Gert Driesen wrote:
I can't speak for the entire site, as I haven't really started using Cruise Control, but I was able to quickly spot the "Getting Started" link. From there, subsequent navigation is not the home page's problem. Though I will say that a "Getting Started" link, if there is one, ought to be the first one under documentation, and their build loop and results jsp links are inappropriate for the home page, at least as is.
You have some very good points there, but I'm not sure that
CruiseControl is a very good example of a website... the left-hand
menu is good from a UI point of view... as you say, the link target
areas are large, and links and elements are all very obvious... but
the menu content is remarkably poor, to the point that as a newcomer
to the website I would have had a nightmare trying to work out the
system if I weren't already familiar with CC.Net, and even knowing the
layout of their website now, I still find it hard to find information
in their site.
I should also add that I think I subconsciously took the idea for a separate developer's page from the Python site. I find their site too busy overall, as well, but I do like the large section separators in the left hand menu, and the things that I want most often are available without scrolling or more than one click.
Maybe the issue isn't so much limiting the total amount of information, but just limiting the topmost level links and biasing the order towards newcomers, so that downloads are all under one heading, and come before the Contributing section, possibly even before the Documentation section.
I agree that there are loads of items in the menu, but that is only becauseI certainly agree that making all this information available is a great idea, and it's much, much better than the clumsy navigation on the SourceForge site. I'm just suggesting some simplification at the top level - possibly by moving detailed links to a separate site map page (not a full site map, just a useful one), or possibly by making the tree structure narrow and deep.
I wanted to not only make documentation for the current release, but also
for previous releases and the latest nightly build available online.
Gary
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