I thought I'd turn my attention to the main home page which could use a little TLC and this hopefully might reciprocate in more people joining the fold in more numbers as currently it's our main marketing tool to reach more users/people.
Now I know we've not discussed branding, other than we need some at some point. The main index page mockups I've attached basically give a couple of colour combinations that we could go with, but this is NOT supposed to be our branding. i've specifically limited the number of images that would be needed in the code within this design to 2 so that it can allow us to change the colour scheme as much as we want very easily.
I guess the reasoning is that we can change the look of the site very simply every time we release a new version, leading up to version 1.0. By that stage we'll be a little bit more clear as to what has been useful for people and what colour scheme and branding we ultimately want to go down. Also i don't see any of our colour schemes being lost really, because we may be able to use them in the default theme. I'll write something more indepth for that as it warrants it's own discussion really. The final mockup is the more current version, i've attached the other ones to give an indication of the colour schemes that we can easily try out (although I've got to be honest, knocking out different colour schemes is pretty easy), and it may seem premature to start talking more detail about colours, but alas for our main page we do want to make sure we stand out from the rest.
Another idea is to make every page a different colour scheme. Could be confusing but it could also be fun as well (just throwing ideas out there).
The copy might need a little bit of a polish, but the whole idea is to keep things in a relatively playful fashion which in many respects mimics the community and interaction that we currently have. I'm still fiddling with all the other pages to be honest, but this can be coded up pretty quickly if the consensus is positive, hell if someone wants to help out, I'm sure we can set up a branch and have a bit of a collaborative effort from everyone to make it that much better. I've also got some pretty clear thoughts about how the documentation page should look like, but I need I've never really skinned mediawiki, so not sure how difficult it actually is.
Now you'll notice that the footer has got a quote that says 'Channel the dissent and create something beautiful', I see this as an area for pulling (from a random selector) quotes that people in the community have come up with that they're fond of. I'm sure something to do with Pony's can be put into this as well:).
I was working on a new homepage (my preliminary work is at
http://home.morgante.net/habari/) but I really like where you are
going with this more. I'd be more than happy to help out with the
process, and definitely would like to see your great ideas get
implemented.
If you swing by the #habari IRC channel, I'd like to chat about
possible ways to collaborate on this/what I can do to help. So far,
the work you've been doing looks great. To get help from the community
(which I think is a good idea), either a branch or a theme on habari-
extras could be created.
I look forward to where you're going with this.
Some other thoughts:
I think the copy could use a polish. Also, isn't Habari free as in
speech, not beer?
It'd also be nice to have some screenshots in the area of the
screencast before the screencast is clicked.
Khaled Abou Alfa wrote:
> I thought I'd turn my attention to the main home page which could use
> a little TLC and this hopefully might reciprocate in more people
> joining the fold in more numbers as currently it's our main marketing
> tool to reach more users/people.
> Now I know we've not discussed branding, other than we need some at
> some point. The main index page mockups I've attached basically give a
> couple of colour combinations that we could go with, but this is NOT
> supposed to be our branding. i've specifically limited the number of
> images that would be needed in the code within this design to 2 so
> that it can allow us to change the colour scheme as much as we want
> very easily.
> I guess the reasoning is that we can change the look of the site very
> simply every time we release a new version, leading up to version 1.0.
> By that stage we'll be a little bit more clear as to what has been
> useful for people and what colour scheme and branding we ultimately
> want to go down. Also i don't see any of our colour schemes being lost
> really, because we may be able to use them in the default theme. I'll
> write something more indepth for that as it warrants it's own
> discussion really. The final mockup is the more current version, i've
> attached the other ones to give an indication of the colour schemes
> that we can easily try out (although I've got to be honest, knocking
> out different colour schemes is pretty easy), and it may seem
> premature to start talking more detail about colours, but alas for our
> main page we do want to make sure we stand out from the rest.
> Another idea is to make every page a different colour scheme. Could be
> confusing but it could also be fun as well (just throwing ideas out
> there).
