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Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure
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From: tjelvar e. <tj...@fa...> - 2009-11-21 19:57:24
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Comments to site-structure:
> My view is that the main (top) menu should not have subitems. Pages
> can have sidebar menus/links or even sub-sections. We need to avoid
> too much levels = people needs to find what they want with maximum of
> 3 clicks (even less, if possible)."
A two-row top-menu can in fact result in a more structured site, without
excessive clicks, top row1 corresponds to "the stairway of knowlede",
* Start - what's this (general description, licence, testimonials)
* Download - I'm interested
* Documentation - How do do what I want (with browsable help files (in
the long run))
* Help - I'm stuck - FAQ, mail list etc, forums (maybe, in the long run)
* Get involved, donate, foundation,dev's corner etc
* Ext.ref. just links to tools, support and other.
At level two, up to around seven subcategoires, (more becomes blurry)
At each "level1-page", there can be a quick-jump-list on the left
side, so information
can be strongly hierarcical, and yet quick to reach if the topic is
often requested.
(these quicklists can of course be selfmainaining upon page-statistics)
If the left menu holds further two levels, maby 8 items each, (except
the quicklinks-box),
it would make up a quite easy-navigatable site.
So from an outsiders perspective, here's my original suggestion:
Site
>Start
>Homepage w. news
> News archive
>Introduction
>Overview
>History
>Licence
>The FB Foundation
>Firebird brand
>Join / Donate
>Download
>Server
FB2
FB1
>Client
>ODBC
>JDBC
>PHP
>...
>Tools
>Logos
>Documentation
>Configuring
>Basics
>Obejct overview
>Tables
>Triggers
>...
>SQL
>SQL / DDL - kind of good ol' ib6 html ref.
>PSQL
>Internal functions
>Localization
>Security
>Advanced
>System tables
>UDF's
>Bundled tools
>Get Help
>FAQ
>FB terminology
>Newbie
>General
>Advanced
>Books
>Lists
>Get involved
>Conferences
>Foundation
>External resources
>Tools
>Extensions
>Support
>Hosting
> The logo is bad, we always knew that. It's not completely awful (but
> it's definitely not beautiful). The most important is that it's
> designed
> poorly, so it's very hard to work with it (make appealing buttons,
> banners, t-shirts, icons etc.).
In fact I like it, (not the shaded one), it's not an easy one as it's
extremly light (both meanings),
but doesn't have to be completely disregarded. (I don't hold an AD-
exam but I have worked
with design, se pomada.se for references)
> don't want to hear that I should spend hours of my time to learn
> Drupal or
> whatever CMS so I could code another non-appealing website. Give me
> appealing
> CSS that looks great in all browsers that we could use instead such
> advices,
> and we could implement it right away. Did we get any? Nope, just the
> same old "use
> this, use that technology" b****.
Am I being harrased again here? Please feel free to quote me, but do
it with honersty.
Never have I insinuated that the site maintainers should learn drupal.
I know from
own experiences that it takes a good amount of time. Maintaining a
site in drupal
is not the same as building one. (But i do understand that it might be
unpleasant
not knowing what's "under the hood")
In fact regarding the drupal issue, which once again, was an open idea
from my
side on how to add public interest for firebird, I've been
reconsidering with the
following outcome:
+ A known cms may be add value to FB for anyone with respect for that
cms
- Use of a known cms may give credit to the cms, not to FB
- It may result in a kind of vendor-lockin
- Current sitemaintainers seems to want a understanding of the nuts
and bolts,
not just a administers backend. And current sitemaintainers seems
commited
to continue their work.
- Even the most accredited cms:es comes and goes,
+ CMS modules may reduce devtime as new features are requested,
search, forum, commenting...
- There's no interest or need(?) for such new features.
> So we should clearly articulate our goal (what building
> we'd like get), how we'll use it and what impression we'd like make
> with
> it (which dictates style), then designer would sketch some ideas that
> they think would express it.
I am very happy to hear this (I'm sincere, not ironic). This was what
I was requested
in the fist place, I did not impose that it should come from your
side, nevertheless
after a few posts I was attaced by HB, (see firebird-general).
> Did we get any? Nope, just the same old "use this, use that
> technology" b****.
I have tried to ask as kindly as I can for white papers, drafts,
offered a wiki as a repostory for idéas,
indicating that I have things to offer, (but not wanting to bloat), as
in
> I've put together a sitemap and layout-draft - nothing spectacular
> but something
> to start from. I'd gladly share it with you.
