misc Resources" (or something like this).
In detail:
1) the section "Cool Sites" could be removed
2) the sections "Apache OFBiz Communities" and "Apache OFBiz Related
Blogs" could be moved to the new "Resources" page
3) in the "What is OFBiz?" section, the links "Brochures",
"Conference Videos" and "Framework Intro Videos" should be moved to
the http://incubator.apache.org/ofbiz/documents.html page
4) in the "Download OFBiz" section:
4a) the links "Getting And Using OFBiz", "Production Setup Guide",
should be moved to the
http://incubator.apache.org/ofbiz/documents.html page
4b) the "Documentation" link can be removed
4c) the "Release Notes" link can be removed (or hidden) because it
the referenced document is too old
4d) the "Download Releases" link should be hidden or should point to
the new (temp) folder where the RC1 is stored: I think that the
reference to the OLD sourceforge release can be very confusing for
new users
5) in the "Resources & Tools" section:
5a) add a new link to the new "Misc Resources" page (that needs to be
created)
5b) move the "Old Mailing Lists", "The Old Java.net Site",
"The Old SourceForge.net Site", "Old Wiki" links to the new "Misc
Resources" page
5c) remove the "Old Jira (Issue Tracker)" link
5d) all the following links can be moved (they are already in the
"documentation" page): "Documentation (Confluence)", "Production
Setup Guide", "Documentation" (maybe we could leave just this),
"Conference Videos"
Thanks for your time,
Jacopo
===================================================
***What is OFBiz?***
General Overview
Is OFBiz for Me?
Feature List
Features Coming Soon
Brochures
Documentation
Conference Videos
Framework Intro Videos
***Demo Site***
Extended Demo by Open Travel System
eCommerce Demo
Management Console
Hotel Frontend
Hotel Backend
***Download OFBiz***
Getting And Using OFBiz (PDF)
Production Setup Guide
Source Access (Recommended)
Release Notes
Download Releases
Weekly Builds
Documentation
Copyright & License
***Resources & Tools***
Apache Incubator Status
dev Mailing List
user Mailing List
commits Mailing List
Old Mailing Lists
Apache OFBiz - Jira (Issue Tracker)
Old Jira (Issue Tracker)
SVN (Source Repository)
Documentation (Confluence)
Docs Site: Wiki
Old Wiki
Production Setup Guide
Documentation
Conference Videos
The Old Java.net Site
The Old SourceForge.net Site
***Apache OFBiz Related Blogs***
OFBiz and Open Source by David E. Jones
What's New in OFBiz by Si Chen
***Apache OFBiz Communities***
Locales
United Kingdom
Germany
France
Netherlands
China
Industries
Government
Travel
***Cool Sites***
Java.Net
SourceForge
FreshMeat
NewsForge
Slashdot
JavaLobby
TheServerSide
