TxP.com home page

maverick · 2008-08-29 17:50:41

ruud wrote:

I’d swap download and the blog entry (download is more important)..

alternate perspective – leaving the download in the corner makes it more obvious than in the middle. fwiw

Last edited by maverick (2008-08-29 17:50:59)

zero · 2008-08-30 07:31:50

Putting my opinions about what is good, bad or indifferent aside, I must say this is not what I expected, Matthew. At the beginning of this thread, I attempted to gather the various views together in one place and I thought all these views would be taken into consideration. However, I fail to see how this has been done. For example, there were a several comments about just tweaking the design rather than a complete redesign or using something based on the default template or keeping it stark and simple. I don’t see these ideas in your wireframe. Have I misunderstood?

What I see are yet more individual ideas to add to the melting pot rather than something created by the community. Fair enough, you have not stated your views before. Your wireframe is your way of doing that, imho. But it does not seem to me to reflect what the community wants. Andreas’s seems nearer, imho.

Neither includes the integrated header and nav either. In Matthew’s case, this would push the Download button out of sight. In both cases, it appears there would be two logos and two menus and the relationship/positions of these is not shown. They are both wireframes but I thought there was enough raw material available to make them a little more precise.

I understand you wanting to make the home page show txp as being lively and vibrant, Matthew. But you are the only one to come up with the concept, so again it does not reflect the views of the community. Of course, now the concept is revealed perhaps others agree with it and want it. If so, recent comments from the forum will show activity but recent dev weblog articles will always show the opposite because they are devs who develop rather than talk about it. Perhaps latest commits instead? Or delete and make room for some excellent copy that Destry has written here.

The image/video/slideshow area. It seemed to be agreed my most that some way of showcasing great sites should be prominent, so I think your way is a reflection of community wishes there. I hope the first thing a visitor sees, however, is NOT bold letters with Jon Hicks or anyone else’s name or a site which is not Textpattern.com!

Gocom · 2008-08-30 07:50:38

I hope the first thing a visitor sees, however, is NOT bold letters with Jon Hicks or anyone else’s name or a site which is not Textpattern.com!

Yo, it’s a dummy text aka our beloved lorem ipsum :P Ofcourse it’s going to be slogans, slideshows and other goodies etc.

Something to think:

Will the page be as good with out flash/Javascript?
If there is a lot of animation, will it be too slow for those slow oldie internet connections?

squaredeye wrote:

This is a wireframe with boxes to help think about hierarchy.

Yep, nonetheless, it looks good. It atleast brings the page to 21th century :P – and resembles other CMS sites.

Last edited by Gocom (2008-08-30 07:51:34)

zero · 2008-08-31 17:22:11

You know what Thought did? Followed a muck cart and thought it was a wedding.

I think I’ve had a good idea – so watch out! It’s an idea only. This is NOT my suggestion of what should be. Use it, abuse it or lose it but I hope you might be able to use some of it. If not, there’s nothing lost. I don’t want to start conflict or tread on anybody’s toes. I think it is an improvement but am quite prepared for it to be completely ignored. And before you think I’m mad, here’s my lame excuse to get me off the hook :-) I use Ubuntu and still haven’t got used to Gimp. My version of Paint Shop Pro crashes with fonts in Ubuntu, so it’s hassle, so that’s why this png is very rough!

I’ve posted an idea for the integrated menu here. My reasons and caveats are as follows:

One is for txp.com, the other for textbook
This example doesn’t take up much real estate on the screen
Putting the inter-site nav, local nav and You Are Here all together ensures consistency across sites, is scanned quicker than if nav is spread about, will be less noisy than if nav is spread about (when graphics are sorted)
The tabs help ensure it is instantly recognised, as does the yellow band and txp font.
The tabs need changing to provide more contrast and to ensure people know exactly that the lower part of the nav belongs to which part of the upper nav
I am suggesting that admin tabs need to change – the tabs here should match those in admin, so they have to be right
The tabs font should be a bit bigger
The Download Textpattern button should probably use Sackers Gothic
The Carver gif can go in the footer with links to txp community sites like Textgarden

Destry · 2008-09-01 14:12:03

I was just about to hit the submit button on my email to you, Matthieu, and thought maybe I’d check the boards first. Glad I did, and glad we opened this up. I have some comments which I’ll post first, followed by a wireframe that combines your start with my thoughts on the content to demonstrate things a bit better.