Did *I* get any responses? Nope. Null. That's ok. However I don't
understand
why this list is public in the first place since outsiders both
present and from the past
are being mocked at. Feel free to do it, but open up a list for
yourself then. Currently
some of you are only proving Giovanni Premuda to be perfectly right.
And since you first now
are beginning to look at concept (wherever that put's the horse), how
could anyone possibly
contribute. I speak for my experiences - not the long history.
Finally, my sincere apologises to Pavel or anyone else offended by the
"powed by flatfiles"-joke,
it slipped my tounge as I was so profundly surprised. I'm sorry for
the words, but not the content,
apache.org isn't powered by thttpd even if apache is a fairly complex
piece of software.
Except for that I've tried to be creative and serious. If anyone has
found my posts to be valuable,
I'd be very glad to hear that, here or PM.
Sincerely,
/tjelvar eriksson
>> PC> The main visual focus should be targeted on new users, i.e.
>> downloads
>> PC> (latest stable release) + everything you need to get started
>> (single
>> PC> page, more about that later). It should be based on graphics with
>> PC> minimal text.
>>
>> I agree about making "major interesting stuff" very visible for new
>> users, but I would like to see a balance about clean/technical and
>> simple design.
>
> They're more synonyms than opposites, don't you think?
>
>> [.... a lot of quote cutted here ....]
>>
>> I will not comment all the items you replied, because many of them
>> are
>> related to design, and I think this need to be handled by outside
>> people (professional web designers). They should suggest what
>> colors to
>> use, or if there should be button or link, etc etc. We need just to
>> approve or reject ;)
>
> Nope. Designers don't have ultimate freedom in design. It's like an
> architecture. Architect can be free to express his imagination in his
> design, but still must follow the basics, whether he designs school,
> museum or business center, how it would be used, in what surrounding
> it
> would be etc. So we should clearly articulate our goal (what building
> we'd like get), how we'll use it and what impression we'd like make
> with
> it (which dictates style), then designer would sketch some ideas that
> they think would express it.
>
> About buttons and links, it's related to site structure and content,
> which is not something that designers should decide.
>
>> PC> About the Firebird logo... I think that we should come with new
>> one at
>> PC> our tenth anniversary. The current one is not very good, we
>> just use it
>> PC> because we didn't have a better one and didn't replaced it long
>> time ago
>> PC> because this was used on various materials, t-shirts etc. But
>> tenth
>> PC> anniversary is a good occasion to make a switch. I think that
>> we need
>> PC> simple, distinctive one that uses only one colour. Maybe an
>> isometric
>> PC> bird head (in a circle?) with some graphical resemblance of
>> fire (head
>> PC> feathers)? It should be created from few slick lines instead of
>> surfaces
>> PC> like current one. PG and MySQL logos are good examples what I
>> mean.
>>
>> Not sure if we need new logo, or even if it would be good to change
>> to
>> a new one after so many people are used to the currently one. Maybe
>> it
>> just need a facelift. Anyway, again, I think it is not our business
>> to tell how it should looks like. We need professionals for this job
>
> The logo is bad, we always knew that. It's not completely awful (but
> it's definitely not beautiful). The most important is that it's
> designed
> poorly, so it's very hard to work with it (make appealing buttons,
> banners, t-shirts, icons etc.). And believe me, it's almost impossible
> to design an appealing web page with this logo, many people tried hard
> many times and failed. Because the logo looks like amateur's attempt
> to
> make a logo (which it is), it makes all layouts look amateurish.
> Facelift would help either, as all attempts failed. You *may* come
> with
> some mixed and rendered image that wouldn't look completely awful
> (like
> firebirdnews button), but that will not fix the logo itself. Logo must
> look good even in two-colour (i.e. printed) flat mode.
>
> We use it only because we haven't anything better to replace it at the
> time, and the sole reason we still use it is pure inertia. The 10th
> anniversary is our best chance to overcome this inertia and get
> something better we could live with to the very end. Otherwise we'll
> be
> stuck with this nightmare to our 25th anniversary.
>
> I agree that we need a professional logo designer for this task,
> however
> we have to clearly specify its *parameters*. We definitely want a bird
> in it. Flames would be a bonus (we doesn't have them now). Because we
> need to use it on icons, it must look good when down-scaled. There are
> many "phoenixes" in the wild used as logos, and only one really
> appealing phoenix logo was for Phoenix Pictures movie production
> company
> (see http://www.phoenixpictures.com/). All others look from awful to
> mediocre, especially when portrayed as full birds, and that was in
> "full
> size", down-sized it's even worse. The "just head" suggestion is based
> on down-scale factor.