> The copy might need a little bit of a polish, but the whole idea is to
> keep things in a relatively playful fashion which in many respects
> mimics the community and interaction that we currently have. I'm still
> fiddling with all the other pages to be honest, but this can be coded
> up pretty quickly if the consensus is positive, hell if someone wants
> to help out, I'm sure we can set up a branch and have a bit of a
> collaborative effort from everyone to make it that much better. I've
> also got some pretty clear thoughts about how the documentation page
> should look like, but I need I've never really skinned mediawiki, so
> not sure how difficult it actually is.
> Now you'll notice that the footer has got a quote that says 'Channel
> the dissent and create something beautiful', I see this as an area for
> pulling (from a random selector) quotes that people in the community
> have come up with that they're fond of. I'm sure something to do with
> Pony's can be put into this as well:).
> I thought I'd turn my attention to the main home page which could use
> a little TLC and this hopefully might reciprocate in more people
> joining the fold in more numbers as currently it's our main marketing
> tool to reach more users/people.
> Now I know we've not discussed branding, other than we need some at
> some point. The main index page mockups I've attached basically give a
> couple of colour combinations that we could go with, but this is NOT
> supposed to be our branding. i've specifically limited the number of
> images that would be needed in the code within this design to 2 so
> that it can allow us to change the colour scheme as much as we want
> very easily.
> I guess the reasoning is that we can change the look of the site very
> simply every time we release a new version, leading up to version 1.0.
> By that stage we'll be a little bit more clear as to what has been
> useful for people and what colour scheme and branding we ultimately
> want to go down. Also i don't see any of our colour schemes being lost
> really, because we may be able to use them in the default theme. I'll
> write something more indepth for that as it warrants it's own
> discussion really. The final mockup is the more current version, i've
> attached the other ones to give an indication of the colour schemes
> that we can easily try out (although I've got to be honest, knocking
> out different colour schemes is pretty easy), and it may seem
> premature to start talking more detail about colours, but alas for our
> main page we do want to make sure we stand out from the rest.
> Another idea is to make every page a different colour scheme. Could be
> confusing but it could also be fun as well (just throwing ideas out
> there).
> The copy might need a little bit of a polish, but the whole idea is to
> keep things in a relatively playful fashion which in many respects
> mimics the community and interaction that we currently have. I'm still
> fiddling with all the other pages to be honest, but this can be coded
> up pretty quickly if the consensus is positive, hell if someone wants
> to help out, I'm sure we can set up a branch and have a bit of a
> collaborative effort from everyone to make it that much better. I've
> also got some pretty clear thoughts about how the documentation page
> should look like, but I need I've never really skinned mediawiki, so
> not sure how difficult it actually is.
> Now you'll notice that the footer has got a quote that says 'Channel
> the dissent and create something beautiful', I see this as an area for
> pulling (from a random selector) quotes that people in the community
> have come up with that they're fond of. I'm sure something to do with
> Pony's can be put into this as well:).
> 200803 Habari Index Rev0 KAA.png
> 170KViewDownload
> 200803 Habari Index Rev1 KAA.png
> 198KViewDownload
> 200803 Habari Index Rev2 KAA.png
> 205KViewDownload
I am all in for the first color scheme, even though I am a not-so-simplistic person. The description text is, IMHO, a little big and maybe you could try decreasing the size and see how it works. It looks like it's taking over the title.
Blue color scheem is also ok, but we could use 'white' space there while still using a little lighter shades of blue, I think.
As for the third design, well it ~ WP admin colors so, uh uh :)
Your effort, as always is highly appreciated Khaled, Thank you
Arthus - I will be on the channel later on tonight we can talk then how to move it all forward.
Andy - yeah it does mean what's the news which is where the hi Habari! Comes from (something mentioned ages ago by Owen that he would like to see somehow in the main page)
Ali - Font sizes and colour schemes can be modified much faster when code is done.
Btw the third colour scheme is not a wp derivative since they have pastel blue, orange, white, grey and black. This is a much darker and earthier colour scheme orange, ocker, dark aqua and dark blue and white I only mention this because the guys on the list and on the channel have mentioned on several occasions that they would like something in orange ;)
I am all in for the first color scheme, even though I am a not-so-simplistic person. The description text is, IMHO, a little big and maybe you could try decreasing the size and see how it works. It looks like it's taking over the title.
