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