[maemo-community] maemo.org redesign

[From: Quim Gil]

I think Tim's mockup can be improved at a design/usability level in
order to provide clarity where there is confusion.

ext Andrew Flegg wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Tim <tim at samoff.com> wrote:
>> Great comments! I tend to agree (mostly), although, I started liking the
>> "dynamic" approach the more I got into the design -- which is why I removed
>> the main bug "nav" buttons from _our_ original designs. ;) Maybe I (or
>> someone) can come up with a good hybrid between the two.
> 
> The trouble is, if you just arrive at maemo.org semi-randomly[1],
> being presented with a mass of news,

Present only 1 highlighted news + 2 additional headers to get a grasp of
what is going on.


> a "pearl" (there's no context for what that really is)

And why "pearl" matters when the app presented to you is something
attractive and cool.

> a mass of downloads etc. is just overwhelming.

Agreed, no mass. I would show 2 or 3 downloads only on the top of the
page. If the downloads are good, the screenshots are sexy and the
descriptions are interesting 49% of the homepage mission is accomplished
already.


> If nothing else, can we have consensus between the various people
> discussing this that the maemo.org *frontpage* shouldn't try to be a
> daily/weekly/regularly-visited homepage for Maemo-related content for
> existing community members?

Agreed, this would be the signed-in homepage. However, a good content
snapshot that changes over time is still better (even for those
semi-random users) than rather static welcoming messages.


> And that the frontpage *has* to handle
> being some form of gateway (especially until we've actually /seen/
> http://maemo.nokia.com/)?

Tim's mockup can be improved to handle this better, through a more
visible top navigation bar and moving up that collection of shortcuts in
the column.


> [1] Although we can *hope* people arrive at http://maemo.nokia.com/ first, and
>     *assume* they will if they follow the (presumably) built-in "breadcrumbs"
>     (and are existing device owners); I think we probably shouldn't take it for
>     granted for all visitors.

Ok, let's not take for granted that the maemo.org visitors we want to
satisfy know the basics of Maemo. But considering what Maemo is, we can
take for granted that those users are fluent Internet/media people, used
to see websites like those at
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=global&lang=none and
prepare to react when presented several choices (if presented well, of
course).

Even http://www.dummies.com/ doesn't hesitate showing something vivid -
and they seem to know what _dummy_ users want.  ;)

-- 
Quim Gil
marketing manager, open source
Maemo Software @ Nokia