Blue color scheem is also ok, but we could use 'white' space there while still using a little lighter shades of blue, I think.
As for the third design, well it ~ WP admin colors so, uh uh :)
Your effort, as always is highly appreciated Khaled, Thank you
I too think that the first one is the most 'adequate'. Some points for
improvement:
-Direct download link/button on the frontpage. (d/l size, version,
date released bellow)
-Less text is better. One paragraph should say it all.
-Screenshots in place of the 'screencast' feature. Screencasts are
good, but the first thing I ever look at is screenshots. These should
preferably be taken with the standard browser/OS for blogging (and
looks), Safari on OS X!
On Apr 1, 12:38 am, Khaled Abou Alfa <brokenk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I thought I'd turn my attention to the main home page which could use
> a little TLC and this hopefully might reciprocate in more people
> joining the fold in more numbers as currently it's our main marketing
> tool to reach more users/people.
> Now I know we've not discussed branding, other than we need some at
> some point. The main index page mockups I've attached basically give a
> couple of colour combinations that we could go with, but this is NOT
> supposed to be our branding. i've specifically limited the number of
> images that would be needed in the code within this design to 2 so
> that it can allow us to change the colour scheme as much as we want
> very easily.
> I guess the reasoning is that we can change the look of the site very
> simply every time we release a new version, leading up to version 1.0.
> By that stage we'll be a little bit more clear as to what has been
> useful for people and what colour scheme and branding we ultimately
> want to go down. Also i don't see any of our colour schemes being lost
> really, because we may be able to use them in the default theme. I'll
> write something more indepth for that as it warrants it's own
> discussion really. The final mockup is the more current version, i've
> attached the other ones to give an indication of the colour schemes
> that we can easily try out (although I've got to be honest, knocking
> out different colour schemes is pretty easy), and it may seem
> premature to start talking more detail about colours, but alas for our
> main page we do want to make sure we stand out from the rest.
> Another idea is to make every page a different colour scheme. Could be
> confusing but it could also be fun as well (just throwing ideas out
> there).
> The copy might need a little bit of a polish, but the whole idea is to
> keep things in a relatively playful fashion which in many respects
> mimics the community and interaction that we currently have. I'm still
> fiddling with all the other pages to be honest, but this can be coded
> up pretty quickly if the consensus is positive, hell if someone wants
> to help out, I'm sure we can set up a branch and have a bit of a
> collaborative effort from everyone to make it that much better. I've
> also got some pretty clear thoughts about how the documentation page
> should look like, but I need I've never really skinned mediawiki, so
> not sure how difficult it actually is.
> Now you'll notice that the footer has got a quote that says 'Channel
> the dissent and create something beautiful', I see this as an area for
> pulling (from a random selector) quotes that people in the community
> have come up with that they're fond of. I'm sure something to do with
> Pony's can be put into this as well:).
> 200803 Habari Index Rev0 KAA.png
> 170KViewDownload
> 200803 Habari Index Rev1 KAA.png
> 198KViewDownload
> 200803 Habari Index Rev2 KAA.png
> 205KViewDownload
> good, but the first thing I ever look at is screenshots. These should > preferably be taken with the standard browser/OS for blogging (and > looks), Safari on OS X!
I really dig the first mockup as well. I would say that we should tend toward a decent amount of copy on the front page, one paragraph can't say it all. I get irritated with sites that don't give me an adequate amount of information on their home page.
Lets get this thang moving!
Chris
On Apr 1, 2008, at 5:11 AM, Michael Heilemann wrote:
> good, but the first thing I ever look at is screenshots. These should > preferably be taken with the standard browser/OS for blogging (and > looks), Safari on OS X!
I don't think there's anything nothing wrong with having one paragraph
(okay, or two-three but no more!), provided that there's also an
elaborate 'Features' page. I'm all for a streamlined, uncluttered
first page.
On Apr 1, 2:57 pm, "Chris J. Davis" <c...@chrisjdavis.org> wrote:
> I really dig the first mockup as well. I would say that we should
> tend toward a decent amount of copy on the front page, one paragraph
> can't say it all. I get irritated with sites that don't give me an
> adequate amount of information on their home page.
