Difference between revisions of "Website/Proposals"

Revision as of 21:36, 14 December 2007

This page covers both proposals from an architectural perspective and more of a visual perspective. I (Murb) would urge you to have a look at the more architectural aspects as well.

Visual design proposals

While work continues on finalizing the Website requirements, artists are encouraged to add their mock-ups of Website designs on this page so that we can keep track of all the proposals and the progress being made on each. By sharing our ideas we can also improve our designs overall towards the final product.

General homepages

de.openoffice.org

Author

Simon A. Wilper (submitted by: Marko Moeller)

Date submitted

20 Nov 2007 20:07:48 +0100

Description

The new German start page. It's w3c conformant and works with the Collabnet stuff. This page was created as the result of the website discussion on dev@de.openoffice.org and is based on the why OOo design.

http://first4quality.co.uk/OpenOffice/

Author

James Herrington

Date submitted

20 Aug 2007

Overkill1

Alternatives

Overkill1b

Author

Nik

Description

Overkill2

Alternatives Overkill2b

Author

Nik

Description

Molcan Mockup2

Normal homepage

Alternatives Mockup1

Author

Molcan

Date submitted

22 October 2007

Description

Molcan Mockup3

Normal homepage

Author

Molcan

Date submitted

21 November 2007

Description

OOo_Multi-Lang

Author

Randy

Description

This is the newest incarnation of my proposal. I've added a fourth button on the left (About Us), uncluttered the list of links in the right-hand box and added a drop-down for language selection. On the top bar, "My Pages" and "Projects" become selectable after logging in. Follow the link above to see the full size image.

Interior Pages

These are a couple pages I put together to show what they might look like done in the style of my home page design. One is a "While You Download" page, the other is "Why".

'While You Download' Full Size

'Why' Full Size

RandyDifferent

Author

Randy

Description

And now for something completely different... this time with a 'live' seagull. 8^) The top link bar could hold most/all the links for those familiar with the site, while the four content boxes could be more information/marketing related.

Minimalist OOo

Author

Ivan

Description

A minimalist approach to graphics with more emphasis on text. This design would be fast loading (graphics < 10KB) and very flexible in terms of content placement (numbers of columns, rows, etc).

Splash page

Author

Ivan

Description

A mindmap/brainstorm type approach to the homepage - options assumed to be most relevant will be near the top. This design assumes that language will be auto-detected. If this is not the case, a drop-down box similar to OOo Multi-Lang could be used.

What, where, how, etc.

Modifications of design proposals

Author

Ivan

Description

A bare-bones version of Nikash's second proposal - could be made more vibrant with colorful icons and buttons.

Overkill3

Alternative

Overkill3b

Author

Nik

Description

Action statement based

Proposals based on the idea of action statements

murb_proposal1 (modified Ivan_minimal)

Normal homepage

Homepage after the download action statement is clicked and OS is Windows XP

Homepage after the download action statement is clicked and OS is Mac

Normal homepage when browserlanguage is not English, but Dutch

Author

Murb (based on Ivan's minimal)

Date submitted

14 December 2007 (CET)

RandyMinimal

Author

Randy

Description

This is the same design stripped down and built around the four statements discussed on the Art List, The content boxes could also be elongated to push the footer 'below the fold'.

Minimalist Set 1

Links Only Full Size

Photo Version Full Size

Author

Ivan

Description

The ultra-simple version of the action statements. Graham has made a coded version of the links only version (link).

Minimalist Set 2 - Highlighter OOo

View Full Size (Left)

View Full Size (Right)

Author

Ivan

Description

A rougher design, started around the idea of office stationery - highlighters, pencils, etc. The idea would be to have the graphic design elements done in this rougher style. The first one looks similar to a Google-style page, while the second incorporates Maarten's sliding action statements. The gray area is a space reserved for some artwork.

YorkicksDoubleMod

Normal homepage

Author

Yorick

Date submitted

10:22, 30 November 2007 (CET)

Description

This is a modification of Ivans mod of Niks original. I changed the what, when how etc, for the "Answer" idea in my first prop and put in the official logos. Also took out the "News" links because I think they should be on the level down and substituted the present Positioner. Most could be done with CSS. Graphic loading is not a lot so it would load quickly and it's got an excellent look. The Answers Links will be directed toward pages that are already in existence. download.openoffice.org, why.openoffice.org, support.openoffice.org, contributing.openoffice.org and projects.openoffice.org/native-lang.html

Architectual proposals

Proposals

A collection of design proposals, outlines, in a form that doesn't fit here on the wiki...

