TLDR -- Feedback requested for a proposed Cordova website redesign at http://cordova.apache.org/use-the-force-luke
-- The redesign was influenced by interviews with 300+ mobile developers. From these conversations, we identified six top level goals: 1. Establish that Cordova is an active project relevant to developers in 2016 (the future!) 2. Show the potential of hybrid apps by highlighting some rock star-quality apps 3. Demonstrate critical mass by sharing a diverse set of tools and businesses that have “made a bet” on Cordova 4. Improve developer’s first experience with Cordova by adding quick start instructions and explanatory text for key concepts (e.g. plugins) 5. Increase community participation by raising the visibility of public forums (e.g. Slack, StackOverflow, Twitter) 6. Maintain consistency with the current website (i.e. branding and content parity) ---- The long read ---- Grab a cup of coffee. This is a long one. As some of you may know, several committers from the Seattle area (including Nikhil, Parashuram and I) have just completed a long series of interviews with mobile developers. In the past three months, I’ve personally interviewed over 100 developers. The team has collectively interviewed closer to 300. We learned a lot and hope to share a summary (with infographics!) of our insights soon. In the meantime, I want to share one of the more poignant quotes from one interview. When asked, “How can we make your job easier?”, one Cordova developer responded: “Take the stigma away from hybrid development. I can prove that it’s the right tool for the job, but I have to prove it over-and-over again. I wish that I didn’t have to have the same conversation every time I want to use Cordova with a new manager or client.” -- Murali, Cordova Developer There are lots of ways to solve this problem, but one of the easier and more visible ways is through Cordova’s front-door. The Cordova website has served us well for the last 5+ years, but I believe a redesign could help us address some pain points in the community. To put it simply, we have a public perception problem. “It’s hard to argue for Cordova when there are few examples of it being successfully used.” -- Gary, Ionic Developer Developers and architects are looking for examples of good development to prove that high-quality, fast apps are possible. So, we thought it might be good to highlight some rock star-quality apps on the home page. Anyone can submit a PR to add their app so long as it appears in a public store and uses Cordova. If the list of apps gets too long (and it will), then we’ll randomize display. The same is true for a list of tools and platforms that build on top of Cordova. “There are so many layers to cross-platform development, it’s hard to know how they all fit together. It’s even harder to know if you’re missing a critical piece.” -- Mike, Cordova Developer By itself, the website redesign won’t address this problem. We need some good architectural docs that not only illustrate how Cordova works, but also how it integrates with the larger ecosystem (e.g. Crosswalk). However, we’re also hoping that by adding a little more “hand-holding” on the site, we can help developers achieve success faster. For example, we provide simple instructions for “Getting Started” on the home page. And, on the Plugins page, we provide a quick explanation of plugins’ role in Cordova development. “It’s not clear where I can go for support.” -- Geoff, Cordova Developer Okay… none of us want to provide customer support for the whole community, but I want to make it easy for people to find the community. To that end, our goal was to integrate prominent pointers to all the places where our community aggregates – e.g. Slack, StackOverflow, JIRA and mailing list. Change for the sake of change is… well, for people with more time on their hands than me, but this seems like the right time for a change to the Cordova website. There’s a compelling developer need and little risk in making the change. Barring any grievous concerns, I'd love to get the new site launched ASAP. If we need to make small changes after launch, it will be easy to iterate. If you see any bugs that need to be fixed, please file them here: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CB/component/12320562/ I open the floor to discussion ;-) http://cordova.apache.org/use-the-force-luke Thanks! Ryan J. Salva --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@cordova.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@cordova.apache.org
