Website Improvement Ideas

A post was made on the DragonFlyBSD Digest which had some questions 
regarding the userfriendlyness of the DragonFly website.

After some consideration I decided to do a quick re-arrangement & mockup 
to try and make a better homepage (of course it can be said many 
underlying pages could use some adjustments as well).

A demo can be found here:
(note the menu links don't go anywhere)

http://www.jamesfrazer.com/dfbsd/dfbsd.html

I am posting this to try and encourage some feedback/discussion as I 
think some valuable improvements can be made.  I would also like to copy 
and paste an explanation (of the choices I made) that I had written in 
an email to Justin:

-----------

The main theme of my changes have been along the lines of:
1.  cutting out redundant or unnecessary material
2.  combining similar items under one menu link
3.  putting the most important things first
4.  moving things to the wiki (which itself might need a reorganization)

As you can see in the mockup (assuming that evil CSS renders
properly), is that the focus is heavily on simplicity:  I'm trying to
get the signal to noise ratio in favour of the signal.... The design
could probably use a bit more pizzazz, but it's more important right
now to have sane functionality.

Okay I just want to summarise what would happen to existing content:

1.  History and Team are combined and renamed About as they seem to go
together, as the history page was rather short anyway -- certainly
undeserving of a link unto itself.

2.  The Goals page is moved to the top as I think it's somewhat
important to newcomers who want a more detailed idea than the About
page provides

3.  The Mascot & Images pages seemed without major value to me.  I
figure they can either be nuked, or any important info on them can be
moved to the wiki.

4.  The Download page has been promoted to a slot closer to the top.
Something should be said about the page itself:  If I was someone
wanting to download DragonFly I'd have to do a lot of reading before
finding a useful download link on that page... this page could use
some tweaking.

5.  Bugs is combined with the page on the security officer PGP key as
it seems that they go together, and the security page was too short to
get a top-level link by itself.

Now I will pause and point out that the first four menu items the
visiter will see are:  About, Goals, Download, Bugs <-- which it seems
to have a logical flow to it and puts all the most important things
first.

6.  It dawned on me that the Mail, News, and Archives links were
somewhat of a holy trinity, and surely far too insanely complicated
for any mere mortal to decipher... these all point to different ways
of accessing the same information -- right?   Well I would put them
all under the same page "Mail & Lists"

7.  The Release link was removed as I think it can be quite easily
confused with Download -- Furthermore it exists on the main content
area and probably always will.  However, I recognize the difference
between "Download" and "Release" and think the only sane
solution is
to:  a)  have Release give information about the new release, but:  b)
  link to a redesigned Download page that will in itself require some
kind of sanity check so that it's actually possible to find something
to download.

8.  Wiki was renamed to Documentation, and it's my opinion that's
where the documentation should go.  In the past I've observed
(exaggeration alert) a tendency to have 16 different versions of the
same information available in 12 different places...  This is too
cluttered and becomes a maintenance nightmare.

9.  I'm not sure what can be done with the Donations page -- does
anyone actually donate?  I think I'd shove it onto the wiki... with a
link from the About page that can lead to the wiki entry.

10.  The diary can be moved to the wiki -- I don't feel it's important
enough to be on the main page for two reasons:  1.  it's rarely
updated -- the last update was 8 months ago;  and 2.  Most of the
recent (and relevant) information is also on the Release page.

11.  Digest is moved from status to Community as it seemed more
fitting there, and since Bugs was already moved this allows for the
Status section to go away.

12.  CVSWeb & Man Pages are put under a utilities menu

13.  The remainder of the Documents items can be shoved into the
hopefully-well-organized wiki, apart from Goals which was already
moved to the top.

And that concludes my longwinded explanation on what I think might be

On Thu, April 10, 2008 5:42 pm, James Frazer wrote:
> A post was made on the DragonFlyBSD Digest which had some questions
> regarding the userfriendlyness of the DragonFly website.
>
> After some consideration I decided to do a quick re-arrangement &
mockup
> to try and make a better homepage (of course it can be said many
> underlying pages could use some adjustments as well).

This is all great; I've made several attempts to put something together to
change the content of the site to make it more focused, but I hadn't
actually completed any of it - got too caught up in the process, or
something else intervened.

My comments -
- At least the DragonFly logo should be on the about page, in a few
different formats.  This way, when another site wants a graphic to go with
a story that mentions DragonFly, they have something usable.  I've seen a
lot of places take the main site logo, which is OK, but a better version
with a different aspect ratio wouldn't hurt.

- We can always change the visual appearance in a separate task.

- I'd make the Download even more prominent, with a big graphic, similar
to the Firefox website.  I'd wager most of our traffic is for that
purpose, after all.

On Mon, April 14, 2008 7:50 pm, Christopher Rawnsley wrote:

>> 11.  Digest is moved from status to Community as it seemed more
>> fitting there, and since Bugs was already moved this allows for the
>> Status section to go away.
>
> I would also suggest that it be on the mainsite rather than off site.
> But I guess it is Justin's baby so it is up to him. I would consider
> renaming it to news...

I'm currently using WordPress for the Digest, which is PHP-based.  The
software itself is nice, but that underlying language isn't likely to get
run on dragonflybsd.org machines anytime soon.  Perhaps using something
like Movable Type (not PHP based, somewhat more robust) would be a more
comfortable choice - it's what I used to start the Digest, and the reasons
I had switched away are no longer present.

