Re: GTK+ Website Review

[Martyn Russell <martyn imendio com>]

Felix Rabe (public) wrote:
> Hi Martyn,
> 
> Martyn Russell wrote:
>> Hi,
> 
>> Over the last few weeks, I have spent time putting together the new
>> website for gtk.org. I decided it would be easier to start from scratch
>> reusing the original content.
> 
>> I have put the new pages up here for review:
> 
>>   http://www.imendio.com/~martyn/gtk/
> 
>> The content is my primary interest, but if you have style queries or
>> comments they are also welcome.
> 
> Great work!  This is the way to go, it looks great generally.  Thanks
> too for the clean HTML source.

:) Yes, it is much nicer to work with.

> Now come the "bad news" :)  I will purely comment on style here.
> 
> So, at first sight, the page looked a bit "empty".  It was just a
> feeling of "something is missing".  

I agree, the "Overview" page does need something, but I have yet to put
my finger on it.

> I think the Inkscape website had it,
> but http://winehq.org/ still has it - a screenshot on the front page,
> something representative besides just a logo.  I think another source of
> that feeling comes from the text color - just use black please.  Make it
> as easy on the eyes as possible, so black is *the* color for normal
> paragraphs.

Actually, I disagree here. Black is really quite harsh and the headers
look less defined as a result. Perhaps if the headers were different it
would work.

> Also, the WineHQ page (at least the main page) has a reddish color
> theme.  Maybe use (GTK logo) colors for headings?  Something like dark
> (!) green for description pages (Overview, Features, About), blue for
> downloadable stuff (Download, Screenshots), and red for in-depth /
> development pages (Development).  

Hmm, that doesn't sound very logical to me and as a user I would wonder
why some things are one colour and other things are another. That is
just not what the user wants when they use a web site.

> I would put the FAQ in the last
> category, but I'm not too sure.
> 
> I feel the coloring of the documentation page should be more unified -
> there is red in the heading, and the icons are blue-ish and green.

Yes, we could do something here I agree, perhaps the red menu item
should be blue instead? or green? It might fit in better.

> Also, the view and download icons don't match well in their style.  And
> maybe add some space vertically between the table rows (GLib / GObject /
> Pango / ...) to not have it be one overwhelming "block".

I know what you mean. Perhaps the 2.x API tables could be side by side
to help that?

> I wonder where the GTK logo proposal went?  I think it would fit quite
> well in this design.

Actually Andreas was doing some work there. I was sent a few ideas and
they looked good, but nothing further so far.

-- 
Regards,
Martyn