Scott Merrill wrote: > On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 8:09 AM, Alex Hempton-Smith > <[email protected]> wrote: >> I was playing with some ideas last night on the train, here's the current >> draft: http://is.gd/Cl4r, any suggestions on the design would be great. >> Current feedback is that the layout is good, but it may seem to dark a >> colour scheme. I'll be creating a port of the final theme for MediaWiki, to >> give the site a more cohesive look and feel. > > At first blush, I like what I see. But the website design has > sometimes been hotly contested. It seems to be one of those things > about which everyone has a strong opinion.
Yes. I've been annoyed lately by the response I've gotten from introducing a few new people to Habari -- "It's very bland". They admit to saying that under the surface she may be intelligent, witty, and fun, but she's not a looker. That said... > Rather than work in a vacuum on the layout and navigation, I'd rather > see a public discussion about the ways in which the website is > intended to serve visitors. What information is most important? What > kind of navigation do we want to have? What examples of good sites can > we look to for prior art? There is some early work on trying to sort out this question: What does the web site need to do for the different types of users that visit? Here: http://wiki.habariproject.org/en/Designs/Habari_Home What I don't want to do is get into a big "Should there be rounded corners?/Shouldn't the color be rust?/Should the feature list be higher and fiddled with javascript?/Shouldn't the site design match the software's admin design?/Let's add this cool-looking thing that site X has!" discussion. Historically, those haven't lead anywhere positive. I guess my point is this-- If you want to go away, design the hp.o site in private, and then come back and present it, then there are two things you need to consider: 1. You are assenting to an iterative process. Do not expect that the designs you bring back will be embraced by everyone. Do expect that community consensus will send you back to design with revisions. 2. Ultimately, what the site does is more important than how it looks. It may not seem it, but some specific thought did go into the construction of content on the existing site. Perhaps the words aren't the best, perhaps it's not showing everything that one might think should go on the home page, but what's there already and why is worth considering. Owen --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/habari-dev -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