First I want to say, nice job. I like the grid approach, and I like your initial ideas of space.

Destry · 2008-09-01 14:32:02

A link to Txp wireframe 2

Explanation:

1) I guess the whole main nav thing is still up in the air. I’m in favor of something integrated, meaning it includes links for “Docs” (wiki), “Forum”, “Extension” (plugins)…like demonstrated for the wiki and for the forum… and for the sake of not being too long probably less of a need for Demos, Showcase and Contact, which are all things that can be sufficiently advertised on the home page anyway (or footer for things like Contact).

2) There should be a text block for the intro/elevator pitch. It’s short, sets the expectation for everything else and thus needs to be one of the first things people see (meaning at the top). There’s also the accessibility thing of reaching the intro copy quickly by keyboard so up top is best in this respect too if that’s something people care about here (should be). The pitch is composed of two parts, an opening beginning with “Michaelangelo…” and the body of the pitch itself. Although they don’t necessarily have to be in the same block, they do need to be close together. I kind of prefer the left box version where the two pieces of the pitch are together and styled differently.

3) I like the slideshow idea, but I think a full width block is overkill (consumes too much space), and I also think this location should be for Demos and not showcase examples. It’s arguable which should have the prominant position, Demos of Textpattern backoffice or Showcase of actual sites (I’m assuming that’s the idea of the Hicks Desing stuff), but I think there’s a stronger case for having Demos in the prominant position, and here’s why: If I was in the market for a CMS, before I would care about the pretty sites it could create (because I’m already skilled in standards design and would expect it to do that anyway), I want insight on the look-and-feel to get an idea if I even want to bother downloading it. So show me some backoffice demos and sell me on the ease of use and functionality. If I like what I see, then I might like to go see what other people have done, by looking down at the showcase underneath. I think a slightly different nav mechanism would be appropriate for demos too, like numbers to suggest following demos in a workflow-like order.

4) Like ruud, I was confused by the Hicks Design implication, whether it’s a showcase item, quotation, both… As for the showcase, I think it’s important it is not just a bunch of nice looking sites from celebrity people with no real structure otherwise. I’m not suggesting that’s your motivation here, I just want to make sure we’re keeping a thumb on the target audience and reasons why they might be looking at the site, and thus how that might impact the design. We’re pitching Textpattern to be a great tool for designers (not solely, but that’s a big part of it). As designers who need a tool for building client sites, we (you and me being real examples of the target audience) need more information about the kinds of sites it can do as opposed to who else uses Textpattern. Jon is a celebrity name, no doubt, and having his site in a “Portfolios” category, as well using a Hicks quote in the quotations (next point), would be a smart thing to do, but I think the Txp Showcase needs to be categorized (e-commerce, portfolios, communities…) and we need to have showcase examples in each one. A showcase presented this way would be powerful and convincing, and would go a long way in demonstrating Txp is more than just a blog engine. All we need is 2 or 3 examples in each category and the showcase would stand on its own legs. Each category would ideally be accessible via a link from the showcase block.

4) Going back to Hicks Design stuff. I love the idea of designer quotations, and maybe there’s a block for those where they change automatically as a user comes and goes from the main page. I’ve put it down at the bottom for now, next to the download button.

5) I think the blog content is a reasonable idea, but I think it should be limited to just a short list of blog article titles (3 to 5 max), and perhaps including author and date. I did not reflect them in my wireframe, but could be added.

6) I don’t think forum content should appear at all on the .com home page. There’s no assurance that all forum posts will be suitable for home page presentation. A link to the forum in the main navigation is all that should be needed.

