Re: Potential www redesign at www.deb.at
On 14:38 Thu 08 Oct, Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt wrote:
> (1) I like the logo proposed by Valessio Brito [1]. Removing GNU/Linux
> is a good idea, we are not only about Linux anymore, and I never
> was a big fan of GNU/ in every place. Yes, RMS will send the
> black helicopters soon.
> Anyway, that logo is nice, but I would keep just one big "Get
> it!"-Button in it. It's simple, it's in a prominent place and it
> simply looks good.
I might be wrong and apologies if im stepping on anyones toes, but I
always assumed that the elements of the logo combined as seen on the
current www.debian.org as well as the image above [1] is just someone
combining two elements without adjusting them to actually work together.
The relative weight of the swirl to the text is very uneasy it looks
like they were never designed to be placed together like that. Valessios
proposal is a bit better that w.d.o though. The logo as found under
/logos [2] is in my view a _lot_ better.
Your suggestions for a more prominent download link is totally valid.
> (2) The navigation bar in the vertical center of the index page (or at
> the bottom of some of the other pages) seems weird. My flatmate
> commented this with "Woah, it looks like one of those ad boxes on
> domain squatter pages" - and I have to admit that I can understand
> this.
> Is there a reason not to put the (redesigned, as it is now) boxes
> as a nav bar on the left side? It may be old-school, but it doesn't
> look bad and it is easy to find.
> Also, the nav bar at the bottom makes the footer cover half a screen
> page on my monitor, and I don't think that 24" qualifies as a small
> screen.
In my view the use of left column navigation places you under the
obligation to consistently repeat that element throughout the site. This
has very far reaching implications for the structure and maintenance of
the site. The centralised horizontal list of links reads more like a one
off thing, see [3], [4]. Your friends comment is quite strange
considering how common this practice is.
Lists of links in the footer is a fairly recent but very useful feature,
particularly for a site such as w.d.o that does not offer full
contextual links, but is more document based. see [4], [5], [6]
> (3) deb.at/devel/ is very hard to read. Definitely work needed, the old
> pages had boxes there, making it a lot easier to read.
> Coloring the borders in light grey might even do the job - no
> prominent change, but helps to keep the focus in one place.
The columns are probably to close together. Boxing stuff in very rarely
aids in readability, unless there is a lot of content to cram in. Try
resting your eyes on the text on www.deb.at/devel and then
www.debian.org/devel I think you will find that the black frames impose
themselves into your field of view and disturb the text.
> (4) deb.at/doc/user-manuals is also hard to read, and might need some
> optimization - not only for the layout, but I can't see why a page
> with user docs should have a links to and checkout instructions for
> the doc sources.
Perhaps you are suffering from the relatively large font which limits
the overview somewhat. I was suggested to me that the website should
respect the users font settings, and I agreed that this was the correct
approach.
It's great to get some feedback :-)
[1] <http://valessiobrito.info/tmp/Debian-WWW.png>
[2] <http://www.debian.org/logos>
[3] <http://www.freebsd.org>
[4] <http://apple.com>
[5] <http://www.blender.org>
[6] <http://www.gimp.org>
--
Kalle Söderman http://www.kalleswork.net pgp AEE520DC
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