Hi,
We received some fantastic feedback on iteration 6 last week, but we have a few more iterations to go, so your thoughts and comments are more important to the process now than ever before.
You will notice with iteration 7 that we have made some quite drastic changes over the last week ... changes that we feel better serve existing Drupal users AND people new to Drupal. Leisa will be posting shortly (here it is) with our thinking on some of these proposed changes.
As you look at the prototype and feedback your thoughts and ideas in this thread. The link to the latest iteration is below:
http://drupal.markboultondesign.com/iteration7
Key points on this iteration:
- Changes to Information architecture, which can be summarised as (extracted from Leisa's upcoming post):
* placing a much greater emphasis on the search behaviour from the homepage (and throughout the site), and significantly simplifying the 'header' navigation.
* A behaviour which we have observed since the very early days on this project has the use of search
* inclusion of the 'big ass footer'
- We've yet to incorporate advertising in general (although we've included a few)
- Redesigned 'Getting Started' page
- Redesigned homepage and masthead. Taking on board community feedback, revised IA, and testing results.
There are some minor inconsistencies with style - these will be ironed out in coming iterations. Over the coming weeks, we'll also be addressing some of the finer details of the visual design.
We have also posted a request for specific feedback on the About section (now called 'Choosing Drupal'). If you have any feedback on this particular page such as the purpose you think it serves, content to be included and anything else, please comment on this thread:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/16456
Thanks again.
Mark
Comments
Bigger header +1
Really like the bigger header.
i dont
on my 13.3 inch mb, 1/3 is wasted header space, to much under the fold imho
--
bert boerland
--
bert boerland
dashboard
The big header would make it a bit hard to use the dashboard I think as well.
With netvibes to steal from them yet again), they have a huge search box in their default layout, which you can remove in preferences. I wonder if we could set it up so you can kill the big logo maybe have a little logo instead) and search block as an option if you're logged in to save the screen real estate for regular users?
I like 37signal's take on
I like 37signal's take on preferences:
https://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch06_Avoid_Preferences.php
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.entermedianow.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.chapterthree.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
I guess i was just thinking
I guess i was just thinking about how i saw i on my 23" screen in work. At home on my laptop it does use a lot of space, although it is only on the front page and does have a lot of content.
and why is the search so big?
from the copywriter
Hello all,
I though it might be good to point out that I haven't worked on smoothing out the writing on the Getting Started page. In fact, I haven't touched it. It's always great to hear your general ideas on IA and what's included first before I dig into that. Also, Mark's comment that the About page needs a lot of love...what you'll find there may be completely gone. That's my next project, and I'll be starting from scratch, so any input you want to give me is welcome. You can start fresh in your heads, rather than reacting to anything there - it was more IA and filler text, and I have yet to dive into that section.
Great to hear from all of you!
Should have introduced myself
I'm Carolyn Wood, and I'm working on some of the writing here and there. Hello!
Hi there! I'd say you have
Hi there! I'd say you have one of the hardest jobs in the world: translating drupalisms into something understandable, and readable. Great work on the getting started page!
A good trick I've found when writing about drupal to people who've never heard of it is to pretend they are one of those old bastard business men who bark "HUH?!", "Egh?" the moment they lose you, and will give up listening after the 3rd or 4th bark. But I'm weird, no doubt.
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.entermedianow.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.chapterthree.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
Re "getting started page"
On each step in "getting started" , the important words felt buried at the end, while the message often seemed a tad redundant Could lose half their characters and gain twice the force. For example:
I'm an extremist about cutting words out of websites, and even think a single verb would suffice "Download, Extend, Learn, Support". Drupal's pretty big in the branding after all. No need to repeat "drupal". But that's just me maybe.
[rant on drupal language]
"Extend drupal" is a phrase you've inherited. It makes sense to programmers, is a weird way to put it for everyone else. People "extend" warranties, vacations, warm welcomes, and various polite gestures with lukewarm sincerity.
I think "build" is a stronger verb (anything worldly and not associated with warranty salesmen). especially if you lose the extension to drupal, and say "Download Drupal : Your new site's foundation. | Build your site : Hundreds of features, hundreds of ways to paint it."