Again, my wireframe there is not to indicate a better layout, but to give more thinking to the layout in context to the communication it’s supposed to be doing and how that might be effectively presented. I think if we could just get this masthead thing finalized that would be a good thing in a next iteration.

—————————————

EDITS: Forgot to mention a couple of things:

I kind of like the idea of a spot for Txp Pros for hire. Not necessarily worded like that but the concept is not bad. EE does this and it’s not too obtrusive in my opinion. If you needed another block for balance in the grid or something, that might be something to consider.

I didn’t really talk about why I played-down the features in the home page. Honestly, I don’t think you need to list features on the home page. Give a teaser to the fact features are a plenty and for various needs and then link to the full-blown features list page where you can talk up a storm or a soft zephyr.

Also, I meant to say keep the slideshow mechanism, but use it on the showcase main page, rather than the home page (focus being on demos instead).

Last edited by Destry (2008-09-01 15:37:51)

maniqui · 2008-09-01 15:26:53

I’ll “bulletize” my loose ideas:

reading this copy, and this one too, and taking a look at current TXP homepage is a must-to for those willing to help (or even, criticize).
Jon Hicks’s site and many other beautiful TxP-based sites are probably a strong sell point, but then, they could be listed somewhere else (even on the homepage), less “important”.
reinforce the idea of TXP being blank canvas
Also, the idea of “code is pottery” (easily “chaineable” with the idea of “artisans”).
I loved the “Michelangelo… Hemingway… webdesigners… artisans” metaphor.
- Michelangelo equals the web designer with HTML/CSS/graphical skills but not too much JS/PHP/general-programming skills
- Hemingway may match the bloggers/writers or any other people who publish content to the web, and also may have some geek skills (html/css/js/php).
- I would add someone else (a scientist: Leonardo Da Vinci? Einstein? Newton?), so developers (programmers, plug-in devs) can feel identified too to someone clever which used common tools to develop new devices and to create beautiful science (“code is pottery”, again).
- so, the elevator pitch should aim web-designers/programmers/writters and, hopefully, our potential clients (to whom we offer the benefits of TXP).
also liked the idea of factoids and teasers. The idea of explaining features (like plug-ins, or the support forum, or TXP tags) on a deeper place (second level) on TXP site.
listen to the community, or you haven’t read latest news on jQuery official blog?
- jQuery site redesign: the community speaks
- Death to Javascript Rock Stars (death to TXP rock stars?)
as a reference, I love the way Slicehost (a hosting company) organized its site (not just the homepage but the whole site). It has the content it must have.

re: the wireframe
I think the suggested wireframe goes a little against one statement on design principles on wet’s notes:

Avoid Web 2.0 clichés like gradients or overly huge font sizes

The suggested wireframe (for homepage) seems to lead to a almost image-based design.
It doesn’t seem to have room for the copy
Yes, the copy (the “long” explanations of features, etc) could (and should) go on the inner pages, mainly because a home-page doesn’t have too much SEO impact (can’t find the link).

Of course, one image is worth a thousands words, but then, the content is the king (yeah, images are content too, but I’m talking about text).

Look at current TXP.com. It’s almost all text-based. Yeah, some of the text there is totally outdated. But then, it worked (sure, along with the word of mouth made by both well-known and anonymous designers/developers, both amateurs and professionals, both newcomers and skilled).

So, IMHO, the wireframe needs some adjustment to balance images-based content and text-based content.

Everyone seems to be doing great work.
I insist on a public redesign (hidden from starving robots).
Is the dev.textpattern.com already set up? ;)

Last edited by maniqui (2008-09-01 16:14:45)

zero · 2008-09-01 15:43:53

Regarding your points, Destry:
1 I thought integrated nav menu was agreed because of the enthusiastic response and the fact that Robert added it to the design principles on the relaunch start page. If you still don’t have email, you may not be aware of some changes I created for discussion on the site map. Imho, the integrated nav should be accompanied by a local nav on every integrated site, for consistency and ease of navigation. If that can be agreed, the rest of each website could be quite different if necessary, eg forum will be different to weblog will be different to docs.

