On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 5:02 AM Eric Auer <e.a...@jpberlin.de> wrote: [..] > It may be my German bad understanding of fashion, but: > > A professional designer donated a new website design and > the result was that in a test, 2 out of 5 topics were > almost impossible to find. That does not sound like an > "overall ... good" and professional product to me.
This is a common misunderstanding of usability tests. Finding tasks that are difficult or impossible does not necessarily mean the design is bad. It depends on tester feedback. In this case, it seems most of the changes will be "tweaks" rather than "throw it out and start again." [..] > Why does the new download page REMOVE all other GOOD > to have links found on the old download page? Being > "how to install", "verify", "what's included" and > "read the readme", as well as "how to write IMG" and > a link to the individual package file archive? That was something from the proposed design, to put less text on each page. The web designer's proposed design moved the "How to install" link to the front page, so the updated design didn't include that link on the "Download" page. I thought it was an interesting change, and I hoped it might help point people to the install instructions. But see below - testers didn't look for this on the front page, they looked for it on the "Download" page. The other links for "verify," "what's included," "readme," etc aren't on the "Download" page in the test site because I was a bit rushed to complete the new test site before they started usability testing, and I knew "verify," "what's included," "readme," etc wouldn't be used for the usability test - so I saved that for later work. (Remember that I said this was a "mostly-working version" of the new website.) [..] > The current design focuses on "download" and "news", > while adding common other topics on the top menu bar > and social media (only as non-accessible graphical > logo links) and other things in the bottom menu bar. > > The new design largely preserves the menu bars, but > tucks away the news behind a small text link which > does not have any glitter added. > > While it is very nice and unusual that a project as > FreeDOS still has regular interesting news and is > not one of those retro projects which have not been > touched for years. So the news should get more shine. Moving the news updates off the front page to a separate "News" page was part of the proposed design. I wasn't a fan of it, but I figured "let's test it and see how well it works." >From the feedback, and listening to the students' presentation, it seems clear that a separate "News" page isn't the right way to do it. I agree with the recommendation to turn these into bullet points somehow, but I'd like to put these back on the front page. > Instead, the new design gives more spotlights to the > youtube channel, system requirements (which are rather > boring: it SHOULD run on every PC, but on very new PC, > you will need a VM or emulator to compensate the lack > of BIOS and, not mentioned in the new design at all, > almost every game will need those for sound anyway), > "about", games, application and programming, > > However, "about" just is an optional detour to reach > the games, application and programming pages, why? > With a rather short text about the why of FreeDOS, > with a typo "sofwtare" ;-) I just fixed the typo for you. :-) Almost everything you've mentioned about the front page was part of the proposed website design. I thought it would be interesting to have them tested for usability. Breaking out the "About" pages was one of my changes. While this usability test didn't show issues there, I don't think breaking them out like this is the right way to go. I attended one of their tests, and that tester got a little lost (not very lost, more *distracted*) with the "About" pages. So I'll find a way to streamline that, maybe put it onto one page. I'm not sure. I'll wait until the other student groups have reported their findings before I plan any changes. > The new "games" section links to several online > games collections, but does not provide hints on > the sound issue. And there could be a number of > shiny game screenshots on it as well :-) [..] Yup, I planned to add more screenshots to the "Games" section, but I ran out of time before the students needed to start usability testing. :-) > PS: Why does the start page say you need INTEL > CPU? How about AMD, Cyrix and all other brands? > Excluding ARM, Apple and Motorola, but still... The web designer proposed having a "system requirements" section on the front page, and I thought that was a good idea. For a while, a lot of people were emailing me to ask why they couldn't run FreeDOS (on bare metal) on their new Raspberry Pi. Or why they couldn't install FreeDOS on their new 2022 laptop. And the answer is because like any DOS, FreeDOS requires an Intel-compatible CPU and a BIOS. You can't boot any DOS on ARM, or on an Intel CPU that only has UEFI. That's why I added that note in the system requirements section to say "System: PC or virtual machine with Intel CPU and BIOS." The page doesn't say "Intel only CPU" but says "CPU: Intel-compatible 8088, '286, '386, '486, Pentium, or better." I thought the system requirements section was a good idea in the new design, but apparently no one looks for system requirements on the front page. And no one looks for a "How to install" link on the front page. Both of these need to be on the "Download" page instead. So that was interesting feedback. Jim _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
