[libreoffice-website] Re: Website design [was: Less Personal :-) .... Statement]

Hi Christoph, Klaus-Jürgen, all,

> Hi Bernhard, all!
>
> Am Donnerstag, den 16.12.2010, 01:39 +0100 schrieb Bernhard Dippold:
> > 1. Create a website that can be active as soon as possible.
> >
> > This website is the SilverStripe website (clear decision by the SC), 
> > that needs content (now!) as well as design (at least to the LibO 3.3 
> > release) showing the world, that we are an active community able to 
> > provide professional software and present it in a professional way. 
>
> During the last days, I was thinking about how to improve the current
> website design. I know that I'm a bit late, so please consider these
> ideas to be ... ideas. If some of these could be implemented - this
> would be great. I'm currently sure that this will positively affect the
> experience of our users ...

+1
> [....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

Such an alignment should be able to achieve quite easily I hope.
> In this example, there isn't even a sub-menu that will add another item
> on the left hand site.

But the white space on the left provides the room for the submenues.
This causes the page to look asymmetric and shows the problem with the footer not being aligned 
with the page content.

> Also, on some pages there seems to be a
> breadcrumb menu:
> http://test.libreoffice.org/features/draw/

This breadcrumb menu needs (nearly) as much space as your proposed two-level navigation menu at the 
top.
> 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

i like this aproach very much.

It allows the user of the website to reach all the second level entries without moving the mouse 
from the top to thel left hand navigation. 

With providing the second level navigation already on mouse-over, it is very clear to the user 
where to reach all the areas of interest.

And leaving the respective area is easy and intuitive too.
 
> My assumption is, that (having users in mind, and basic developer
> information as well) two menu levels should be sufficient for the page.

A third level doesn't work well this way. 

If we can't avoid it, such a navigation should become part of the page itself (as floating box on 
the right border or something similar). 

> Thus, we can avoid using the breadcrumb. The sub-menu is directly placed
> below the main menu (if required on that page).

On all pages there  should be fixed room for the two menu levels, thus avoiding moving the text 
around when navigating from one page to another.
> 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).

+1, but needs smoe more work...
> But, of course, there are also many open points - e.g. the proper
> integration of the language projects (usually offered in the upper
> right), 

Do we want to have a login area on the website too? 

This should share the place with the language selection.

Perhaps above / below  the search button...

 ... and how to provide such "Emotional Artwork" (in the most
> simple case a static picture).
>
> However, it would be great to know what you think ...

I like the navigation as well as the visual approach with one large and a few smaller areas.

This keeps it simple, visual appealing and easy for the user of the page to reach the most 
interesting areas.

So +1 for your approach - at least in the mid-term.

I don't know if such a change is possible before the page goes online.

It would  be great - but I don't think it should be a stopper for going live (if the content will 
be ready and Florian will have the time to make this happen next week...)

Best regards

Bernhard




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