>
>> About the downloads and docs, I'm not sure if creating subdomains are
>> good idea. Yes, we have a lot of items, but the best thing to do
>> would
>> be to find a way to present this in a simple way to the user.
>> Spreading the same thing (contextually speaking) in different
>> places is
>> one of the faults of the currently site, imho.
>
> 1. It's not currently spread around the site (see Download and
> Documentation). Yes, there are sub menus, but without them it would be
> even worse, just take a look at Firebird Documentation Index page and
> imagine it would has it *all*, the same for Download when you'd look
> at
> Engine downloads.
>
> 2. My proposal contains both approaches: "all in one place" (focus on
> area and then drill down and down and down...) and "by context" (much
> shorter navigation path). It would come for almost the same money.
> I've
> just emphasized the preference for shortest path over central
> repository
> as part of initial user experience, but both is still there.
>
>> Maybe a good approach is to first list the "most
>> interesting/desirable" things, that would satisfy 90% of the
>> visitors,
>> and a second level with extra stuff for people wanting more. Also,
>> some of the docs can be combined into single "books" to reduce the
>> numbers of available items.
>
> We do prioritize by potential user interest, but there are simply too
> many items so it would always look cluttered. The only one way how to
> make it more clean is to "select by context" as part of pageflow, plus
> provide the central repository for "librarians".
>
>> PC> Hmm, that would be probably Helen and me (with feedback from
>> other
>> PC> project members), as we have the most experience with it and
>> others have
>> PC> more important things to do than spend hours and hours on this.
>> However,
>> PC> this task would go far beyond our "available time", so I have
>> to check
>> PC> first whether we could ever make time for it. So no promises,
>> but we'll
>> PC> do what we can.
>>
>> Pavel, you and Helen already handles the site. If the "group" will be
>> you and Helen, we don't need it at all, since you are already in the
>> control, so what would change??? If you both weren't able to make the
>> necessary changes in the past months, do you think you would be able
>> to do it now?
>
> 1. I'm sure that Helen would gladly leave this task from hell to
> somebody else. But almost nobody in the project is capable to handle
> the
> content, as almost everybody has english as second language. Helen
> handles our materials (release notes, announcements, PR, web page
> content, everything) for us from the beginning, and she does an
> excellent job. Only candidate(s) that could potentially handle it is
> someone from Documentation project (Paul?), so ask him/them if they're
> interested to take this responsibility. Good luck fishing.
>
> 2. I would gladly relieve myself and pass over the website control if
> there would be anyone trustworthy for project admins to pass it to.
> Anybody has a chance in past nine years to approach us and work his/
> her
> way up on website and then eventually take full responsibility for it.
> But guess what, nobody did. Nobody cared enough about our website to
> get
> over pure clamouring about our "crappy work" and actually do something
> with it. Everybody was just happy that somebody else handles it.
> What's
> interesting is that all criticism to our work come only from outside
> the
> project, and nobody from project members (i.e. people who actually
> work
> on something in the project) was ever harsh on us about it.
>
> So that's about the control, now about the "change". Yes, it would
> change. We didn't made it one or two years ago because we knew it
> wouldn't be shining. It would be a lot of work and at the end we would
> probably have more usable site, but not more appealing. So we
> postponed
> this task until we could actually do it better (i.e. with help from
> professional graphic and web designer). Now it seems we would have it,
> and the 10th anniversary is a good motivation to pass through this
> dark
> valley.
>
>> For now, I'm just throwing ideas to try to make this task to move
>> forward. For sure there are capable people here that can help with
>> the
>> job, and I'm sure that you (with your currently experience) can be of
>> a great help for them.
>
> Ideas are good, but even the best ones are just that - ideas. They
> don't
> magically materialize into something, someone has to make them in the
> reality. We have enough good ideas for the eternity, but we're
> short-handed. So the best way to "move this task forward" is to help
> materialize them. There are plenty things that one can help with.
>
>> I thank you and Helen for what you have done with the site. We needed
>> a site, and you did it! Great! But now, we need to move on. You
>> and Helen already have other important tasks in the project to care
>> about.
>
> Does it mean that you're volunteering to take the full responsibility
> for the site? If you're not, there is no honourable way out for us.
>
> best regards
> Pavel Cisar
>
>
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