That aside, I'd like to have the Digest on dragonflybsd.org and make it
possible for others to add to it; it'd be even more interesting to have a
developer talking about why they did what they did instead of just me
linking to it.  Would I then have to stay more on topic?  I don't know,
but I hope not.

> I initiated a "redesign" of myself before writing this email. In
my
> design and I have considered more about reducing the overall number of
> menu items. While this sometimes means that you have to use two clicks
> to get the same location I think that it may make things even easier.
> Interested to know other people's thoughts?

Reduction in menu items isn't a goal in and of itself; changing the design
of the site so that people can get to what they need is important.  We
show the pages with a whole pile of links that have been categorized but
all have the same visual weight and relative position.  I don't have
(recent) stats to back this up, but most of the visits are just to get
ahold of DragonFly, and that should be the shortest path possible, in
terms of mouse miles and brain effort.

> I tried my hand at redesigning the overall page as well. I'll put up
> my work up in due course to allow for a comparison but we share many
> of the same ideas about content. I think that perhaps the website
> should go that one step further and have some form of CMS that could
> be edited by anyone who doesn't particularly want to get in to the
> details of learning HTML, CSS etc.

I've suggested turning the whole site into a wiki; everything on
dragonflybsd.org can be produced the same way on a wiki but with less
effort in terms of creation.  Wikis tend to be messy, but with some
organizational work, it could turn out very well for us, since adding
files through CVS has turned out to be a rather high barrier for folks who
don't already know it.

On 10 Apr 2008, at 22:42, James Frazer wrote:
> Okay I just want to summarise what would happen to existing content:
>
> 1.  History and Team are combined and renamed About as they seem to go
> together, as the history page was rather short anyway -- certainly
> undeserving of a link unto itself.

I think that putting the team information on the about is slightly  
unnecessary. A newcomer to the project doesn't really care about such  
things. I do think that maybe a link to further information on the  
about page which would give more in depth information on the project  
including team information.

> 2.  The Goals page is moved to the top as I think it's somewhat
> important to newcomers who want a more detailed idea than the About
> page provides

I think that this should be also worked in to the about page in a very  
brief form. There is a lot of information in there which is very  
technical that I think many newcomers would find overwhelming.  
However, if that person follows what is said on the about page they  
will search for more information they can be linked to from the about  
page.

> 3.  The Mascot & Images pages seemed without major value to me.  I
> figure they can either be nuked, or any important info on them can be
> moved to the wiki.

Totally agree. Maybe ol' Fred can make an appearance on the about page  
though. :)

> 4.  The Download page has been promoted to a slot closer to the top.
> Something should be said about the page itself:  If I was someone
> wanting to download DragonFly I'd have to do a lot of reading before
> finding a useful download link on that page... this page could use
> some tweaking.

While I agree that the download page should be nearer the top in a  
more obvious location I don't think that it necessarily needs a  
mention on the about page as it is now in a prominent position on the  
navigation bar.

> 5.  Bugs is combined with the page on the security officer PGP key as
> it seems that they go together, and the security page was too short to
> get a top-level link by itself.

Agree.

> 6.  It dawned on me that the Mail, News, and Archives links were
> somewhat of a holy trinity, and surely far too insanely complicated
> for any mere mortal to decipher... these all point to different ways
> of accessing the same information -- right?   Well I would put them
> all under the same page "Mail & Lists"

Totally agree!

> 7.  The Release link was removed as I think it can be quite easily
> confused with Download -- Furthermore it exists on the main content
> area and probably always will.  However, I recognize the difference
> between "Download" and "Release" and think the only
sane solution is
> link to a redesigned Download page that will in itself require some
> kind of sanity check so that it's actually possible to find something
> to download.

I think you're right to have one link on the menu bar. On the download  
page, I think access to the ISO images should be in a more prominent  
position near the top. There should also be a link to release  
information close by. Many things could be done though and these are  
just a few quick ideas off the top of my head.

> 8.  Wiki was renamed to Documentation, and it's my opinion that's
> where the documentation should go.  In the past I've observed
> (exaggeration alert) a tendency to have 16 different versions of the
> same information available in 12 different places...  This is too
> cluttered and becomes a maintenance nightmare.

Agree.

> 9.  I'm not sure what can be done with the Donations page -- does
> anyone actually donate?  I think I'd shove it onto the wiki... with a
> link from the About page that can lead to the wiki entry.

Agree.

> 10.  The diary can be moved to the wiki -- I don't feel it's important
> enough to be on the main page for two reasons:  1.  it's rarely
> updated -- the last update was 8 months ago;  and 2.  Most of the
> recent (and relevant) information is also on the Release page.

Agree.

> 11.  Digest is moved from status to Community as it seemed more
> fitting there, and since Bugs was already moved this allows for the
> Status section to go away.

I would also suggest that it be on the mainsite rather than off site.  
But I guess it is Justin's baby so it is up to him. I would consider  
renaming it to news...

I initiated a "redesign" of myself before writing this email. In my  
design and I have considered more about reducing the overall number of  
menu items. While this sometimes means that you have to use two clicks  
to get the same location I think that it may make things even easier.  
Interested to know other people's thoughts?

I tried my hand at redesigning the overall page as well. I'll put up  
my work up in due course to allow for a comparison but we share many  
of the same ideas about content. I think that perhaps the website  
should go that one step further and have some form of CMS that could  
be edited by anyone who doesn't particularly want to get in to the  
details of learning HTML, CSS etc.

--