TxP.com home page

renobird · 2008-09-11 17:07:13

squaredeye wrote

Sans-serif typography always has the quality of being less obtrusive and “getting out of the way” as helvetica is famous/infamous for. These things need to be taken into account when producing a site for a product that is technologically solid, and ought to “get out of the way” so that users can do whatever they want with it. A serif font MAY communicate too strongly for this?

I agree with Matthew on this. Although, I think the complimentary use of both is ideal. Personally I think this should be left to Matthew to present some options – not to be nit-picked to death or subject everyone’s individual preference – but more like choose from A, B, or C. Because this is not the U.S. Senate…so we can’t just talk all day and get nothing accomplished. : )

Jason Santa Maria has some good stuff in his portfolio.
Yes, I know he did the WP admin redesign. Whatever you think of the app – the admin interface is very well done.

driz · 2008-09-11 21:34:38

http://forum.textpattern.com/viewtopic.php?pid=188950#p188950

Yuck! Please don’t do anything like that for the new Textpattern website, it looks like a FrontPage template or something, not the site of a professional publishing application! x

MattD · 2008-09-11 22:12:57

driz wrote:

Yuck! Please don’t do anything like that for the new Textpattern website, it looks like a FrontPage template or something, not the site of a professional publishing application! x

A bit harsh considering others are saying they like it. Be constructive Driz.

driz · 2008-09-11 22:16:05

MattD wrote:

driz wrote:

Yuck! Please don’t do anything like that for the new Textpattern website, it looks like a FrontPage template or something, not the site of a professional publishing application! x

A bit harsh considering others are saying they like it. Be constructive Driz.

That doesn’t mean anything :D People like many things, like IE for instance! Doesn’t mean they are right!

But on a serious note, that design doesn’t do any justice! Mebbe look at some CSS galleries for guidance, see how other open-source sites make use of playful and fun metaphors! x

Last edited by driz (2008-09-11 22:18:18)

Neko · 2008-09-11 22:26:57

MattD wrote:

A bit harsh considering others are saying they like it. Be constructive Driz.

Well, honestly I don’t like all those serifs. All serifs: headers and paragraphs. What happened to the classic TXP typography? It was made by a prominent designer/typographer and, after all these years, it still looks darn good. I wouldn’t change that. Or, if I really had to change something, I’d rip Textism typography off. :) At least, it could be considered a kind of evolution of our own.

Also, mentioning Michelangelo seems a bit out of place to me. If I had to pick a copy, I’d stick with our actual one:

Textpattern is a flexible, elegant and easy-to-use content management system. Textpattern is both free and open source.

Or something along those lines. There’s a reason why copywriters are being paid good money in order to write brief sentences like those. The reason is: because writing all those brief sentences is hard. :)

IIRC we had a copywriter among ourselves. And damn good about it. Maybe we could ask her for a little help?

Regardless, I also like a lot the various Wordpress family copies:

Blogging is too hard. Through WordPress we’ve enabled millions of people to effortlessly publish to the web. Now we want to enable millions more.

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

They’re all “simple-no metaphors-no cultural references-no we’re better than you” claims which go straight to the point. Not that the current “Michelangelo/Hemingway” thing is anything like that, it’s just I tend to prefer simpler, more direct copy.

Last edited by Neko (2008-09-11 23:07:59)

Bloke · 2008-09-11 23:40:26

squaredeye wrote:

while serif fonts too speak to high quality, they also speak to antiquity, which can be problematic when one is looking for a quality CMS that they expect not to BE a publication, but to help them publish.

True true, I hadn’t thought of that angle. Perhaps that explains the sans-serif bias on the web; or maybe I’m just too old skool. Either way I don’t really mind; I’m small fry in this game so take my opinions with a mountain of salt :-)

Bottom line is I’ll take any of the options provided thus far, as they’re all a step up in usability from the three-column one we have today; they’re all scalable and tweakable and offer a unified Textpatternverse with a common brand identity.

P.S. Thanks zero for revamping the Reasons to try. Much better. Anyone else have anything to add/remove from the list?

If that bit of copy goes ahead (perhaps in this form or as maverick’s cool Reasons NOT to try!) I envisage randomly picking a small handful — certainly less than 5, depending on space — to display each time the page is refreshed. Chances are one of them will resonate with a visitor and they’ll click to find out more about that feature. The fundamental interconnectedness of everything takes care of the rest!

squaredeye · 2008-09-12 02:41:38

Bloke/Stef,
Mountain of salt taken, but your comments were really helpful, and not to be dismissed :))

Matthew

nemoorange · 2008-09-12 03:08:30

Seems like my submission may have been premature. All the same, thank you for those who responded.

For now, we should focus on the content. First goal needs to be settling on a final version of the copy. Once that is in place, we can provide Matthew with opinion’s on the look and feel in the design.

Instead of approaching this situation with a “the homepage should have . . .” mindset, we should start thinking about what sort of functions will the txp site serve? What problems does the site face that we need to resolve? As I see it, the homepage should be geared towards two types of people:

People who have never heard about Textpattern before, and want to learn more
People who already know about Textpattern, and but need to navigate to a certain section

So the main homepage / landing-page doesn’t require much copy. Consider the homepage for Omeka. The presentation is minimal, clear and direct. Just a couple lines of copy. This gives both the new and experienced user the impetus to dig deeper. New user would then select to view a full list of features, or possibly scope out a couple featured sites. And the experienced user can quickly navigate to her desired section. No need to load up the front page with too much information.

Again, just some ideas to play around with.

jstubbs · 2008-09-12 06:15:20

Dave, your design is great, its just a shame that it was not clearer earlier that Mathew had been appointed to design the new site! I am sure he will come up with something very good.

