[maemo-community] maemo.org redesign

[From: Dave Neary]

Hi,

Tim wrote:
> New design concept here:
> 
>     http://samoff.maemobox.org/maemo_redesign/samoff-maemo.org-redesign_idea_0008b.png
>     <http://samoff.maemobox.org/maemo_redesign/samoff-maemo.org-redesign_idea_0008b.png

A few things have dropped off the past few rounds of mock-ups which I
think are pretty important - I'm going to comment with a question:

The guy who comes to the site to get help with a problem - where will he
click?

The guy who wants to find out how he can help, or how he can give
feedback - where does he click?

I think we definitely need to address this use-vase prominently - right
now, he has maybe 5/6 links to consider: "Mailing lists",
"Documentation", "Users united", "Bugzilla", "Wiki".

I still think it's a mistake to have Bugzilla, wiki, mailing lists on
the front page. Garage doesn't mean anything to someone who's not
already a community member. I'm not sure that "Documentation" makes
sense as a front page link, because you have 3 types of documentation:
user documentation, developer tutorials and guides, and developer
reference documentation. I think it's more important to filter people
through based on whether they're developers or users, to direct them to
sites where we direct people to targeted mailing lists, forums and other
resources.

> This is probably the "simplest" design ever -- meaning in look/feel, not
> necessarily execution. ;) In my opinion, it even feels
> simila-but-different to the current maemo.org site -- which can be a
> good thing for the transition. In any case, I think it shows dynamic
> content in a fairly organized and intuitive manner this time.

There are elements of this design I really like - I do think it's
promising, but I think we need to have the "solve a problem",
"developer", "downloads", "news" "get involved" prominent on the home
page. On the new design, Downloads and News are really well represented,
and we've dropped the links for solving problems and getting involved to
some extent. And "Development" has been reduced to one small link in the
top right.

I'd really like us to go back to prominent placement of categories like
"problem", "get involved", "developer" - perhaps with big graphical
buttons like Tim proposed in his V1.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
maemo.org docsmaster
Email: dneary at maemo.org
Jabber: bolsh at jabber.org