[/rant]
In any case, you've still done quite a bit better our current explanation!
What a strange way to put it...
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.entermedianow.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.chapterthree.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
whoooops!
Um. Woah. People look for a big button called "help" or "documentation" and that's now gone. I'm sure that's a whoops and not intentional. As an experienced Drupal contributer I would certainly not think to look in "Getting Started" to find advanced documentation on module development.
The pages feel too buried to me. For example: how did I get here?
http://drupal.markboultondesign.com/iteration7/core.html
If it weren't for the link from the summary page I wouldn't know how to get to that page. Links across the bottom need to be accessible from the main navigation as well. If I click on "Getting Started" there is nothing "in" the page that leads to the "download and extend" section.
Also under Download and Extend... could someone please clarify that Theme Engines really needs its own tab? I think this should be a sub-section of Themes especially as most themes use only the one engine...
Specific feedback for Getting Started http://drupal.markboultondesign.com/iteration7/getstarted.html :
I also don't like the numbers on the Getting Started page. Lots of people will need the documentation to download and install and extend Drupal. If you must use a linking analogy, I would rather these were puzzle pieces that all fit together rather than a sequential numbering scheme. The numbers in the headers should at least be clickable and put you in the relevant section of the Web site.
Under "Extend Drupal" in Getting Started I don't understand how "most popular" is being defined. Nor is there a space to explain this. I don't like having links to only four modules/themes under "Extend." This doesn't make sense to me at all. What is popular? What is useful? This will change for each person who needs to use Drupal. It is not universal, and should not be calculated based on page views.
So far this iteration is not an improvement for my needs. Too many conventions regarding documentation have been removed (or are not yet developed). I look forward to the next iteration and will try to think of more useful suggestions; however, at this point all I can think to say is, "too much has been removed."
see Leisa's upcoming post
emmajane, the removal of these section headers, particularly Documentation, are the result of a change in the IA. Leisa will be explaining those changes in a post shortly, but I can say, that the changes to the top navigation are in answer to some testing that was conducted: nobody used the top navigation. This is where 'search' becomes very important. We're proposing that the 'section' for documentation is replaced with a special search landing page. The content will still be there, but users will get to it via a different route.
There is still a ton of work to do on this iteration ready for next week: documentation, modules, themes and download are all top of the list.
search-centric
Search requires you to know the precise terms that you're looking for. There's no "browse" in search. I am concerned that there is currently no entry point for someone who feels they are beyond "Getting Started" and I'm looking forward to the next iteration...
Documentation as predefined facet
what if, on the homepage masthead, the documentation label next to the label is a link? Therefore, this becomes facet=documentation, orderby=all. The 'special' search results page renders the results as a landing page. We have the benefits of search, without a navigation label that isn't used.
search and home
I don't think it makes sense to make the label a link. A well-constructed form makes the label clickable to select the form option (in fact many Drupal forms are built this way). It gives a bigger target and is therefore easier to select the right form widget. If the label was a link lead to a different page, that would "break" the form.
To be honest I hadn't even recognized the radio buttons as being connected to the search form. I thought they were bullet points. I find the faceted search too confusing to use as it is currently designed. I've attached a screenshot. It doesn't read from left-to-right or top to bottom. It reads from left to right to bottom to right. I also have no way of "un" selecting any of the facets.
I think this structure would also mean that the only visible entry point for the Documentation would be the home page? That doesn't make sense to me either.
I have to say I agree with
I have to say I agree with emmajane on both the relatively limited visibility of documentation (which in my mind should be 1 click away from any page) and the confusing layout of the search options.
On the latter, placing the radio buttons into a hidden div and made available by "focused search" or something on the right or just below the Search button might be better. Currently it goes against eye-scan patterns.
Placing popular searches next to the radio buttons only adds to the problem. Perhaps those could be placed into a cloud underneath instead?
Laura
pingVision, LLC (we're hiring)
PINGV | Strategy • Design • Drupal Development
radios
At the very least they should be checkboxes. I like the idea of having a hidden div rather than them straight on the page. While I think I can see where this is leading, I'd be concerned about removing the prominent 'documentation' link entirely - it makes it look like we don't have any!
