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[Resolved] What to do with the About section
New Textpattern installs come fitted with an About section. It’s empty. As in, there’s a page skeleton but no article or information content. From a usability/UX point of view for new users, it’s confusing. Today I had a client try Textpattern and assume she’d broken it because there was nothing there. This has happened a couple of times in the past, though not what I would consider frequently.
There’s a lot of activity going on with the default front-end theme for 4.6.0, and as About is arguably viewed as an inherent part of that theme, it follows that About should have the opportunity to have some work done, too. What to do:
- Add a misc form with About content and have the template call it.
- Add an additional article and assign to the About section.
- Remove About from default install completely.
- Absolutely nothing – leave as-is.
My initial preference was for 1 or 3. After some thought, having an additional article (option 2) would show new users that an article has a section, and these sections extract articles based on their section assignment (i.e., a two-way understanding of how the nuts and bolts work).
Choosing 1 or 2 will impact those people who strip out everything from Textpattern for a clean install as there is more to remove. Plugins that automate this process may have to be updated to locate the new form and/or article.
Which leaves option 3. And option 4, for the status quo.
What would you like to happen to About?
Last edited by gaekwad (2015-07-07 20:43:44)
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Re: [Resolved] What to do with the About section
zero wrote #287905:
I’d like the home page content (ie txp brief how-to and links) to go in the About page and then make the home page prettier and more attractive and much simpler and shorter.
That would reduce the wall of text that’s presented right now, too. Good idea.
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Re: [Resolved] What to do with the About section
Ok, I’m not keen on the empty about page either. If we put the current getting started text on about section, then what do you propose would go on the homepage instead? Bear in mind that the homepage shows an article from the archive section at present.
Let me know ideas and I’ll consider.
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Re: [Resolved] What to do with the About section
tl;dr: #3.
I’ve had some time to think on this, and I’m coming around to option #3 being the best: remove the About section. The front page is still the focus, and it removes the empty page/section. I would vote for doing the front page well and putting effort into the support docs, rather than have a bogus section with nothing in it. As it stands, removing the empty About section would make it more of a ready-to-go website: if someone just wants to write and have it appear, there’s less of a barrier to achieve that if there’s only one section.
Last edited by gaekwad (2015-01-31 14:54:51)
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Re: [Resolved] What to do with the About section
I think many a new user will still be asking “Is Textpattern for me?” and “Does this CMS have what I am looking for?” before they ask “How do I use this thing?”. I don’t think there’s much wrong with the Welcome to your Site article apart from that it looks like a wall of text. Hence, I suggest moving it to About probably with About as the title of the section and perhaps with the following intro: This is an example of a one-page About section that you can replace with your own content. If you want a Company Philosophy page plus a Welcome To The Team page and such like, you can set up the About section just like the Articles section.
I think the Textpattern CMS should demonstrate the simplicity, flexibility, elegance and ease of use that the user has probably already read about. Plus it should orientate the new user. I think the installation process does a good job of that and the home page is an opportunity to reinforce TXP values. But it looks long-winded at present, so I suggest the first article should go something like this:
Welcome!
Wondering where you are?
If this is your first view of the home page, the article you are reading was written in the Articles section and is presented here as well. If you navigate to Articles, you will see a list of articles (there’s only this one at the moment). If you select the title link you will see this full article plus comments.
In the About section there are a few pointers to start you off, help you get your bearings and learn how to harness the power and capabilities of Textpattern. Enjoy the journey!
(Follow this with a small-file-size image of someone in a small boat leaving a jetty heading into the bright future. Or some such image that conveys that sort of message in a simple elegant way.)
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Re: [Resolved] What to do with the About section
In another thread, there was discussion of offering an option for a blank install or for a populated install. Perhaps we don’t have to make it a choice between option three and one of the other options.
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#8 2015-02-03 19:48:50
- moon blake
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- From: near Hannover, Germany
- Registered: 2009-07-16
- Posts: 76
Re: [Resolved] What to do with the About section
+1 for zero. Standard page should be a bit more inviting.
But not sure about his text proposal. “What do you want to do next” added with some useful links, as it is now is maybe not bad. But the bunch of links is maybe a bit much for the first impression. And would need some lightwight introductory sentences, as he wrote.
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Re: [Resolved] What to do with the About section
While I am not too concerned with the default install, i do think that it can be much more inviting and hint at possibilities. I assume that CMS tire-kickers may want to experience something more dramatic. As this is germaine to the conversation about the default page and the About …. I think that EE has something for TxP to consider. There is one theme, (the default is an empty site) – Agile Records – that one can choose when first installing EE. see tester
…. texted postive
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Re: [Resolved] What to do with the About section
How about a usage overview of available tags with simple examples & links to tag page on the wiki
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Re: [Resolved] What to do with the About section
There are so many tags that the page would be huge I think. Though I agree that tags are an important and powerful feature of Textpattern that should be promoted more.
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Re: [Resolved] What to do with the About section
Bumping this from the archives.
With the recent cull of things, I propose that the About section be removed from 4.6 new installs. It’s an empty section, no content, no value, and looks confusing if you don’t have the Textpattern knowledge.
It’s a waste of screen real estate as of now, and it’s one less thing to maintain, and one less thing to remove if you’re carpet bombing a new install for redevelopment.
There are no backward compatibility issues, as far as I can see, if it’s removed from new installs; there shouldn’t be anything done if the About section already exists on a Textpattern instance.
+1 (agree), -1 (disagree) and 0 (indifferent) votes are very welcome.
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