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Re: new Debian homepage: request for review



Hi Birger

Thanks for your mail.


El 7 de noviembre de 2019 20:21:03 CET, Birger Schacht <birger@rantanplan.org> escribió:
>Hi,
>
>On 10/7/19 10:56 PM, lange@debian.org wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> before starting the translations of the new homepage I like to ask
>for review
>> from native speakers. Following pages in the new-homepage branch
>> (git@salsa.debian.org:webmaster-team/webwml.git) needs to be
>reviewed:
>> 
>> english/index.wml             (complete rewrite)
>> english/more.wml              (new page)
>> english/intro/why_debian.wml  (I completely rewrote this page)
>> 
>> You can see the new homepage at
>https://debian-newhomepage.larjona.net
>> It would be nice to get some feedback.
>
>Sorry if I'm late in the game ;) 

You are not late, even if we publish the pages, we can go on polishing thibgs afterwards :-)

also: I'm not sure if that was a call
>for feedback regarding localization or layout- I can only comment on
>the
>latter.

Any comment is welcome (content, design, or other aspects).

Since most of your feedback is about the layout, I'm CC'ing the Debian Design, so maybe any of them can comment/help.

>But first of alle congrats to the new design, I think it looks a lot
>nicer and welcoming than the old website! And please don't get
>discouraged by some of the not so useful feedback! I know how much work
>goes into designing a website ;)
>

Thanks!

>Still, there are some minor issues that caught my eye (sorry if they
>have already been brought up- I tried to follow the discussions but
>there were too many mails):
>
>* one thing that bothers me on a lot (but that hasn't even to do
>directly with the new design, it also occurs on other Debian website)
>are the margins and paddings of the main elements. This is somehow part
>of the design specification thats documentend on
>https://wiki.debian.org/DebianWebdesign. The #header has a padding on
>the left of 52px to make place for the Debian logo and 10px on the
>right. The main elements below follow these settings by using margins
>of
>10 and 52 pixels. I think this makes the whole page look a bit askew,
>because there is now a big gap on the left and a small gap on the right
>of the content. I actually don't get why there even has to be a margin
>at all- I think the website would look a lot cleaner by removing the
>margins alltogether (that would mean making the padding in line 96 of
>debian.css only on the left side and removing the margins of #content
>in
>debian.css:84 and of #footer in debian.css:516).
>

I don't know which one is better but if you provide a patch, I can apply it in the new-homepage branch and we can see the difference "live".

>* fonts: I think the #h1 elements should be the same font as on the
>rest
>of the page and definitly not a serif typeface (startpage.css:122); The
>headers are already uppercase, centered, bigger and bold- I think those
>properties make them eyecatchie enough.
>

+1, but take my opinion as "just one user", I personally don't care/know much about the appearance of web pages, just go to find the content I need.

>* hover animation: to me the text-transformation when hovering the
>headers feels unsettling. When I move the mouse from one column to the
>other, suddenly the column where I came from moves and pulls my eyes
>back. Also changes in size have sideeffects (not only the already
>reported bug that the horizontal scrollbar appears, but also the
>vertical scrollbar changes the scrollbar size, because the website
>gains
>height). And its an effect that only works on devices where you can
>hover over elements, which isn't possible on most devices nowadays,
>because they have touchscreens. (I think the website looks really good
>on mobile btw!)
>

Same as above: I have no opinion about keeping the animation or removing it. I guess if it's there it means it's valuable for others...


>* hover animation2: when hovering over the icons in the two columns,
>the
>text on the right of the icons moves. I'm not exactly sure, but I think
>this is because they inherit a grey border from .column and in
>.colum:hover that border gets then removed, which makes the icon
>element
>a bit smaller and thus changes the position of the text. (I'm actually
>not sure about the .column:hover effects).
>

I have noticed this and I didn't know if it was a bug or it was intended. I also don't know how to fix it.

>* Some even minor thoughts:
>+ Both columns have the same icon and title for the 'More...' link-
>maybe the OS column 'More...' link should be titled 'Further infos'
>(and
>then the 'Further' from the link description should probably be
>dropped)
>and the 'More...' link on the community side could have another icon.

Both 'More' link to the same page (different sections). Maybe we can remove the "More" word in both columns and make the link with the following sentence? I'm also fine with the current status, don't see a big problem with the word and the icon repeated.

>+ I think the RSS links don't fit in the design of the page, both
>because the orange doesn't blend in with the rest of the colors of the
>page and also because they are the only elements on the page that are
>right-justified. I think its also too much distance from the elements
>they are referring to. Also both RSS icons have different designs (blue
>on orange vs. white on orange).

Yes, I just pasted the code from the current homepage and didn't adjust the layout... I would propose to use the 'rss' icon or glyph (the symbol). I'm not sure where to place them, though (just after the last word in their lines? Right-justified? In other place in the page?)

>+ The calendar icons from the project news have a different design from
>the icons in the first row (they have colors and shadows). Maybe it
>makes sense to harmonize the icons (I know that the calender icons
>aren't actually icons ;))

The icons in the above columns will change but I would like to keep them simple, so the harmonisation would be to make the calendar icon more similar than the others. I will try to make a proposal these days, but patches also welcome.

>+ Is the 'Last modified' and 'Last Built' information used that often,
>that is should be in the footer or is it maybe also enough to put it in
>the HTML source as a comment?

It's been in the footer since always and people wrote to the list when the info was not accurate for some bug or issue, so I think it's valuable that is visible.

My proposal would be to put both sentences in the same line so the footer is thinner.

>+ I found myself wanting to click on 'The community' or 'The operating
>system' and the pictures below. Maybe they should lead somewhere?

The photos in the "People" column have clickable buttons to go to the next/previous. The Debian logo in the "Operating System" section includes the Download button. The titles... maybe could link to their respective section in the "More..." subpage, but I doubt that it's helpful.

Maybe you want to click there because of the 'hover animation', and if we remove the animation (because of the issues mentioned above) the "wanting to click" would disappear?

>+ (I think the header should be replaced by the 'splash' element
>everywhere ;)) )
>

This I didn't understand. Currently, the proposal is:
Header in homepage: 
* Debian logo + search
* links to blog + micronews + planet
* Line to show the breadcrumbs ( /)
* banner of current stable theme with "Debian, The Universal Operating System" (note that this is not translatable, currently)

Header in subpages:
* Debian logo + search
* links to blog + micronews + planet
* Line to show the breadcrumbs  (e.g. / latest news )

Could you specify the change you propose? Adding the banner of current stable theme to every page? Removing something?

>I hope that was some helpful feedback- I am happy to send patches
>and/or
>merge requests if needed, just let me know where I can help ;)
>

Thanks again for your comments!

I think I prefer patches than merge requests, it's easier for me to adapt if the code changes in the meanwhile, and also I prefer the proposals to go to the list and not only to the people who changed their salsa settings to get notifications about merge requests.

Cheers

-- 
Laura Arjona Reina
https://wiki.debian.org/LauraArjona
Sent with K-9 mail


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