<label for>
Just reading: http://www.disambiguity.com/drupalorg-redesign-iteration-7-for-your-review/ now
whoah. It's very standard practice on the web to make labels for checkboxes and radios select the checkbox or radio. If we make them do something else, a few things are likely to happen 1. people who are familiar with this behaviour will get very confused 2. Some people will never click them, thinking they're labels 3. Lots of Drupal.org users get RSI trying to target the little tiny checkbox instead of the link.
Having said that, it's a nice idea, if it didn't contradict expected behaviour so much. And there's some space to work with, so I hope there's a chance to develop it further. But simply turning the labels into links is likely to result in a huge backlash.
I'm not sure I like the idea
I'm not sure I like the idea of having the form elements visible at all from that point. Its quite an investment in real estate.
However, I love the idea of this area being a place where the lost quickly find their way. I also think Mark is onto something good. What if a compromise?:
1. By default, links to documentation, forums (other areas people want to quickly jump to ) are visible, in a clearly linky-nav fashion
2. When the user's cursor focuses on the searchbox, an expandable set of "search in" checkboxes overlays the links. All checkboxes are checked by default. Maybe a cookie remembers your choice.Perhaps that cookie keeps it open once you open it, but politely lets you shut it too.
3. When from a search result, a user lands on a particular page provide a "back to results" button.
4. We solve the biggest searching issues on the search page.
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.entermedianow.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.chapterthree.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
nice
Yep, I don't think this would need to look too different visually from the current iteration, but it'd solve much of the issues for me.
Agree with @emmajane. + they
Agree with @emmajane. + they should be checkboxes.
Cheers
Wolfflow
Acquia on drupal.org?
What is the Acquia button doing on the Get Started page in the Get Support section? Acquia provides support for the Acquia Drupal distribution, not for a regular Drupal installation. You start of the section by saying that "the great thing about Drupal is that the community offers a wealth of support." By putting that button there you then say "but in the end, you really need commercial support" while that's definitely not true.
Let's keep this kind of thing for the Commercial Services section, right?
Advertising strategy is yet to be defined
this is just an ad placeholder. Getting started is arguably a premier spot for this type of advertising. Don't you think?
I don't think there should
I don't think there should be advertising on the key pages, it moves away from the whole open source, do it because it is fun idea.
What's wrong with having
What's wrong with having fun, sharing code, and making a living from it too? As far as ads go, Dries asked for available space on pages, so Mark is just doing his job. Bear in mind space like this doesn't have to be used for ads.
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.entermedianow.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.chapterthree.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
I agree that we shouldn't
I agree that we shouldn't advertise on key pages, especially if it isn't clear at all if the link or button is actually an advertisement. And if we would decide to put ads on those pages, please don't put them in the middle of a text but in a block with an "Advertisement" title.
Good ideas
Marking ads as ads is probably a good idea.
Adding a "Donate (to the Drupal Association)" button at a prominent place would also be a good idea.
Ads marked as Ads
Ads should be marked as Ads, I agree on this, good idea.
Thanks
Waqar | CTO at 4 Ace Technologies
yes
it should be clear what is text and what is sponsoring. so a placeholder with "-advertisement-" or so is needed.
--
bert boerland
--
bert boerland
fun doesnt pay the bill i am afraid
fun / itch is indeed the most important drive for getting acive in an oss community. yet, d.o needs hardware, bandwidth, sysops and other stuff as welll. One of the ways to get funding for this, is advertsing. Regardless if we are going to place ads on landingpages, we should have the /option/ to do so when we need it and having a design that does support the option to place ads is a sensible thing.
In fact, not having the option would be costly
--
bert boerland
--
bert boerland
At least we should make
At least we should make clear that it's an advertisement. Just putting it inline like that is, in my opinion, not done.
And if we want to gather more monetary resources through drupal.org, wouldn't it be a good/better idea to put the Drupal Association in the spotlight more?
