Hello David & Team, I appreciate your detailed and constructive feedback. These kinds of discussions are essential as we move forward.
- Greeting text, font, more white space -- i chose this theme to align with the popular website design trends. And to cater to the younger generation of users. - We can try to add sidenav/tree for all pages, like how it is in /docs. Website designs can be subjective, personal preferences, so achieving a consensus can be challenging. 1. Can we have some discussion board like "Github Discussions" and/or any team may have used in the past? 2. Usually teams start with designs mockups in tools like in figma, to annotate/comment on the designs. And when approved, built as website pages. I'm open to suggestions and excited to take this forward. Thanks, Suren On Wed, Mar 19, 2025 at 8:33 PM David Alayachew <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello Suren, > > Thanks for putting this together. > > While it does look very sleek, I don't like it very much, unfortunately. > > The original website suffered from things being too dense, whereas your > mockup suffers from the opposite -- things are far too spread apart. > > You take up half the screen with the greeting text. > > Also, I'm not a big fan of the boxes for the download/learn/hack. I would > like the border to be much more pronounced for them. The hover effect is > throwing me off. Would also like to see what the link text looks like. As > is, it's just text. > > Finally, I think the sidebar suffered from being too tiny and condensed, > but it was important. Stuffing the contents of it in several different > locations is a mistake, imo. I would far rather you turn it into a separate > sidebar that scrolls, like this -- > https://docs.oracle.com/javase//7/docs/api/index.html?java/awt/AWTEventMulticaster.html > > That way, you can make the text bigger, while keeping things as easily > searchable as they were before. And if the concern is too many words in one > place, we can use a tree structure to help group things up. But even then, > there should be an Expand All/Collapse All button. > > On Wed, Mar 19, 2025 at 3:17 PM Suren Konathala <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Hi Magnus and Group, >> >> Following up on our discussion, I've created a draft of the website to >> give you a better idea of my vision for the redesign. >> https://thesurenk.github.io/openjdk-website/ >> >> A few: >> 1) As of now, code is in a private repo, but the url is public. I'm >> looking at options to make this site password-protected. >> 2). Tech stack: used Hugo static site builder (https://gohugo.io/), >> hosted on github pages (https://pages.github.com/). >> 3) There are several other open-source static site builders like >> docusaurus, nextjs, jekyll, gatsby etc. Hugo is widely used and easy to >> host & update content, >> 4) The above is a sample, we can discuss further on design, template, >> tech stack and future use-cases to decide if this supports our current and >> future needs. >> 5) Though we can use a content management system (CMS) like wordpress, I >> tried to make it simple with less IT overhead. >> >> I would appreciate it if you could take a look and share your feedback. >> Your insights are valuable, and I'm eager to hear your thoughts on how we >> can further improve the design and user experience. >> >> Thanks, >> Suren >> >> >> On Wed, Feb 26, 2025 at 12:09 PM Suren Konathala < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Thanks Magnus.This really helps. >>> >>> Sure, I can give it a try and it will be a privilege. I have been >>> developing & managing websites for over 15 years and this would be a great >>> experience. The only challenge is to get a consensus on the website design >>> but we can start somewhere. And will also document my ideas and findings. >>> >>> Here's a few to start with: >>> 1. User experience: I would like to see more community engagement & >>> contributions to OpenJDK projects. I was not looking for any fancy, but a >>> basic upgrade on the website design to make it responsive, adaptable to the >>> latest devices and some standard screen resolutions. >>> >>> 2. Usage: A few major themes I see for the website are : Core OpenJDK, >>> Documentation, Community. And add a few more. >>> >>> 3. Audience: Identifying the target audience may be a challenge, but if >>> the team has some analytics on the website usage we can derive some >>> results. Else , we can start gathering some with the new design. guessing >>> some common groups that may be interested on the site. >>> For eg: >>> - Java is still the widely used programming language in high schools, >>> universities and educational institutions. >>> - Code contributors >>> - Developers looking to download and read more >>> - Other community users >>> >>> 4. Alternative options: Although Oracle's other Java sites >>> https://www.java.com/en/ , https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/ >>> maybe more engaging. But OpenJDK being it's own entity, it's better to also >>> have this site updated. >>> >>> 5. Competition: Microsoft has something similar and does a good job on >>> their .NET & other related open source at >>> https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/ , >>> and looking at a few other popular open source software (there's so many >>> more): >>> - https://www.python.org/ >>> - https://go.dev/ >>> - https://www.php.net/ >>> - https://wordpress.org/ >>> - https://rubyonrails.org/ >>> - https://www.typescriptlang.org/ >>> >>> I will keep the group posted. >>> >>> Thanks >>> Suren >>> >>> On Wed, Feb 26, 2025 at 9:55 AM Magnus Ihse Bursie < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> Why don't you create a mockup of how you think the site should look >>>> like? I agree that the design feels dated, but I'm not sure how it >>>> should be changed to be better and more helpful to the intended >>>> audience, and not just prettier and more modern looking. >>>> >>>> I'm not sure what other answer you were expecting. It's not that the >>>> OpenJDK community has a lot of web designers hanging around and >>>> willfully ignoring the website, just because nobody has pointed out >>>> that >>>> the design might be lacking... >>>> >>>> Instead, my suggestion is that you design some sketch of what you are >>>> thinking about, send out a link to that, and perhaps give some >>>> rationales or arguments for why this should be more functional than the >>>> current site. That could then be a more constructive ground for further >>>> discussion in the community. >>>> >>>> /Magnus >>>> >>>> >>>> On 2025-02-21 18:43, Suren Konathala wrote: >>>> > Dear Web Group, >>>> > >>>> > I'm writing to propose a redesign of the OpenJDK website >>>> > (https://openjdk.org/) to enhance its design and user experience. >>>> This >>>> > is a follow-up to my previous thread from May 2020 >>>> > (https://mail.openjdk.org/pipermail/web-discuss/2020-May/thread.html) >>>> > >>>> > The current OpenJDK website's design appears outdated, resembling a >>>> > site from decades past. A modern and intuitive website is crucial for >>>> > a project of OpenJDK's significance, improving navigation, visual >>>> > appeal, mobile optimization, and overall user experience. This will >>>> > ensure key resources are easily accessible, the site is engaging and >>>> > professional, and it functions seamlessly across devices. >>>> > >>>> > I'm eager to contribute to this effort and collaborate with the >>>> > community to create a website that effectively serves the OpenJDK >>>> > project. Please let me know your thoughts and suggestions. >>>> > >>>> > Sincerely, >>>> > Suren Konathala >>>> >>>
