Re: wgo pages

[Claus Schwarm <clschwarm googlemail com>]

I'd like to make a different suggestion. Unfortunately, this is going to
be long. Sorry about that. :-/

One way to think about wgo's content is by thinking in terms of Use
Cases: 

  What do people want when they visit wgo?

Dave already covered the basic ones. But there's another way to look at
it. A web site is also a means of promotion. Then, the question is:

  What do we want people to do when they visit wgo?

When one finds answers to the second question, one will also have one of
the main ingredients for a successful web site from a marketing point of
view -- one can formulate one or more call-to-action!

Examples for a call-of-action are "Download now" or "Buy now".

These may sound pushy, especially to introverted and intelligent guys.
The majority of people, however, react positive to such calls. Over and
over, again, experimental tests have shown calls-of-action to increase
success rates. People are often confused about having too many options;
they don't know what they want, can't decide and thus often
procrastinate.

In other words, they often act very much like Buridan's ass [1].

Of course, a call-to-action is not sufficient; one also needs to offer
reasons why a reader would want to follow the call-to-action (ie. one
needs to offer benefit). One also needs to address objections, that is:
counter a reader's reasons why he or she would NOT want to follow the
call-to-action.

The Maemo web site is basically a good example why this is important.
(Sorry, Dave!) :-/

I admit, I have no Maemo-based hardware. However, when visiting the web
site, I am given NO reasons at all why I should even care about it.
There are no benefits why Maemo would be the right thing for me to use.
It also addresses no objections I might have about buying Maemo-based
hardware. Also, there is no clear calls-to-action what I should do,
supposing I would be persuaded to use a Maemo-based hardware.

As a result: Why should hardware manufacturers care about Maemo, when
they can't use it in their sales pitch to end-users?

This is probably not be the best example, since the Maemo community
might have other goals or objections. But supposing the Maemo community
cares about its success on other hardware platforms, then the web site
would have serious issues.


So, let's look at some of GNOME's possible objectives (or goals). I
guess, we want people to:

 (1) Donate money.
 (2) Contribute time.
 (3) Build upon GNOME (ie. third-parties).
 (4) Deploy GNOME (ie. install and use).

Objective (4) is obviously the most important; people are unlikely to
build upon GNOME, contribute time, or donate money when they have had no
(positive) experience using GNOME, yet.

To get people to deploy GNOME, we need to persuade them to install and
test GNOME, first. That should be our main concern. Accordingly, I
suggest the following Top Navigation:


 About * Download * Support * Community * Contact


The basic idea is that people start left and -- the more they interact
with GNOME -- finish on the right:

 * "About" is basically a sales letter to click on "download".

 * "Download" is the target estimation for objective (4).

 * "Support" will be needed after they started to use GNOME. 
   It's a good opportunity to get them engaged. (objective 1 and 3)

 * "Community" will be needed after they started to interact with 
   GNOME people (by looking for support). (objective 2)

 * "Contact" may be needed after they became community members. 
   (And, in some cases, if the surfer is part of special interest 
   groups, for example, the press.)


The first-level pages are basically index pages, identical to the
current wgo "Support" and "Community" pages and also similar to Maemo's
top pages. The second-level pages are supposed to become sales pages,
that is: Each ends with a Call-to-Action and provides benefits to do so.

Note that the structure offers lots of space to deal with Use Case
scenarios -- especially "Support" and "Community"! So this is not an
either/or problem.

The structure is very flexible: We can add or remove paragraphs on the
index pages whenever we need to. It's also very usable, since people got
used to certain keywords when browsing project or products pages. It's
also SEO-friendly, since people use these keywords when searching.

Additionally, the design team seems to consider a column footer design.
So, there's lots of room in the footer if there's something one may
desperately want linked to.

To make this more clear, I quickly made a demonstration. It's ugly,
unfinished and partially broken, but the first "About" section should
give you a better idea what I mean. Just do not click through the tour
yet! Use a little bit of imagination when you hit obviously unfinished
stuff. ;-)

The package is available here:

http://live.gnome.org/ClausSchwarm?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=gnomeweb.tar.gz

If there are any questions, just ask.


Best regards,
Claus

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass


On Wed, 2009-05-20 at 21:28 -0500, Paul Cutler wrote:
> Hello marketing team!  Let's chat briefly about what pages are needed
> to launch the new www.gnome.org (wgo) when GNOME 2.28 is released.
> 
> Hopefully you've had a chance to review the Content page on lgo at
> http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWeb/TwoPointTwentyseven/Content and / or
> the test site with these pages and the first draft of the content at
> http://gnome.rehfisch.de/.  If you look at the lgo page, you'll see
> the current recommendation:
> 
>       * /Get Started - Try GNOME: desktop, applications, development
>         platform. 
>         
>               * Live Demos 
>               * New Developers 
>               * GNOME on Windows 
>               * GNOME on MacOS 
>       * /Get Involved - Who can help and why, stressing several types
>         of users and tasks apart from developers-hacking. Where to
>         meet us, online (lists, forums IRC) and offline (local groups,
>         events). 
>         
>               * Spread GNOME - Marketing actions 
>               * Donate - Friends of GNOME and donations interface 
>               * Bring your project - Hosting, bugzilla, GNOME
>                 "certification", how to get into the release. 
>       * /About - The basics of the GNOME software: mission, desktop,
>         applications, development platform, link to roadmap. 
>         
>               * Software - Descriptions of release sets and the wide
>                 world of GNOME software. 
>               * Teams - List of GNOME teams with short descriptions
>                 and links to web page and contact info. 
>               * Local Groups - List of GNOME groups with links to web
>                 page and contact info. 
>               * Foundation - Overview, advisory board members and link
>                 to foundation.gnome.org. 
>               * Press - Press kit, free media files, press contacts
>                 (general and by country/language). 
>               * Contact - Contacting the Foundation, website feedback
>                 + links to support feedback (lists & forums). 
>                 
> 
> Now is the time to talk about what pages should be in or out, or
> changed.  You can see pages that are out of scope for this release at:
> http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWeb/TwoPointTwentyseven/Content#head-ac09955de28119ba913234a27e77a6f8c0adc240.   Just because they're marked as delayed until 2.30 doesn't mean we can't move them up, but we have to be realistic about time and resources.  (Stormy, please note that those pages include Success Stories).
> 
> One thing I might recommend is to break out Friends of GNOME and / or
> "Donate" from "Get Involved".  To me, Get Involved is about helping
> and writing code, docs or translations.  While the Friends of GNOME
> program could fit in here, do we want a more prominent position that
> includes Friends of GNOME, and some of the discussion about corporate
> partners (including different levels of donations for them and a page
> of their logos) similar to the discussion that's being discussed on
> the marketing list.
> 
> This bug opened by Quim
> (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=463746) talks about
> expanding the "Bring Your Project" page under Get Involved as well,
> but this more about content.
> 
> What other ideas or recommendations come to mind?
> 
> Paul
> 
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