Re: my first try on changing the design of web site front page
On Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 12:32:29PM +0200, Josip Rodin wrote:
> I had a few ideas for a new web site design the other day, so I cooked up a
> draft of one of them. It's at http://joy.gkvk.hr/greeny/
>
> It's done using a different combination of colors, dark green as the general
> background, and orange-yellow-ish, white and light gray as box backgrounds.
> The content didn't change much, I just separated the initial description
> into its own box and had it have most contrast (black on white), to
> emphasize it. I pondered about more fancy changes between colors, so that it
> doesn't look so sharp, but I didn't get to that part yet.
i hope we can also restructure the content, skewed to help out
the newbies from windows/mac who are feeling quite lost.
done correctly, we can help cut down on some of the 'noise'
that's found on debian-user: same-old same-old questions
time after time. newbies ought to be able to find answers
to these types of questions at the website.
for the seasoned veteran who knows how to find her way around,
navigation is unlikely to be aproblem with any reasonable
arrangement -- but the newbies are (and i think rightfully so)
currently feeling a bit left out in the dust. developing a
newbie focus on www.debian.org does not require throwing the
veterans out the window, nor even altering the current directory
structure at all. newbies only need simply-worded pointers to
get them where they want to go.
if nothing else, we need a
"new to debian? click here!"
link that's hard to miss... not after a paragraph describing which
version is current, not within some text saying how to install it,
but all by itself saying "start here!"
preferably just below or just above the site-search entry form field.
oh, and by the way, we also need a site-search entry form field.
(and an engine to do the work. if nothing else, link to altavista.com
with host:debian.org at least.)
top left. nothing between it and the logo. mandatory.
--
josip -- your design is more interesting than the current
black-on-white scheme; but something about the table layout made
the page seem to take a long time to 'pop' in my netscape browser,
though. (easily coulda been a slow-to-respond server of one of
the sponsorship images at bottom left).
i agree with the link-color comments posted elsewhere; blue for
not-yet, and red for 'read that already' are good standards.
according to folks who have way too much free time, the easiest
combination of colors for reading is black on yellow. but too
much yellow will warm you right off the website. (might only
apply to printed reading, not electronic rgb reading...)
maybe your navbar should be 'reversed' -- i.e. same color as
your background with lighter text overlaid? i've finally got
a combination i like at http://www.dontUthink.com/ after
weeks of fiddling. (interested to know if it breaks for anyone;
it seems to be okay for netscape 4.7 and explorer 5.5.)
--
back to the 'marketing debian to people who don't already have it
embedded on their eyelids' concept--
i'd have a link structure like this as the top of the
nav bar for each page:
1) new to debian?
a) where/how to get it
b) installing tips
c) troubleshoot your install
d) keeping up-to-date
e) where's the documentation
f) finding the package you want
g) sysadmin tips/howto
2) why debian
a) features
b) vs red-hat
c) vs openbsd
d) vs slackware
e) vs microso~1
f) vs apple
3) what is debian
a) what is linux
b) what is gnu
c) who's ian? and deb?
d) what are packages
e) finding the package you want
4) care & feeding of your debian system
a) internet http/ftp connection
b) apt-get
c) dselect/dpkg
d) *.deb vs *.rpm
e) building your own local mirror
5) why you should avoid *.rpm
6) security issues
a) known snags
b) reputation for plugging hols
and so forth.
there's no reason to avoid redundant links to any certain destination,
such as 4d and 5: the idea is to make it easy for curious folks to
find what they want to find, *including* someone who doesn't know the
terminology (potato, cvs, sources.list, gnu, patch, ...)
that is, some people may search for "keeping up to date" where
others may look for "getting the latest packages" or "downloading
updated patches" -- they should ALL be able to quickly find
at www.debian.org the 'apt-get' page and the 'sources.list'
information they need.
with a newbie-centric focus, debian ranks are bound to explode:
the software is great, the system is tremendously stable, and
the community behind it is rock-solid. with a well-thought-out
presentation of info on the website, we'll be able to cut down
on some of the repetitive questions that run across debian-user
by answering them in advance, leaving debian-user gurus free
to ponder *interesting* puzzles instead of the same old gunk.
let's do it!
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