I edited the homepage copy text yesterday for clarity and brevity. It could be improved further – I’ll have another go this weekend.

Destry · 2008-09-12 09:34:43

Hey, here’s an idea: why don’t we just copy the design of Textism and copy the text of WordPress and call it good. (That’s a joke, folks, lighten up.)

On a serious side, this content thing just seems to be running in circles, and I have to agree with Renobird’s outlook on things now more than ever. People are even still working on two different home pages in wet’s wiki – Home (which leads from the Site Map plan) and Homepage copy text. That’s not productive.

As for the “Michelangelo…” line, there was thought and feeling going into and I (for one, and for what it’s worth), stand by it’s fitness. Discussion about it’s concepts has taken place in the Home page, but maybe it would be helpful to look at what we’re talking about. I’ve seen the word tagline thrown around pretty loosely in web design circles, this community included. For example, “Textpattern is a flexible, elegant and easy-to-use content management system” is not a tagline, it’s simply a descriptive phrase. Now we could turn it into something akin to a tagline, but we can not call it a tagline because the correct term would be “slogan” and the slogan might read like this: Textpattern — the flexible, elegant and easy-to-use content management system, or more playful and succinct: Textpattern — the dirt simple CMS. You see the difference between a descriptive phrase and a slogan? Up to now, Txp has not had any slogan, tagline or whatever, not really.

The “Michelangelo…” line is something different altogether. It’s certainly not a tagline, and it’s not really a slogan either. It could be a catch-phrase but that remains to be seen as catch-phrases are what they are by adoption of consumers. For benefit of the doubt, let’s say it’s not a catch-phrase either. No, the “Michelangelo…” line should not be shoehorned into anything, they are simply metaphorical words that aim to appeal to the sensibilities of craftspeople, and that was the whole idea. The fact that Txp’s logo is a chiseler is not overlooked, nor was the fact that Moleskine (used by a famous writer like Hemingway) is tremendously popular today with artists and designers of all types.

The site intro (quite simply called) — or elevator pitch — is meant to catch eyes, nothing more. It’s a compelling story in six, short sentences.

————————————

Michelangelo had hammer and chisel. Hemingway used Moleskine®. Now web designers everywhere have Textpattern

Textpattern is a flexible, elegant and easy-to-use content management system. It is the catalyst between imagination and reality in web publishing. Elemental and balanced, stable and secure; Textpattern is for artisans who appreciate quality in their trade.

————————————

Whether experienced Txp users agree with the text or not is besides the point; new users will certainly be caught by it’s flair and read it and the dry facts it leads to in the rest of the site to learn more — and that’s what matters.

Nemoorange was exactly right, in that we should focus on site objectives, and this copy aligns well with his first point (with respect to intro copy): 1) New user/designer comes to site. 2) Immediately sees compelling intro. 3) Reads on to learn more.

At any rate, let’s at least stop working in two paths. The two pages in wet’s wiki for home page copy need merged into one, saving only content needed, and the other page gets deleted for lack of confusion. The remaining page needs linked from the site map as appropriate for clarity. (I would proffer further that whomever titled “Homepage copy text” should probably not be giving opinions about final copy.)

EDIT: Can we agree that it’s Georgia for headers and sans-serif (verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;) for paragraph text and move to the next dead horse to beat.

Last edited by Destry (2008-09-12 10:39:17)

Neko · 2008-09-12 12:46:08

Destry wrote:

Hey, here’s an idea: why don’t we just copy the design of Textism and copy the text of WordPress and call it good. (That’s a joke, folks, lighten up.)

Oh, man, that would be awesome. I’m gonna e-mail Dean STAT.

Whether experienced Txp users agree with the text or not is besides the point; new users will certainly be caught by it’s flair and read it and the dry facts it leads to in the rest of the site to learn more — and that’s what matters.

You can’t be serious. That text is preposterous.

Michelangelo wasn’t only a sculptor, and his most recognizable work is the Sistine Chapel. It’s like saying Leonardo was a mathematician or a set decorator. OK, we all get the carver thing but that’s all.
Besides, I challenge you to find that Hemingway really did use a notebook actually called “Moleskine®” (Jesus Christ, even the registered trademark). That’s a marketing spin from the Moleskine makers not based on any evidence. We’re doing free advertisement for Modo & Modo and we’re happy about that? This is ~~Sparta~~ madness.
TXP is for Web-designers only now? I thought it was an excellent tool for everyone, be them designers, developers, writers or bloggers. Are we limiting the scope? Or it is just some text not well thought?

So, out of all the three points, no one makes completely sense, or is fictional or it is limiting the product to a certain extent. If you have to come up with a catchy phrase, at least make sure it is factual sound.

ruud · 2008-09-12 13:10:29

All those that had to Google for moleskine, raise your hands please

[raises hand]

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#157 2008-09-11 17:07:13

Re: TxP.com home page

#158 2008-09-11 21:34:38

Re: TxP.com home page

#159 2008-09-11 22:12:57

Re: TxP.com home page

#160 2008-09-11 22:16:05

Re: TxP.com home page

#161 2008-09-11 22:26:57

Re: TxP.com home page

#162 2008-09-11 23:40:26

Re: TxP.com home page

#163 2008-09-12 02:41:38

Re: TxP.com home page

#164 2008-09-12 03:08:30

Re: TxP.com home page

#165 2008-09-12 06:15:20

Re: TxP.com home page

#166 2008-09-12 09:34:43

Re: TxP.com home page

#167 2008-09-12 12:46:08

Re: TxP.com home page

#168 2008-09-12 13:10:29

Re: TxP.com home page

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