Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page

[psycho_maniac]

problem solved

[GodEater]

Is that really a problem?  Do we care if we scare away a few non-technical users?  Is there any possible consequence to intimidating whatever small percentage of people are uncomfortable around SVN web interfaces?  I am willing to argue that there is not.  I am willing to argue that such people are irrelevant.

Why have we bothered developing Rockbox Utility? Clearly you don't care about non-technical users, so why not just ship a perl script per DAP that does what RBUtil does?

I thought this project was starting to mature to the point where we DID care about such users.

[Llorean]

I think his question is more "do we care about them to the point where we avoid doing things that are more friendly to prospective developers in favour of prospective users."

And I don't think we've even established that this isn't favourable to both groups.

[pixelma]

Sorry, I didn't have much online time the last days so want to say a bit more and want to add some things even about "old" posts.

The white band:
Yes, it's a nice idea to structure the page this way but for me it's too strong. The white part takes all focus and I tend to skip the rest. Suggestion: I'd try reducing the contrast-y things that mark the border (maybe no shadow, get rid or at least tone down the blue gradient), should be tried out.

The smaller font below could also be a reason why I tend to skip this part. I don't understand the argument "it's smaller because it will be more text" - surely you would want the visitor read it the same as the rest if you have more to say and not make it harder? But I didn't hear an answer of macku...

It's possible that my impression of both of the above changes with other content, as Llorean said.

I did provide a suggestion for a tad bit more flexibility which was making the 3 column part a 2 column one, not at such a fixed width. Macku's start shows that it's possible (thank you for that ) still it only works at 980+ pixels wide windows. Two columns could also give more room, as I said that part looks a bit too full for me (and someone else agreed). In a previous post I also stated that I would like to try that out myself, problem is that I had a look at the .css file and quickly got lost a bit in absolute position definitions and specific font height settings etc. It will take some time (I didn't have last week).

That brings me to the next thing: why does it need so many font height definitions in absolute pixels? I'm not sure how that works out for visually impaired people or so which would need bigger fonts etc. And I noticed an in my eyes big problem (probably easily fixed to "some" extent) - the dropdown menu is not tabbable (or only the "headlines") unless I turn of CSS and then it's just a list - didn't look closer but I guess some more anchors will do? Oh - and I would also find it nice if the tab-frame wouldn't be suppressed as it looks like.

I also don't think that having the subversion table (maybe below an "development" headline) would hurt, but maybe we can have both with the hidden part, maybe even make the state persistent?

GodEater: I thought that specific suggestions and arguments about that one design show that I'm willing to accept the change to the current one and willing to spend time on improving certain aspects of the new layout, which I really find imortant. Also, does having an own "dev" page (which I'm not sure is necessary) forbid that I have some wishes how the frontpage looks like, or what it does or not? I'd probably like to have a look there from time to time, show friends etc...

[GodEater]

I think his question is more "do we care about them to the point where we avoid doing things that are more friendly to prospective developers in favour of prospective users."

And I don't think we've even established that this isn't favourable to both groups.

I don't see how we're going to "establish" that unless we conduct some sort of unbiased survey.

I can only relay my personal findings on the subject. My girlfriend who is not a tech savvy person, but who is a tech user has always found the current Rockbox front page diabolical. It's put her off doing any of her own investigation into Rockbox as a product because there's too much technical information on there that has no value to her at all. I showed her the new design and she instantly warmed to it. "Oh good, all the technical junk has been hidden away now, I could probably find my own way around the site now".

Now granted this is a straw poll of one person - but I don't believe she's in a minority. I could name a large number of my friends who are in a similar mind set to my girlfriend who I would never have bothered showing the old site to since I predict they'd be put off by it. I want those people to like it. I want those people to look at it and be made to want to try Rockbox out on their own. I don't want to acheive this by having to be some sort of annoying evangelist who has to sing Rockbox's praises verbally because they dislike the look of the information we're presenting to them.

Again - all my own opinion - you're all free to disagree

[Zardoz]

I agree with Godeater here. I've referred many people to the site and most complain that they 'don't know what to do'. That's on them. I don't see how friendliness and comprehensiveness are mutually exclusive. Why not include all, some supposedly esoteric, links on the front page? I mean the major sections not the individual links obviously. Equal prominence to all

[GodEater]

Sounds to me like you're not agreeing with me at all - I'm arguing for *less* stuff on the front page - not more.

[obo]

My girlfriend who is not a tech savvy person, but who is a tech user has always found the current Rockbox front page diabolical. It's put her off doing any of her own investigation into Rockbox as a product because there's too much technical information on there that has no value to her at all.

This is the same response my girlfriend had too.  She did not know, nor care, what any of the development information on the frontpage was saying.  For her it was a distraction to the point where she struggled to find out how to get RBUtil downloaded and running (but this was before the download installer button).

[evilnick]

I'll add another example of a non-technical user being pointed to rockbox.org and having no idea where to go from there into the mix.

[Zardoz]

Sounds to me like you're not agreeing with me at all - I'm arguing for *less* stuff on the front page - not more.

Less is best, of course. You misunderstood me....

[saratoga]

y have we bothered developing Rockbox Utility? Clearly you don't care about non-technical users, so why not just ship a perl script per DAP that does what RBUtil does?

Since we didn't get rid of manual install tools, theres no trade off involved here, and so why not have it if people want to work on it?  Personally I find it quite useful.