Ads are important for at
Ads are important for at least four reasons:
The Drupal Association is dependent on advertising revenue from drupal.org. Some of our revenue comes from book royalties, some of our revenue comes from membership contributions, some of our revenue comes from ads on drupal.org. If we want to contract Mark for future design work and refinements, we better make sure we continue to make money from ads. ;-) It is a great way to make money because it requires limited amount of work -- this is important in volunteer driven organizations. Plus, all the revenue is invested back into the project to help with drupal.org, events, etc.
Being able to advertise to Drupal users is important to build successful businesses. For example, if you are providing commercial Drupal training, you better be able to reach out to Drupal users or you'll fail. We want Drupal businesses to succeed because they help grow the project.
If you don't provide mechanisms for companies to reach out to Drupal users, these companies will start to exploit alternative channels such as the Drupal Planet, the forums, etc. It is good to be able to say: "don't spam the forums, buy an ad instead".
Ads in the right places are actually a service. For example, if you are looking for commercial Drupal training you would probably go to the 'Events' section of Drupal.org. If there was an ad for commercial Drupal training on the Events page, it would actually be what you were looking for.
The better ads integrate, the better our website will look, the more effective ads can be.
I guess advert would be ok
I guess advert would be ok if they are clearly marked. I was just worried users would think the service being advertised was part of the Drupal brand.
But the wording would have to be given some thought to what is the best. Advertising? Partners? Friends? sponors? recomended? etc
a little more rationale
x-post with http://www.disambiguity.com/drupalorg-redesign-iteration-7-for-your-review/
We’re both excited and nervous to show you this latest version because we’ve taken a bit of a deviation from our previous path as a result of both feedback from you and usability testing, and us not being quite satisfied with the work that had been done so far.
There were a couple of things that were really bugging us in the versions up to now. In particular, the navigation in the header (there was so much of it and it looked kind of messy and confusing and in tests, we observed that people completely ignored it!). The Logged In version of the homepage was a good idea but the execution was coming up short as we learned that ‘hard core’ Drupallers thought it was a v valuable addition to the site but just about everyone else wasn’t interested…
A behaviour which we have observed since the very early days on this project has the use of search - lots of people use search lots of the time, and a lot of the tasks that the site has to support are heavily search oriented (finding modules, finding help etc.). Drupal.org users have some of the most advanced Google skills I’ve ever observed! - and yet up until now, the redesign of the site didn’t really pay this much heed - it was still very much a hierarchical site made up of silos of content… forcing people to choose between this section or that to find the content they required. Another thing that we had largely ignored is the use of URLs as shortcuts to information (eg api.drupal.org to get direct to the api documentation site)
(Having said that, I am very pleased that the information architecture has actually performed well in task based testing - with a few exceptions like, say, ‘Professional Services’ which was too limited for the content it needed to hold and has now been changed to ‘Commercial Services’ (you like?))
So, as a result of these issues, we’ve made some fairly significant changes to the homepage and navigation structures, placing a much greater emphasis on the search behaviour from the homepage (and throughout the site), and significantly simplifying the ‘header’ navigation. Early participants in the crowdsourced wireframing exercise may also be pleased to see the inclusion of the ‘big ass footer’ (refer to some early posts on the Flickr group if you have no idea what this refers to!)
We did some initial usability testing showing a more ’search’ based alternative earlier this week and it was quite well received - since then we’ve done quite a bit more work on it.
There is one important thing that has been missed in this version (which hopefully Mark will be able to get sorted tomorrow!) which is that the search refinements (modules, themes, documentation and forum posts) will be links direct to a ‘landing page’ for those sections to better support a browsing interaction style).
The ‘logged in homepage’ has evolved to a ‘dashboard’ which we hope will be more useful to a broader audience whilst still supporting the needs of the ‘hard core drupaller’. The idea would be that you could set whether you see your dashboard or the standard homepage as the default when you visit the site.
There are a whole range of changes and updates and additions, I won’t go through all of them here, rather, dive in and take a look for yourself. I’d really encourage you, as you do so, to think not only about ‘how do I like the look of this‘ but also think ‘how do I use the Drupal.org website now (or how would I?), and how would I do what I want to do on this version of the site?’
