RFC: Home page design

[James Westby]

On Thu Sep 10 03:41:21 +0100 2009 Martin Pool wrote:
> I think the point of footer navigation is to be there but to be
> unobtrusive, so I'd even think about getting rid of the specific blue
> background down there and just having it displayed on a pale yellow
> continuation of the body area.

I disagree with this. A distinction between the main content and
the footer serves as a visual clue that the footer content is of
lower importance. Without this there are fewer cues for the eye
that it should focus on the main content, giving the user more
options and so making it harder to choose. The separation means
the user can focus on the main content and choose one of the four
headings that we are carefully selecting.

Your suggestion of a "pale yellow continuation" may have meant
a different yellow to the main content, but it would have to be
sufficiently different, or with a border to maintain the distinction.

> I don't think Extend is the right action, it's just not a sensible
> first step for people.  Plugins are going to be something they
> encounter either after they've been using bzr for a while and they
> want to get more out of it, or in answer to a question like "is there
> a web viewer" or "does this integrate with Eclipse"?  The right thing
> is probably for that to go to a getting-started guide that includes
> links to the plugins and a description of how to use them.

I would say that some of these questions will be crucial to some
people's decision. "We're an Eclipse shop, so if it doesn't have
Eclipse support there's no way we'll use it."

Having this sort of information also available outside the usage
documentation, so that it is more for selling the features than
helping people use them can help with this. It doesn't have to
be a top level heading on the front page, but I feel there should
be at least a link from the front page to a page on integration
with other tools, which could be the plugin page, or something
more specialised.

Thanks,

James