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Hi Ivan!

Am Donnerstag, den 16.12.2010, 22:29 +1300 schrieb Ivan M.:
Hi Christoph, all,

First of all, apologies for my absence - of course catching up reading
100s of messages some additional took time away too :)

Let's say that my enjoyment to read you mail totally outperforms your
absence ;-)))

On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 2:46 PM, Christoph Noack <christoph@dogmatux.com> wrote:
[...]
+1. I think there's a lot of room for improvement, and I don't think
there's any excuse for LibreOffice not to launch the Silverstripe site
with a stronger design.

So, why improvements?

Although the visual and structural design of the current (static)
website has proven to work rather well, this design might not work that
good for Silverstripe. I started to draw some boundary boxes (several
days ago) for one of the pages - in a very simplified point-of-view, the
aim should be to reduce the number of lines to reduce an uncluttered
design.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/xZawms3ks-rpnvizZFN6pA?feat=directlink

In this example, there isn't even a sub-menu that will add another item
on the left hand site. Also, on some pages there seems to be a
breadcrumb menu:
http://test.libreoffice.org/features/draw/

If the information architecture is any good, the simplicity of the
website at this stage should eliminate the need for breadcrumbs.

++1

Klaus-Jürgen already described the complex menus that might have to be
added to the page - personally, I don't "accept" that our rather
lightweight page requires that much menus and navigation concept.
Especially since the menus don't help that much at the moment (jumping
between sections, ...).

So, I started to work on a menu concept (and iterated a lot, I fell back
to very simple but powerful version...) and added some more visual
design. Thus, here is an example for the welcome page - along with the
menus to be used on other pages:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/bbnG0Hny0SpccJIZsGp72A?feat=directlink

My assumption is, that (having users in mind, and basic developer
information as well) two menu levels should be sufficient for the page.
Thus, we can avoid using the breadcrumb. The sub-menu is directly placed
below the main menu (if required on that page).

I think this could be a workable idea... but maybe we could use a
secondary color for the second menu (e.g. blue) otherwise it might get
a bit too green

That was the last thing I've did before I went to bed yesterday. At
least, it looks rather colorful ...

Another nice side-effect is the search functionality (once being
available) is well integrated and also provides visual feedback if used
(usually, search leads to somehow "nowhere" on other pages).

But, of course, there are also many open points - e.g. the proper
integration of the language projects (usually offered in the upper
right), ... and how to provide such "Emotional Artwork" (in the most
simple case a static picture).

IMO, a screenshot of the start center would be the thing to have on
the homepage... visually, it provides the greatest screenshot
marketing potential, and it also hints at LibO's functionality. Maybe
that can encourage us to develop the start center's emotional appeal
in the future as I don't think the LibO visual identity has any overt
emotional connotations - it's very neutral and professional - maybe if
we had a mascot, it could feature there, but even then I'd suggest
having a picture of the mascot standing/sitting next to the start
center. I'm not in favor of using photos of any sort, but if someone
thinks that might work, Flickr has a handy creative commons search
option [1].

Oh, I did think about some LibO pictures ... but more what you can
achieve (e.g. show nice effects provided by the new functionality of the
release) and how great it looks in general. This is what I mean with
"emotional" - it is about getting people interested. From a branding
perspective, the StartCenter might be a good catch - but providing less
boring views.

However, it would be great to know what you think ...

Your design is quite different to what David is proposing (with the
blog/twitter widgets featuring prominently on the homepage) - I'd
prefer a mix of the two - that is, have news items and social media
links on the homepage, but also have big buttons as in your design for
other activities such as contributing.

Hehe, what luck that I've included the "Fidelity Matrix" - the 50%
information design and 20% editorial content don't cover that. Of
course, social media stuff is fine :-)

Additionally, I think the design can be simplified a little further,
so I've created a (somewhat weird and not-quite-there) hybrid [2].
I've included some alternative ideas but my main intention is to
demonstrate (what I think is) improved spacing and header + footer. In
terms of the visual design I think it is more consistent with the
application branding (e.g. splash screen) and more tidy (as well as
minimalist). The content there is just to demonstrate styling and
spacing... but I think we need to have a larger conversation about the
home page content.

Great! Now it gets interesting how to put together some ideas ;-) But,
I'm running out of time ... so just a few snippets.

I tried to design my proposal for medium sized screens. So the most
important information (including the support button) is visible once you
open the page. Therefore I had to accept some size constraints for logo
etc.

The main problems I ran into was the sub-menu level ... the current
solution of having it at the left side "breaks" the pages (and it is
visually too strong in my point-of-view). Thus, we require a more
balanced design (e.g. wider content area, helpful additional information
below the sub-menu, ...).

So if you have any ideas here ... you have my full trust, of course!

Cheers,
Christoph

PS: Great arrow for the download button :-)


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