I do want to give a little more feedback on what we’ve learned from usability testing which explains the high priority and size of the ‘case study’ on the homepage. With virtually everyone that I have interviewed so far, almost without fail one of the most valuable pieces of content (not including modules etc.) is the case study - this is true both for ‘outsiders’ who are evaluating Drupal, but also for ‘insiders’ who are on the learning curve - the case study is a great opportunity for us to challenge the perception of what a Drupal site looks like, to showcase some of the great companies and organisation who use Drupal, to explain more about how Drupal sites are built, what modules were used, the team that is involved, any challenges and learnings along the way - in short - they are really very productive and impressive for a large group of our audience. As I said to Mark recently - I cannot overstate how valuable case studies are to the people I have met and talked to about the Drupal.org website - hence their very prominent position on the site.
We still have a lot of work to do - in particular, I’m hoping that we can make some good progress in the ‘documentation’ section and the modules and themes pages. These are very important parts of the site and what you see there at the moment doesn’t reflect our current thinking on how it should work (which has been influenced and inspired by listening to the community talk about what they need and what they’d like to see!). The community landing page is still very much up for grabs (needs more thought and love and doesn’t really reflect our current thinking). The Commercial Services page still doesn't have the right content or categories on it - there are lots of things we know about and haven't been able to get to yet - so don't be concerned, but do let us know if you have particular thoughts on any of those areas.
Please go in and take a look and let us know what you think - show your friends and tell us what they think, and consider getting involved in our crowdsourced usability testing if that takes your fancy.
This week I’d really like to invite people to do some usability testing comparing the previous (iteration 6) homepage with this one to get some feedback on this new direction.
I'm going to leave you guys to talk amongst yourselves for a while and check in a little later to catch up and talk more about this.
leisa reichelt - disambiguity.com
user experience consultant (design research and user centred design)
working with Mark Boulton Design on the drupal.org redesign project
leisa reichelt - disambiguity.com
@leisa
The latest version is a huge
The latest version is a huge leap forward. There's a big picture that's emerging that was much less visible last version.
Keep up the risk taking! Its pretty hard for us to argue with data you've collected. Not that you need data to spot improvements in usability.
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.entermedianow.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.chapterthree.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
Download
One thing that struck me is that it's not clear where to actually download Drupal from the home page (unless I've missed it!). Also not sure 'Download earlier versions' is just for developers. There are plenty of folk still using 5.x needing to do upgrades when there's a new 5.x version. I also can't figure how to get to the documentation and can't find the Module tutorials which I remember where one of the first things I wanted to look at when I was deciding whether to use Drupal.
Primary links
The primary links in the top are hidden. They're important!
On the other hand, less important login information (which is, by the way, normally displayed on the top to the right) is occuping a very important place in the screen. "home page" and "dash board" don't look that essential either.
Can't those switch places? We could have a much better use for primary links and at the same time put login links in the place they usually appear?
José San Martin
Module Pages
I know you have yet to work on the module pages but in the meantime I've looked at a bit more about what bugs me.
1) The image module profiled has a much shorter description than many popular modules so it seems it could be good to use one with a more complex description.
2) The downloads, and in particular the dates of when the versions were last updated, need to be "above the fold" or very close to it. Many module users are going to a page, know they want a particular module, and just want to see "has it updated since last month, week, ____"
3) For modules, but especially themes having at least one "featured" screenshot above the fold would be very good.
4) Tabular information begs to be presented in a tabular format for easy use.
5) I really dislike the "Not Recommended" label. If it's not recommended then why should it be on the page. The dev snapshots have a particular purpose and they are recommended for that purpose. If I was new I'd be asking myself "why would I use a project that prominently links not recommended versions from the module page?" Although I don't think I'd care for it (see above about dates) even having them collapsed would be preferable to having dev versions marked "not recommended".
--
Blog: Adding Understanding
--
Blog: Joshua Brauer dot com
Announcements
Where will announcements be on the homepage? For instance right now on drupal.org there is an announcement about maintenance. Under iteration 7 if announcements are in the news section they are significantly below the fold.
