On Sun, 2006-04-09 at 17:15 +0200, Claus Schwarm wrote: > There are many projects hosted by the GNOME servers. Many of them are > not in one of the official GNOME packages. They just happen to have an > account, probably because of bugzilla. Provide examples, please. Let's discuss on real cases. > These project may attract users from different operating systems. These > users don't search for a desktop, but for applications. The concept of a > "desktop" is usually unknown and confusing to most people. They are used > to the rule "one operating system <=> one desktop". GNOME is not just one desktop but a huge meta-project supported by wide community. Therefore, the GNOME top bar doesn't represent "a desktop" but a huge on-line space where this community meet and this meta-project is developed in many ways. If an application under gnome.org/projects/<application> have a well designed GNOME nav bar, I don't see why the users should be confused by it. Instead, I think it helps them understand much better the application and its context, even if they don't click the GNOME nav bar at all. > Do we examplify our usability orientation by adding a global header on > all project pages, making it possible to indeed click on one of its > links and then land on some completely unknown territory ? If the nav bar is well designed and the tabs are self-explanatory (an essential component of any competent navigation bar) users won't click them accidentally. If someone does, he can click Back (Olav (c)). > Most users of a project web page want to be informed about the > project's solution to their problem, IMHO. If I visit evolution's web > page I want to know how they are going to solve my emailing troubles. I > don't care about a "desktop". I mostly agree. This is why I think a non obtrusive top GNOME bar combined by an efficient local navigation does the trick. Apart from this, it is always possible that users going to gnome.org/projects/evolution at some point ask themselves "what is gnome.org?" if they don't know already. > I can also see this from a GNOME Journal point of view: Our visitors > want to read interesting stories. Hopefully, they found their way to > the GNOME Journal from a high-traffic web site unrelated to GNOME or > even Linux. http://gnomejournal.org/ is not under *.gnome.org so it's really up to you to integrate or not the common header. > We already have a rather similar header on our main community sites. > Instead of dicussing something that will solve _not a single problem_, > we should try to get real stuff done. IMHO, of course. ;-) We have a strong problem of consistency across websites under *.gnome.org and this (common?) header will be used in the revamped www.gnome.org. This discussion has to do with the wgo revamp planning, and planning is already real stuff. If you see my arguments, most rely on marketing factors: strengthen the GNOME brand, make users aware of the whole GNOME project... This is why I suggested to have the core wgo planning discussion in the marketing-list. There are many technical solutions and all of them can be technically correct. But there is a marketing strategy that the GNOME websites should fulfill, and this makes a difference on the technical discussions. From a marketing perspective I don't see any reason not to have a common header providing identity, consistency and strength to all the GNOME websites. -- Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org
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