> Lets get this thang moving!
> Chris
> On Apr 1, 2008, at 5:11 AM, Michael Heilemann wrote:
> > good, but the first thing I ever look at is screenshots. These should
> > preferably be taken with the standard browser/OS for blogging (and
> > looks), Safari on OS X!
Chris can you quickly set up a branch and call it home website or something like that I should be online later on tonight to talk with peeps who want to work on this as well
I really dig the first mockup as well. I would say that we should
tend toward a decent amount of copy on the front page, one paragraph
can't say it all. I get irritated with sites that don't give me an
adequate amount of information on their home page.
Lets get this thang moving!
Chris
On Apr 1, 2008, at 5:11 AM, Michael Heilemann wrote:
> good, but the first thing I ever look at is screenshots. These should
> preferably be taken with the standard browser/OS for blogging (and
> looks), Safari on OS X!
Chris can you quickly set up a branch and call it home website or something like that I should be online later on tonight to talk with peeps who want to work on this as well
I really dig the first mockup as well. I would say that we should
tend toward a decent amount of copy on the front page, one paragraph
can't say it all. I get irritated with sites that don't give me an
adequate amount of information on their home page.
Lets get this thang moving!
Chris
On Apr 1, 2008, at 5:11 AM, Michael Heilemann wrote:
> good, but the first thing I ever look at is screenshots. These should
> preferably be taken with the standard browser/OS for blogging (and
> looks), Safari on OS X!
Chris can you quickly set up a branch and call it home website or something like that I should be online later on tonight to talk with peeps who want to work on this as well
I really dig the first mockup as well. I would say that we should
tend toward a decent amount of copy on the front page, one paragraph
can't say it all. I get irritated with sites that don't give me an
adequate amount of information on their home page.
Lets get this thang moving!
Chris
On Apr 1, 2008, at 5:11 AM, Michael Heilemann wrote:
> good, but the first thing I ever look at is screenshots. These should
> preferably be taken with the standard browser/OS for blogging (and
> looks), Safari on OS X!
On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 1:21 PM, <brokenk...@gmail.com> wrote: > Chris can you quickly set up a branch and call it home website or something like that I should be online later on tonight to talk with peeps who want to work on this as well
I don't think that the Habariproject.org theme is stored in any of our public repositories.
Just wanted to give everyone the heads up as to why I have not been online to discuss this and move it forward, basically the day after this email got sent I lost internet at home we are trying to get the shut sorted out but unfortunately it could take some time so I'm not sure how to play this thing I can still get emails (blackberry) and obviously may be able to send files for others to upload until this is sorted out. But while we think about that just wanted to talk a bit about colour and what it conveys because I think it is important to get to that conclusion since we are progressing with the main page.
The colour scheme we choose should be indicative of the community and how we want the software to be viewed. I view Habari and the community as a bunch of enthusiastic herja from all over the world bandying together to create something special, fun to use and more intuative than anything else out there. There is a much stronger community feel at work here and that is something that should be apparent.
Having said all of that we still want the sense of professional polish that keeps us ahead of everyone else.
To that end my feeling is that the white and black motif does not achieve those goals. My reasoning for this is that using white as the main colour while utilitarian in nature is also cold and brings a much more corporate feel than one of individual and community.
I think that while it may be nice that the main site follows the admin panel in terms of look I also think that we should consider them as separate entities since they provide different functions where one encompasses the entire community. Not sure if this is making sense to everyone?
I really dig the first mockup as well. I would say that we should
tend toward a decent amount of copy on the front page, one paragraph
can't say it all. I get irritated with sites that don't give me an
adequate amount of information on their home page.
Lets get this thang moving!
Chris
On Apr 1, 2008, at 5:11 AM, Michael Heilemann wrote:
> good, but the first thing I ever look at is screenshots. These should
> preferably be taken with the standard browser/OS for blogging (and
> looks), Safari on OS X!
> To that end my feeling is that the white and black motif does not achieve > those goals. My reasoning for this is that using white as the main colour > while utilitarian in nature is also cold and brings a much more corporate > feel than one of individual and community.