I can only relay my personal findings on the subject. My girlfriend who is not a tech savvy person, but who is a tech user has always found the current Rockbox front page diabolical. It's put her off doing any of her own investigation into Rockbox as a product because there's too much technical information on there that has no value to her at all. I showed her the new design and she instantly warmed to it. "Oh good, all the technical junk has been hidden away now, I could probably find my own way around the site now".

Unless your girlfriend is an aspiring open source developer, I think this is her loss, but of no concern to us.  If people aren't interested in running (let alone developing) Rockbox, I see no reason to care that they dislike a technical front page.  In fact, I think a dislike of a technical front page and disinterest in rockbox are likely correlated to a high degree.  

[GodEater]

Since we didn't get rid of manual install tools, theres no trade off involved here, and so why not have it if people want to work on it?  Personally I find it quite useful.

So we have it because it's useful to us, not to users?

Unless your girlfriend is an aspiring open source developer, I think this is her loss, but of no concern to us.  If people aren't interested in running (let alone developing) Rockbox, I see no reason to care that they dislike a technical front page.  In fact, I think a dislike of a technical front page and disinterest in rockbox are likely correlated to a high degree.  

Right. Get yourself a cup of tea / coffee / beer and make sure you've visted the bathroom. I've been thinking about this post all afternoon, and conducting some impromptu research.

Before I get going - I want to apologise to any of the badge holders if you feel like any of my contributions to this thread have been some sort of attack on you. It has not been my intention at all. Pixelma particularly - if you still feel by the end of the thread that I've slighted you in some way I give you full permission to slap me when you meet me at DevCon

I guess the crux of my arguments here rest on one decision. Is the front page of Rockbox, once the redesign has been completed, aimed at new users, or new developers? I don't accept that it can be aimed at both. 

This afternoon I took the opportunity of conducting a straw poll of around 500 people who'd (mostly) never heard of Rockbox before. I gave them the URLs of both the old and new home page, and asked for their opinions. The audience here was a mix of true geeks, and what I would call "users". Some of those polled I have no doubt *could* develop for Rockbox in the future should they so desire - some of them could not. To a man they all a) preferred the new layout (which is somewhat understandable on it's own given that it has a more professional feel). b) They all said they felt the developer-centric features of the page didn't belong there. The ones who had the smarts to become new developers felt that were they going to become interested in the project, they'd be more than capable of finding the subversion updates by some other means. Be it through another web page, the mailing list, or actually checking the repository out themselves. Unfortunately I can't paste the log of this conversation into this thread verbatim - I'm pretty certain that despite it's non-business related content that it still legally "belongs" to the organisation upon whose infrastructure it took place.

Individual comments that I recall from it though were :

"Were I to come across this site on my own, the new site would give me the confidence to install this on my precious media player. If i were to be confronted with the developer-centric original page, I would feel the product were obviously not polished enough to risk playing with".

"As a user I'm really not interested in the current state of the development for the product. I'm interested in what features it can bring to me personally, and that's about it".

Moving on from this straw pole (which I admit is merely anecdotal, and you can choose to ignore it or not.) I also had the following thoughts. Some of the people in this thread arguing strongly for the inclusion of the svn commit table right on the front page strike me as the sort of IT professional who regard their users as annoyances. I used to be one of those people - but eventually I realised that I'm supposed to be providing those people with a service. Since I've come to that realisation I've had a much better working relationship with users in my career. Now, you can argue of course that this is a different situation to that of open source development. Here at the Rockbox project, where we're all volunteers we have the luxury of choosing whether we're in it for ourselves, or for our users. No-one is paying us, so we're free to do what we choose right? So what's the answer to that question ?

Now, it also occurred to me that users outnumber developers in the world. I would be very surprised if anyone could come up with a convincing argument to counter that statement. If you have one - please by all means let me hear it. My theory is that the more attractive we can make our home page to "users" and not developers, then the large audience we reach. I mentioned earlier that the poll I conducted whilst at work included an audience that for the most part had never heard of Rockbox. Now they have. Now as much as I wear a "coders" badge on the forums, my actual technical contribution to Rockbox has been minimal over the years, so I must really count myself as a "user" and not a "developer". I love Rockbox dearly, and want people to hear about it. I've told people. Some of them are clever enough and talented enough to become developers. Some of them might do - some of them might not. Is it not a grand idea to repeat this exercise through our website? Let more users find it. Let them not be scared. Let them tell their friends, who might turn out to be developers. Hoping that developers find it on their own seems to be a bad idea to me. Some *will* find it on their own - but I submit that a user centric page is less likely to discourage them than a developer centric one is to discourage end users.

Now the key part of why I don't want any of our regulars to feel like this is an attack on them is this :

I think Rockbox is fantastic. I think that all the hard work that all of you guys and girls is awesome. It's polished, and it's professional - and it's READY for end users to play with without having to have a techy to hold their hands. You people are the heart and soul of Rockbox the product, and Rockbox the organisation and Rockbox the community.

I think keeping our page developer focused is belittling the hard work you all do every day. You all deserve more than that.

Now. I'm sure you all have something to say to all that. I shall await your input with great interest.

[saratoga]

Since we didn't get rid of manual install tools, theres no trade off involved here, and so why not have it if people want to work on it?  Personally I find it quite useful.

So we have it because it's useful to us, not to users?

I don't think thats an accurate summary of what you quoted.

[GodEater]

Explain how it isn't please.

[AlexP]

I largely agree with GodEater in terms of that we should very much care about the users.  I think the proposed new page (which could indeed benefit from many of the suggestions in this thread) is a very good way to go about that.