Difference between revisions of "Website/Requirements"

Revision as of 18:47, 30 September 2007

This is the preliminary page for sketching out the user pages requirements. More content soon!

Wish list

In general

User friendly links: openoffice.org/download; openoffice.org/help etc. should bring the user where he should get.
- User:Murb "running a complete end-user website on enduser.services.openoffice.org doesn't make things easier to remember, see Jakob Nielsen on the matter"
Localisation should be build in from start
- User:Murb "the end user pages should be more similar, try to create a global brand image; don't talk about "native language projects" anymore, but just about OO.o in your own language, or OO.o <language> (e.g. OpenOffice.org Deutsch, OpenOffice.org Nederlands etc.). As en example look e.g. at (sorry) Mozilla Europe: http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/ , http://www.mozilla-europe.org/nl/ , http://www.mozilla-europe.org/de/ "
Review the information architecture ~"the table of contents of the website"
All clicks from the main page should land on a page still friendly to end-users, maintaining the same style etc.
"I would like to propose that the first page is mirroring or echoing the content that is available on the different subproject's websites, putting focus on resources that are often used." - Per Eriksson

Getting OOo

Auto detection / auto selection of language & os
- Requires server side scripting
Offer CD's
- Anecdote: One of the complaints was initially with a one click download that CD offerings are neglected. Which introduced at least one extra click in order to relieve the crowdedness on the main page. P2P is also given as an alternative way to get OOo, but I would consider that still as user unfriendly.
Only offer bittorent and alike when it can be integrated smoothly

Why

Good explanation in as few lines/pages as possible why people should get OOo
Comparison with other office suites

Get more out of OOo

Downloads to cliparts, good tutorials, templates, extensions etc.
- User:Murb: "I believe this should be either a centralized effort or an effort involving some kind of voting mechanism... there is a lot of material that looks unprofessional and makes working with less fun."
Create a package with good looking cliparts

About

Short, and optimized for e.g. journalists who want to get background info

Get people to contribute

Smart placement of links; e.g. when describing the draw component, create a link to de development pages of this component.
- Requires cooperation with the component managers to create reasonable landing pages (provide them with a template?)
Idea once proposed at website-dev: "OpenOffice.org community"; brand all community efforts "part of the OpenOffice.org community".

Help

Persona's

Persona's help to get an idea of what type of user we are focussing on. You can 'test' design proposals using the persona's, by simply trying to think how this person would solve the problem he or she is faced with. If you think a typical user is not yet mentioned in this list add 'm. If you think a persona is within the scope of the end user focus plan, please add your opinion.

46 year old father with two kids wants to download OOo by himself. His native language is Dutch (nl).
15 year old girl is making an assignment for one of her courses. She is looking for nice clip art to use in OOo
25 year old male student is looking how to create well structured documents, in order to make his thesis writing process efficient
33 year old has switched to the Mac platform and wants to get OOo running as well...
A user behind a slow connections wants to know where to buy a CD with OOo
Fanatic user wants to find out more about the community. He would like to contribute to the new chart component.
- User:Murb: "I believe we can learn from this one that we need bridges to the developer pages, users start of as an end-user, but some want to get involved. Offering bridging links would help."
Journalist from a local newspaper wants to compare OOo to other competing office suites
A 'geek' is waiting for the inclusion of the lightning project with OOo, where to find more information?
- User:Murb: "We should think about how deep we should go in providing information on these pages... [not sure whether this persona is applicable]"

Examples of websites

OpenSource

why.openoffice.org: proposed by the Marketing Project, March 2007

netbeans: more technical; interesting read: Deconstructing the www.netbeans.org Redesign

pidgin: User:Cj: "clear separation between user and development, easy download, easy access to additional information"

mozilla: User:Murb: "Typical example of a big opensource project with a easy download (most users just have to click download; language & os is all preselected, very much end user focussed. Developper's site is on another domain. Focus only on download however doesn't work for OOo, since OOo is a much heavier download..."; User:LouisSuarez: "I am not sure I agree. Let's see if we can focus for now on making the download process easier. We can have also ancillary information relating to other enduser sites and items, accessed via tabs."

Closed Source

MS Office: User:Murb: "I want cool cliparts / templates etc... it is just a few clicks away, and looking more attractive. Much to improve also on this site, but I like the focus not only on the potential user just about to get it, but also on the user experience of users who are actually trying to use it for their projects"

Apple iWorks: User:Murb: "Looking at it I would say, DA!, DA!, DA!... Pages, Keynote, Numbers. Very attractive screenshots right in your face. It sells itself...; on the other hand it kind of gives a feel of, is it only about being beautiful? Would it work for my 100+ page Thesis? (and of course it is Mac only ;) )"

Rough design proposals

Please write some of your preliminary ideas down here:

[from kschenk]

Home Page

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.
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.
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).
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.
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

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

@@ Line 69: / Line 69: @@
 ; [http://www.mozilla.com mozilla]
 : [[User:Murb]]: "Typical example of a big opensource project with a easy download (most users just have to click download; language & os is all preselected, very much end user focussed. Developper's site is on another domain. Focus only on download however doesn't work for OOo, since OOo is a much heavier download..."
+: [[User:LouisSuarez]]: "I am not sure I agree. Let's see if we can focus for now on making the download process easier. We can have also ancillary information relating to other enduser sites and items, accessed via tabs."
 === Closed Source ===