2, 3, 4 All sound good to me

6 Probably a good point

Features: it has been mentioned several times throughout the forums that plugins provide all the features most people require, which is why I made it prominent in the draft home page content. I don’t think ‘Features’ needs stressing at all because people will probably be looking for features anyway. However, plugins are overlooked as features so I would prefer to see your plugin text replace what you’ve written in the Features box, but still keep the Features heading.

Overall good jobs are being done and it’s getting nearer!

Destry · 2008-09-01 15:52:31

zero wrote:

I am suggesting that admin tabs need to change – the tabs here should match those in admin, so they have to be right

This is an important point, if not in the same way you mean (I’m not sure). I noticed after the fact that in the screenshots from the current .com site the images used in the slide animations show backoffice tab labels having lowercase text. Those are obviously old images and it would be sloppy to use old imagery in a new site design. Details like this should ideally be followed up with.

This is another point/plug for some Camtasia wizard to create a new series of Txp demos that could replace those rather choppy slide loops. Or at the very least for someone to make new slide loops using a current backoffice.

maniqui · 2008-09-01 15:59:51

Destry’s wireframe and post resumed, extended and explained all the looses ideas on my last post.

As zero, I agree that plug-ins should be emphasized some where on the home page.

Also, any content on the homepage should be further explained somewhere else on the inner pages.
Examples:

if there is a teaser about plug-ins, it should link to a inner page where TXP plugins are explained as a feature. Like an “elevators pitch” but on a inner page, so it could be larger than an elevators pitch. Then, link from there to any plug-in related page (Textpattern Resources, the Plugin category on forum, etc)
if there is a teaser about the community and the forum, we shouldn’t link directly to the forum, but to a inner page where there is a nice, short, concise description about the forum, the community, the #textpattern channel, the fun, etc, etc.
and so on.

Of course, links like “Forum” on top navigation should probably link directly to the forum. Or not.

*Gocom wrote: *

Will the page be as good with out flash/Javascript?

I’m all for a progressive enhancement and graceful degradation approach from the start (an Keith’s hijax approach).
It will be very promotional for TXP. There is people (with and without OCD) who checks if a CMS page validates properly, if the page works with JS disabled, etc. Yeah, geeks like you and me.

els · 2008-09-01 16:10:32

Michaelangelo had hammer and chisel.

Can someone please change that to Michelangelo?

Destry · 2008-09-01 16:19:15

zero wrote:

I thought integrated nav menu was agreed because of the enthusiastic response and the fact that Robert added it to the design principles on the relaunch start page.

Thanks. I had not noticed that before. That’s good news to me and at least a few others.

maniqui wrote:

Of course, links like “Forum” on top navigation should probably link directly to the forum.

Yes, on this I would certainly agree. It’s what makes the integrated styling effective (again, again, and the .org site theoretically behaving the same way), as well as being the principle means by which a user moves from one environment to another.

With regard to the plugins teaser, it would be easy enough to add a fourth horizontal block for “Plugins” or “Extension” (the latter used in the main nav wireframe to suggest the .org site) underneath the elevator pitch. I don’t think it would be necessary to replace the current Features lead-in entirely, as it is already much reduced from what exists now.

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#85 2008-08-29 17:50:41

Re: TxP.com home page

#86 2008-08-30 07:31:50

Re: TxP.com home page

#87 2008-08-30 07:50:38

Re: TxP.com home page

#88 2008-08-31 17:22:11

Re: TxP.com home page

#89 2008-09-01 14:12:03

Re: TxP.com home page

#90 2008-09-01 14:32:02

Re: TxP.com home page

#91 2008-09-01 15:26:53

Re: TxP.com home page

#92 2008-09-01 15:43:53

Re: TxP.com home page

#93 2008-09-01 15:52:31

Re: TxP.com home page

#94 2008-09-01 15:59:51

Re: TxP.com home page

#95 2008-09-01 16:10:32

Re: TxP.com home page

#96 2008-09-01 16:19:15

Re: TxP.com home page

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