Purpose of the Map?
I'm not sure if the map is something temporary or intended to be a place for rotating highlights, but doesn't feel right to me. It kind of reminds me of the McDonalds "1 billion served" they put under their sign. Does this have an intended purpose? I can think of some, but I'm not sure the map is the best execution of this. Not that this can't be shown on an internal page of some type though. Also from a technical point it would seem to slow down the page load with a lot of nodes displayed?
If we're trying to show ubiquity or create community, there would be better ways IMO.
I agree with you on this.
I agree with you on this. Better a collage of images of sexy drupal sites for the real estate. Imagecache anyone?
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.entermedianow.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.chapterthree.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
Agreed. The main Community
Agreed. The main Community page is basically just a map. Thats an ill representation of all the great content generated by groups, forums, etc. See http://drupal.markboultondesign.com/iteration7/community.html. Perhaps MBD has not fixed their attention there yet.
google maps
I also think d.o gets too many hits to use the free service of google maps
And it will make the full d/l and rendering of the f/p of d.o very slow.
--
bert boerland
--
bert boerland
looking great
but please drop (no pun intended) the "Drupal is based on the Dutch word for “drop.” Drop by drop we’re empowering people and organizations around the world to build powerful, rich, interactive websites.". it tells a very small part of the story.
drop in dutch means http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquorice_candy
community plumbing tells a lot more. :-)
apart from the slogan "community plumbing" (+1 for keeping it!) the text in the footer right now is pointless.
--
bert boerland
--
bert boerland
+1 to ditching the slogan
+1 to ditching/reworking the footer text... It's questionable at best that the * there will cause people to think of the splash on the wordmark, and I don't think "drop by drop" is a generally used idiom (if it can be classified as an idiom at all). I mean, there's "little by little" or "one site at a time", but "drop by drop" just doesn't make sense. It feels forced.
drop by drop is at least an
drop by drop is at least an idiom in german - and i think it's very likely understandable by lots of other languages too. it's this bit by bit thing.
the word 'plumbing' i still don't understnad, and till now haven't even looked it up in a dictionnary, because its sound did not even let me expect something great behind... in my german ears it doesn't evoke nice associations! has it something got to do with plumb? this at least one learns at school. something heavy? without thinking too much about the sentence 'community plumbing' all the times evoked some smelling associations:... still i have to think of congested things when i hear this word, and still i don't know what it really means. can someone explain me?
i like the word-play 'drop by drop'. it tells something about the living and creative spirit of the community. drupal also is a lot of fun!
It also could be interpreted
It also could be interpreted as "working slowly". Not a fan of drupalisms here. They're cute, but only make sense to rather small group of profoundly geeky people.
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.entermedianow.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.chapterthree.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
Please... no mentions of
Please... no mentions of plumbing. "Community plumbing" is one way to say "sewer". I like the attempt to at least explain our unusal name. In a world of so many pointless names (biztechia, sloosh, bawndo), its a thoughtful touch. If we wish to change it later, imagine we can do so in the site settings.
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.entermedianow.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.chapterthree.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
No no
the other way around. that means that drop in english, when translated in to dutch, is the word that drupal is based apon.
-1 for keeping the slogan
one word
nice logo and all, but it isnt a drupal site without ou beloved mascot
--
bert boerland
--
bert boerland
They created a new logo to
They created a new logo to prevent our mascot from getting trademarked.
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.entermedianow.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
work: http://www.chapterthree.com
blog: http://www.nicklewis.org
not really
we /added/ the new logo that can be trademarked to prevent it from being abused. the old mascot -under gpl license and hence not trademarkable in most countries- is still there and should be used to complement the logo (or vv)
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bert boerland
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bert boerland
Messaging: why do people contribute to Open Source?
Have a look at http://freesoftware.mit.edu/papers/lakhaniwolf.pdf -- fast forward to Table 6 if you don't want to read it all. It is probably worth embedding some of that in the messaging. It helps if we hit the right knobs. :-)
addressed
i think this was addressed at http://groups.drupal.org/node/16548#comment-56647 or lower
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bert boerland
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bert boerland
Starting page still overwhelming
Leisa, sorry for having posted this comment first on disambiguity (crossposting is not my habit), but just detected it might be better placed here..
