Re: Website proposal for usability

[Martyn Russell <martyn lanedo com>]

On 27/08/10 01:53, Devin Samarin wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 3:22 AM, Martyn Russell<martyn lanedo com>  wrote:
>> On 21/08/10 12:12, Devin Samarin wrote:
>>> I finished the re-design of the GTK-Doc area:
>>> http://eboyjr.homelinux.org:8080/gtk/gtk-doc/
>>
>> I agree with most of the comments here, I also don't really think it looks
>> great to have a sub-menu at the top of the page like that.
> 
> Okay I have updated it to use a global navigation at the top of the
> page labeled "Part of the GTK+ Project". I think this fits really well
> and it is similar to how BBC's news section does this.

I certainly prefer this to the previous version. However, the title
still says the GTK+ project and there is no "gtkdoc" title that remains
on all pages. The current site changes the title too, but keeps the icon
of course, so you know it is still related to GTK+.

The menu is something I expected to be next to the current menu too
(does that make sense?)

i.e.

						[icon] GTK-Doc
About | Features | Download | Screenshots | *Documentation* | Dev | ...
			*About* | News | Requirements | Download

Or where the menu changes to the GTK-Doc menu, but has an option to go
back to GTK+ in it (or perhaps just by clicking on the cube).

The current approach feels less fluid :)

>>> I made it usable for mobile devices and people with smaller screens
>>
>> Actually, this is not really what I had in mind for smaller devices, a lot
>> of websites have a /mobile implementation which is less horizontally
>> challenging ;)
> 
> What's horizontally challenging about it? For handset devices and when
> the width of the browser window is less then 650 pixels, every part of
> the document flows, as there is no width set on any of the elements.
> The sidebar collapses into a normal section of the page.

At this point just the title image and the menu. You have done a really
good job with the rest I must say ;)

>>> The only page left--in my opinion--that needs polishing is the features
>>> page.
>>
>> Actually, this is one of my favourite pages, it looks great. What did you
>> want to polish here?
>>
> 
> Well I think is good so far, but I was thinking of adding some useful
> screenshots of the widgets, but that is going above and beyond and I
> won't do it if no one wants me to.

Might make sense.


>>>> 7. The "Success Stories" page has a heading "More Applications" which
>>>> should really be under all the grey boxes. The Maemo and GNOME
>>>> paragraphs should line up too IMO (vertically). Arguably Maemo should be
>>>> changed to MeeGo everywhere.
> 
> I think MeeGo uses QT for everything and only has GTK+ installed for
> Moblin compatibility. I think we should just leave Maemo?

Well, MeeGo still uses GLib, Pango and I think Cairo which is quite a
large chunk of the stack.

>> I think I would prefer it was a regular heading like the ones at the top.
>> Perhaps also changing the title to "Community Applications" since
>> gtkfiles.org is more about that really.
> 
> Done.

Great, looks really nice now.

>>>> 8. The "OverView" page has the same indentation issue with the icons.
>>>> And the columns look a lot closer than say the Downloads page, this
>>>> again triggers my OCD :)
>>>
>>> Well they are actually exactly the same :P... It probably looks like
>>> that because the text is crammed together... I added space to the list
>>> of libraries, but I don't know if it really helped. Maybe I can put
>>> that into a sidebar bubble?
>>
>> Hmm, not sure that would work. This is the fundamental part of this page.
>> Additionally, the icon top is still higher than the text and that should be
>> aligned if possible.
> 
> Fixed the icon positioning. I think that page is fine the way it is right now.

Much better thanks.

>> Perhaps a subtext in the title mentioning "*G*IMP
>> *T*ool*K*it". At the very least explaining this on the front page makes
>> sense.
> 
> Done. It's in the first paragraph on the About page.

Great, I really wonder why this was never on the main page in the first
place :)

>> Can we try it at least for a short time? Perhaps others can comment on this
>> to get more feedback.
> 
> Okay I will set it red for now, but I think I have a solution that
> will bring some color into the page while leaving the header colors
> the same. I am thinking of a medium-to-thin ribbon on the grey page
> background that uses the colors of the GTK+ Logo in vertical stripes
> as the ribbon twists down for about 600 pixels or so. That may be all
> it needs. :) When I get on my Windows machine I'll work on it.

OK, I will see what solution you're thinking of then, the red for me is
nice, but a bit too bright, unlike the blue which is a soft blue. If you
compare the old red we used, it is slightly darker.

>>>> So a couple of other things.
>>>>
>>> I'll check the pages for validity.
>>
>> Apart from the obvious violations sure, but fixable issues should at least
>> be processed.
> 
> Actually every single page should now be XHTML 1.1 Strict validated
> perfectly. There are two CSS files: global.css which is CSS validated,
> and browser.css which is everything that is not accepted by the
> validator (CSS3 and browser-specific styling)

Superb!

>> A final note, from today, just the last things that are niggling me :)
>>
>> - The text under headings like "Where can I use it?" on the main page are
>> all indented for some reason and it really shouldn't be. It looks out of
>> place to me.
> 
> I am gonna leave it, because the indentation greatly increases
> readability. 

This *REALLY* bugs me :) No where else do we do this on the entire site
and it makes no sense to have the text indented when it is already
paragraphed and highlighted by a heading above it. It just wastes space IMO.

> The answers to the questions should be indented because
> when you see the question, you know where the answer is. 

To me the answer is obvious, it is under the question and separated by
paragraphs or headings. I do agree however, that having no title after
the paragraph is not clear that the text pertains or not to the previous
question.

> If it is not
> indented, it's harder to tell where the answer ends and the normal
> paragraphs begin. If someone else think I should fix it, I will. I
> could also indent only the first line? I really think it's good the
> way it is.

Indenting the first line is also ugly IMO.

Another suggestion is to put all the text below (starting from the
overview) above the "Where can I use it?" - but I really can't stand the
indentation. If you must insist on indenting, I would ask that you
reduce the indentation slightly and make sure the titles are at least
inline with the starting paragraph.

>> - The "Platforms" page for "Success Stories" should really have MeeGo in
>> there I think. It should also include the N900 under the "Maemo" section.
> 
> Wikipedia tells me that they use either Mx or Qt for the main
> applications and only has GTK+ to support Moblin :/

As said above the stack is used, however, it is still unclear if MeeGo
will have GTK+ on it or not AFAIK right now. The last information I had
was that *both* toolkits would be packaged.

>> - The "Downloads" page doesn't have the unstable tarballs listed there, the
>> "unstable" part of the page should perhaps be renamed to "Bleeding Edge" :)
>> since we do actually have unstable tarballs too.
> 
> Done.

The unstable tarballs should have their own heading really. Since they
are still *real* releases, unlike using GIT which is really a last
resort for most people just wanting to use GTK+.

Thanks for the work put in here, I am a hard customer to please :P

-- 
Regards,
Martyn