• Screenshots for current site and proposed new designs: http://ux.openoffice.org/reports/2007/website/sitedesign.odp
• Several diagrams about now and future: http://ux.openoffice.org/reports/2007/website/sitestructure.odp
• Another sitestructure proposal by Murb: http://www.openoffice.org/nonav/issues/showattachment.cgi/49988/sitestructure.odp (based on a previous one, explanation included)

URL

I see a main homepage and 3 or 4 sub-homepages. Although all are linked, I would define a sub-homepage as a web page using a URL that is clear and simple for user to type or store in their Favorites or Bookmark file. E.g.:

1. www.openoffice.org/part (participant page)
2. www.openoffice.org/devel (developer page)
3. www.openoffice.org/upgrade (upgrade page)
4. www.openoffice.org/issue (issue tracker page)

If experienced users could by-pass the sales/marketing talk and first-time-downloading and go directly to their area of interest, this scheme might avoid some of the competition about what should be on the front page,. If people are interested, we could begin to diagram out the interrelationship of these various homepages and the info pages that belong with each. It shouldn't be hard to define the various target audiences and what their respective needs are.BillCase 23:28, 24 November 2007 (CET)

[from kschenk]

Home Page

1. Home page needs a "friendly" facelift. Maybe put the gull mascot in the middle with downloads button to the LEFT and text explanation of what OO.o is to the LEFT.
2. What to do about the "Native Language" button?????
   • maarten: We could do language detection, and have an box appear when the default language is other than English. Furthermore I think we should maybe stop presenting it as a Native Language confederation, but just OpenOffice.org in your own language. OpenOffice.org is a community, you can be part of in your own language as well.
3. Add a HELP to the upper toolbar right next to HOME that would basically link to a New User/FAQ page *as well as* whatever we want to include from the current SUPPORT tab. Eliminate SO MUCH text. If we can't make the site more or less icon-intuiative, we're in big trouble. People are impatient! I would augment whatever is done to the new HELP area in some way so that folks running on specific OSes know exactly where to go for help.
   • maarten: We should either have a help or support option in the menubar, not both. But yes, further cleaning is definitely required. It is too much oriented about types of help, whereas most users are probably focussed on getting help to a specific problem (without being worried about from which source it comes).
4. Get rid of the right side News list. IF we think some of these are important as permanent links, add them to the upper toolbar.
   • maarten: I assume you are referring here to the "Always" links. Completely agree. Furthermore it is not a good idea to link directly off-site. It is better to only refer to 'press announcements' published by OOo (press announcements may be a bit too formal, we could also think of posts from a blog controlled by some of the major project/community leads (e.g. Louis) and or some dedicated writers willing to keep end-users up to date about recent developments. If we have some kind of serverside technique it is easy to have an RSS feed to be included automatically... (otherwise, it can be done using javascript and in case of no JS, link to the blog itself.
   • (Kays original moved) Yes, we still need to *always* include some catchy news items toward the bottom. These should give visitors a warm and fuzzy feeling like they've discovered an important project that they're not part of.
5. Mostly we need to make visitors feel welcome and not confused. Actually the "Contributing" page is very nice in terms of friendliness.
   • maarten: but not in case of branding...

General Site Changes

• A new HELP page should encourage visitors to use a "knowledgebase" of some kind...then if all else fails, send an e-mail.
  1. maarten: I think we could try working from the support page. Maybe it is a better idea though to remove the 'Need help' link from every page, since it only deals with problems with the Collab net framework (this should be integrated with a more comprehensive help system.

New User Area

1. Needs to be much,much briefer. Maybe a quit over of what OO.o is with links to a newly revised HELP area. Currently too wordy in my estimation.

• 1. maarten: Maybe if help/support is improved, there is not even a need for this special page.

New HELP/Support Area

• WOW! The Support tab, which is very complete, again, seems a bit overpowering to me. Might we just ditch the "user" mailing list and get general users into the new Forum area instead. This would help everyone I would think. Is there some way to easily port users subscription info from the mailing list INTO the Forum area and then jsut notify everyone.
• If FAQ is really dead, why don't we just eliminate or archive the latest in some fashion.
• I would reorganize some of the Support page's links into somethink like "Other Resources" if they aren't specifically coming from the OO.o site.
• Definitely emphasize more "live" type support (i.e the Forum mechanism first)

The "Help Area" should point to

• User:fpe: the (soon to go live) forum
• User:fpe: the Documentation project wiki page
• User:fpe: the support page, which needs a clean-up. Get rid of 1.1x resources and put then in the archive

The FAQ isn't dead, the User-FAQ project is. Remove ot and point people here