> I think that while it may be nice that the main site follows the admin > panel in terms of look I also think that we should consider them as separate > entities since they provide different functions where one encompasses the > entire community. Not sure if this is making sense to everyone?
Not to me anyway :)
I believe Habari should be kept in neutral colors until someone comes up with a color scheme which can work for everyone. The two color examples you included for instance are _way way_ too heavy duty for my tastes.
Anyway, I notice you're using Verdana in the mockups. It might be worth taking a look at Monolith, which uses Helvetica and Helvetica Light, to unify the look and feel.
I am really against using mac-only fonts anywhere in Habari. I really can't see any good to have any aspect of Habari to promote the looks-better-on-mac idea.
Don't get me wrong, I like the mac and I am even a mac "wanabe" :) My point is that Habari admin, default themes, and even hp.o itself should look the same in every major browser. We don't want to give the impression of being biased to any platform.
> Anyway, I notice you're using Verdana in the mockups. It might be worth > taking a look at Monolith, which uses Helvetica and Helvetica Light, to > unify the look and feel.
On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 2:54 PM, Ali B. <dmond...@gmail.com> wrote:
I am really against using mac-only fonts anywhere in Habari. I really can't
> see any good to have any aspect of Habari to promote the looks-better-on-mac > idea.
Strictly speaking, Helvetica isn't a Mac-only font. And it of course degrades to Arial when it isn't available, and since Arial is near carbon copy of Helvetica, it isn't a particularly big issue.
Don't get me wrong, I like the mac and I am even a mac "wanabe" :) My point
> is that Habari admin, default themes, and even hp.o itself should look the > same in every major browser. We don't want to give the impression of being > biased to any platform.
I don't think we are biased, other than making the most of every platform, without loss to the other platforms.
On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Michael Heilemann <heilem...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Strictly speaking, Helvetica isn't a Mac-only font. And it of course > degrades to Arial when it isn't available, and since Arial is near carbon > copy of Helvetica, it isn't a particularly big issue.
What about Helvetica Light? There is no "Arial Light" to degrade to, or is there?
But all good that came out of that post was some logos to ChrisJDavis
own website, pleased it was useful to something anyway :) and not
wasted away hehe.
But i still have some other mock-ups i never posten in psd's laying
around somewhere. But i don't know if they will make any use, most of
them use jquery effects in mind. So if someone wants i can post them
so anybody can play around with them even write down the links to the
jquery plugin i had in mind when i made them. They need to be dusted
off alittle bit i guess :)
I really digg the white/clearblue "200803 Habari Index Rev0" i hope
something will come out from that one nice and clean shapes "Great
Work" Khaled you rock as always.
When we still talking about websites/design/brand/identity colors most
say i really like wordpress.org new design clean, and nice choose of
font etc. But the button style sucks even in modern browsers guess
they are not aware of that so do the buttons UI in wordpress admin if
you don't have safari. And how many procent make use of that browser
around the world :).
On Mar 31, 11:38 pm, Khaled Abou Alfa <brokenk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I thought I'd turn my attention to the main home page which could use
> a little TLC and this hopefully might reciprocate in more people
> joining the fold in more numbers as currently it's our main marketing
> tool to reach more users/people.
> Now I know we've not discussed branding, other than we need some at
> some point. The main index page mockups I've attached basically give a
> couple of colour combinations that we could go with, but this is NOT
> supposed to be our branding. i've specifically limited the number of
> images that would be needed in the code within this design to 2 so
> that it can allow us to change the colour scheme as much as we want
> very easily.
> I guess the reasoning is that we can change the look of the site very
> simply every time we release a new version, leading up to version 1.0.
> By that stage we'll be a little bit more clear as to what has been
> useful for people and what colour scheme and branding we ultimately
> want to go down. Also i don't see any of our colour schemes being lost
> really, because we may be able to use them in the default theme. I'll
> write something more indepth for that as it warrants it's own
> discussion really. The final mockup is the more current version, i've
> attached the other ones to give an indication of the colour schemes
> that we can easily try out (although I've got to be honest, knocking
> out different colour schemes is pretty easy), and it may seem
> premature to start talking more detail about colours, but alas for our
> main page we do want to make sure we stand out from the rest.
