It’s been a few months since we started rolling out our new UI, and we’ve completed the front page, the project summary page, the download file listing page (which we call the “showfiles page”), and the page that shows after the file starts downloading (which we call the “thank you” page.) In essence, we’ve redone the most highly visited pages, the ones for downloaders.
You may be wondering why. I think the most important goal is to provide a simpler user experience to the 95% of our audience that just want their damn files so they can get on with their lives. SourceForge.net is a complex site with lots of hidden nooks and crannies; downloaders are here with a clear purpose and need to be shown a clear path.
Naturally, there’s also a branding aspect to the new UI. We want people to know that they’re downloading from SourceForge.net, and that they, too, can create a project here. We wanted our message to be clear and strong, but not to get in people’s way.
The same is true for the messages from our advertisers. Yes, they pay the bills around here and, yes, we can’t exist without them, but we have to be a bit intelligent about it…an ad experience that pisses everyone off is useless to advertisers, too. Moving things around a bit allows us to show higher quality advertising at higher prices…and, therefore, to show less of it.
There are a lot of strong opinions in our feedback forum, and while I think that venue is probably disproportionally negative, that feedback is extremely valuable to us and we’re tweaking our design based on it. I’ve been keeping an eye for any mention of SourceForge.net on Twitter and it feels like about 40% love it, 40% don’t like it, and 20% aren’t really sure what their opinion is (even though they feel strongly enough to express it.)
What do you think?