Habari Website - habari-dev

Message from discussion Habari Website

Michael Bishop

More options Feb 3 2007, 2:18 pm

From: "Michael Bishop" <bishopblogwo...@gmail.com>

Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2007 19:18:21 -0000

Local: Sat, Feb 3 2007 2:18 pm

Subject: Re: Habari Website

  Reply to author
  |
  Forward
  | Print
  | View thread
  | Show original
  | Report this message
  | Find messages by this author
  

On Feb 3, 5:02 am, Khaled Abou Alfa <khaled.aboua...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 5. Mockups. When people come to an open source software site they
> generally want to see what the actual software looks like as it informs
> them how mature or not the project actually is and whether or not they
> can be bothered to contribute to it. They say never judge a book by it's
> cover, however I'm sorry to say that in the crowded world of blogging
> software it's important that the software has that edge. And we need to
> market every area to pull in as many new contributors as possible and
> build the community as much as possible. The screenshots are our cover
> and as such we should be highlighting these on the front page because
> they'll draw the user in.

Are you suggesting showing your mockups on installer/admin that have
yet to be implemented in the code? Or is this a "down-the-road"
feature of the home page? If the goal is to get something up *now*,
how would showing advanced ideas of what *might* be there helpful in
portraying the current state? Or are you suggesting using screenshots
of the current interface? Should the page also talk about what other
features *might* be in habari down the road, but arent'

> First of all I'll say that I never do this, critique other people's
> designs however it's important to illustrate where I feel these are
> going wrong in relation to the thoughts I've written above.

> Maybe I should create a document (or put it on the wiki) that sets out
> our design philosophy so that people can read that first before jumping
> in, I dunno we'll see).

Am I to understand then that your design philosophy is the bottom line
for habari? That it's written in stone?

> So lets look at the current designs on the table and how they fare (I
> think these are the latest versions of both):

> 1. This is the one done by Brian:http://habari.heimidal.net/mockup_with_content_new_3.png

> 2. While this one was done by Dean:http://dev.deanjrobinson.com/habari_design/habari_mockup1.png

> 1. Brian's mockup:
> The first thing that I've got to say is it doesn't really follow the
> design ethos. There's a lot going on in the page. It does have some nice
> large chunky calls to action on the side. There's a lot of text there
> though. A lot less needs be said and that might be where images come
> through.

How are images accessible? chrisjdavis has already mentioned that
buttons for fields should be default for accessibility. If all there
is on the home page are a bunch of cute icons, how does that help some
one with a disability visiting the site? I'm not one for not using
graphic images, but there should be concise text to go along with
that.

> The issue is that the download section is given one kind of treatment,
> the what is habari is given another importance, documentation is given
> yet another set of importance and so on (see number 4).

> It's also got information regarding the latest plugins and the latest
> theme. Maybe down the line but not now as we've only got like 1 theme
> and a handful of plugins. Is it really that important to put this
> information on the front page now? I don't think so.

How is that much different than your "planet" concept, other than you
are using a singular phrase that is ambiguous at best. News and
Planet really are one in the same to me.

> It's got the motto but not what the project is actually called right
> there at the top. There is space for it at the top left hand corner
> however.

> A green colour has been added to this. This instantly is giving the site
> a branding direction which we've gone around the mill on this. Colour
> will come eventually (this could be just in the icons or whatever)
> however we shouldn't really be putting ourselves being associated with
> specific colours at the moment since they're bound to change in the next
> few months anyway.

I highly doubt the average user visiting the site is going to
immediately associate the "product" with a color. No more so than
icons, IMO.

> There is no pictures of the mockups on there so the instant grab isn't
> actually there.

Again, are you suggesting showing mockups for something that hasn't
been implemented? They download the source, install, see an admin
totally different than the home page, think they've done something
wrong or worse.

> 2. Dean's mockup:
> Well we've got colour in this one and the flower logo. Once again we've
> got a lot of words on the front page that well doesn't really need to be
> there from the word go. Maybe potentially down the line however not at
> the moment.

> The pane on the right hand side is a good idea of icons for calls to
> action. That's the focus that people look at. The thing is that it's to
> the side. A lot of our current design mockups is centre based. I say
> this because it's decisions like this that might not seem like much to
> the casual user but if we get it right from now we link things up in a
> tight and professional looking design.

> Now based on that I spent seriously 30 minutes on the attached mockup.
> It's just to illustrate where the design could have gone and how it
> keeps in with things. and keeps things simple. I've put the icons there
> just for show, so that you know what we're talking about. It's meant to
> convey the ideas I've discussed is all. I'm not planning on spending any
> more time on this as I've spent an hour writing this email and 30
> minutes to illustrate my point, arguably I could have spent that time
> better but I'm trying to make a point here and I'm an extremely verbose
> asshat.

> The design might seem far too married to the mockups at the moment and I
> think the mockup area might be much to have the same design but I think
> the idea is solid in how and where the mockups should be conveyed.

> The idea is thinking about what's really essential on the page and why.

> Khaledwww.brokenkode.com

I'm confused. You are basically knocking what's been put forth,
saying you've spent all of 30minutes on what you think is superior to
what's been put forth, and have no desire to further that design, and
once again aren't offering source files to allow others to build on
the design, or make it real code.

What really is the goal here? And how is using k2 in the interim not
"branding" habari right off the bat? Seeing k2 default on the page
would be no more harmful of using a green color, or a logo that might
not be there a month from now ,IMO

I am all for helping code up any one of the designs (Brian, I learned
I'm much better at .psd files than .ai but that's another discussion).

But it seems the goal is to get something up, even if it doesn't fit
ALL the criteria of any design ethos.

The design and content can be tweaked all along, just as the code is
being done on a daily basis. I disagree that the site has to be any
more polished the final product is at this point.

Michael B

Reply to author Forward