> Another idea is to make every page a different colour scheme. Could be
> confusing but it could also be fun as well (just throwing ideas out
> there).
> The copy might need a little bit of a polish, but the whole idea is to
> keep things in a relatively playful fashion which in many respects
> mimics the community and interaction that we currently have. I'm still
> fiddling with all the other pages to be honest, but this can be coded
> up pretty quickly if the consensus is positive, hell if someone wants
> to help out, I'm sure we can set up a branch and have a bit of a
> collaborative effort from everyone to make it that much better. I've
> also got some pretty clear thoughts about how the documentation page
> should look like, but I need I've never really skinned mediawiki, so
> not sure how difficult it actually is.
> Now you'll notice that the footer has got a quote that says 'Channel
> the dissent and create something beautiful', I see this as an area for
> pulling (from a random selector) quotes that people in the community
> have come up with that they're fond of. I'm sure something to do with
> Pony's can be put into this as well:).
> 200803 Habari Index Rev0 KAA.png
> 170KViewDownload
> 200803 Habari Index Rev1 KAA.png
> 198KViewDownload
> 200803 Habari Index Rev2 KAA.png
> 205KViewDownload
On Apr 4, 5:10 am, "Michael Heilemann" <heilem...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > To that end my feeling is that the white and black motif does not achieve
> > those goals. My reasoning for this is that using white as the main colour
> > while utilitarian in nature is also cold and brings a much more corporate
> > feel than one of individual and community.
> > I think that while it may be nice that the main site follows the admin
> > panel in terms of look I also think that we should consider them as separate
> > entities since they provide different functions where one encompasses the
> > entire community. Not sure if this is making sense to everyone?
> Not to me anyway :)
The best way I can think to describe my feeling on this at the moment
is described thus:
If you are a proponent that the Habari admin should look like the
Habariproject.org site, then you must also agree that Adobe's site
should look like the Photoshop interface.
> I believe Habari should be kept in neutral colors until someone comes up
> with a color scheme which can work for everyone. The two color examples you
> included for instance are _way way_ too heavy duty for my tastes.
> Anyway, I notice you're using Verdana in the mockups. It might be worth
> taking a look at Monolith, which uses Helvetica and Helvetica Light, to
> unify the look and feel.
I agree.
I'm inclined to ask: how fast could we see HTML using the colors of
"200803 Habari Index Rev0" in {font-family: Helvetica, Arial}?
Takers?
I am lamenting the loss of the blog entries and -user threads on the
home page though. It would be nice if the community interaction we so
espouse here was also one of the first things that people interact
with when they visit the site.
On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 12:59:54PM -0700, ringmaster wrote:
> I am lamenting the loss of the blog entries and -user threads on the > home page though. It would be nice if the community interaction we so > espouse here was also one of the first things that people interact > with when they visit the site.
I haven't looked at the mockups, but I am strongly against losing blog entries and other updating community information from the home page. If anything I think we should increase their prominence. Habari is a blog (even though it can do other things), we should show of its blogginess.
On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 9:59 PM, ringmaster <epit...@gmail.com> wrote:
If you are a proponent that the Habari admin should look like the
> Habariproject.org site, then you must also agree that Adobe's site > should look like the Photoshop interface.
If Photoshop was a website, there might be some truth to that, but it isn't :)
I'm not saying it should use even near the same layout. But the essence should flow through all of Habari, in the same way as the iPod and the iMac resemble each other, but not.
I'm inclined to ask: how fast could we see HTML using the colors of
> "200803 Habari Index Rev0" in {font-family: Helvetica, Arial}? > Takers?
What does that mean?
> I am lamenting the loss of the blog entries and -user threads on the > home page though. It would be nice if the community interaction we so > espouse here was also one of the first things that people interact > with when they visit the site.
On Apr 4, 2008, at 8:49 PM, Michael Heilemann wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 9:59 PM, ringmaster <epit...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm inclined to ask: how fast could we see HTML using the colors of > "200803 Habari Index Rev0" in {font-family: Helvetica, Arial}? > Takers?