Great Progress! I have to join everybody for praising the “get started” page: this is really, really great, encouraging and directing the user very well.
Also a nice CI-like look is evolving - the pages are growing together and a beatiful pattern of coherence is starting to shine through. The balance of blue, green and the khaki tone gets ever better.
Though: The starting page has even become worse concerning the task to not overwhelm the user. Even though I like it being different in design from the rest, it is even more confusing to me than before. What gets conveyed with too much information is "Drupal is complicated".
But I gotta say I like the general balance of elements. There is a clear top, middle section and bottom. But too much information and choices.
Maybe there is a way you could present e.g. the choices below the search box as some kind of drowdown or javascript widget (as seen on the other pages with the not-so-high header)? This would clear up this section.
Have a look at my wild and messy annotated Screenshot here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14250508@N02/3017123564/
Life is a process
Life is a journey, not a destination
notes
hi
lets try to add notes here on flickr instead of in the picture
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bertboerland/3018949626/
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bert boerland
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bert boerland
I've added some notes
I've added some notes there... why isn't the image posted also in flickr's drupal redesign group?
done
thanks..
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bert boerland
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bert boerland
Logo?
I know im new to this discussion but man i hope the Drupal logo doesnt loose its superb icon.
Good job with the 7th
Good job with the 7th iteration. It's a huge step forward from the previous one. A few things I thought could be looked at next:
Cheers,
Ildar
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Web Design in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
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Hamilton web design
Slogan bikeshedding
Something tells me that the slogan thing can turn into a big and endless discussion. Everybody diving into this please read http://groups.drupal.org/node/7634 . At least there is not shortage of Proposals for this matter. And please - start a new thread ;) It is just experience...
Life is a process
Life is a journey, not a destination
My two-bob's worth on Iteration 7
While this looks great, you probably don't need show a "Your Dashbord" tab on the frontpage if your not logged in...
On the "Get Started" page, perhaps another couple of options in the "4 Get Support" column would be 'Commercial Support' and 'Community' (groups.drupal.org) ...
Also change the current 'Get Support' to 'Community Support'...
How do I find the Drupal forums???? not accessible from the frontpage.. (Compare with Wordpress http://wordpress.org/support/ )
Also the current "Books" pages are at least two links in from the front page...
There is no "Blog" page, this is very common ever on large commercial web sites... I use these pages to find out whats 'really' happening when I follow a developer community.. (compare wordpress which has this on the front-page)
Consider eliminating the words "Search Drupal.org" from the front-page the search is obvious due to the large "Search" button to the right, reorder the space around in the banner area to give back some screen real-estate...
Consider adding a button "New to Drupal" which steps a new user through a "Wizard" of how to asses a CMS..
Note: The getting started page assumes that a new person has already made the leap from a newbie who has no idea what Drupal does or what it can do for them.. (WIIFM)
Don't refer to "Drupal Core" (item 1 in getting started page), simply call it "Drupal" most normal (non-drupal) people would not know what this means...
The list of NO's
What is importance of "310,721 people in 24 countries speaking 14 different languages" does this illustrate anything? What is its relevance to regular users...
If I was Joe Schmo and I visited the proposed Drupal.org site, I would want to know how it was put together... what modules & versions were used, how the front-page was constructed, what Drupal version the site was etc...
The Donate link is buried 2 links deep, consider a place on the front-page.
Anyway... 1:00am.... I am going to bed... Best of luck..
Russ
If I was Joe Schmo and I
yes yes yes... please plan to include a colophon page, i answer various incarnations of this question quite frequently and it shouldn't require an extensive search or sherlock holmes to find it. ;-). Besides, d.o is arguably the premier site built with drupal-- how can we not explain how it was done?
Please post where to comment...
On your prototype page (http://drupal.markboultondesign.com/iteration8/index.html), it would be helpful if you'd post where to comment.
true
1) true, my bad
2) does not make the slogan good
3) sloagns and textual stuff can be changed later
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bert boerland
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bert boerland