RFC: Home page design

[Eric Siegerman]

Coming late to this round; been busy at work.  I'm not going to
get (too) bogged down in the intervening discussion, but just
give my impressions of the current dancingmonkeys HTML mockup,
informed by Wednesday's JPG mockup,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emmajane/3903764440/
-- which I'm also seeing today with fresh eyes, so maybe that's a
*good* thing :-)

On Wed, 2009-09-09 at 13:38 +0100, Emma Jane Hogbin wrote:
> 1. utility navigation from previous designs combined into a single
bar.

I prefer the look of the old design-2 nav bar:
  - The new background colour doesn't seem to me to fit as well
    with the rest of the page

  - The type is too small

  - I'm not overly fond of the yellow type, despite the fact that
    it ties in with new yellow main-page area.  For me,
    consistency with its nearest neighbour (the banner) trumps
    that tie-in to a more distant part of the page.  But this
    one's a *weak* preference; change the other two and I can
    easily live with the yellow nav-button type.


> 3. clear, unique buttons for "action" areas of the site.

Darn, I *like* the road-sign buttons from Wednesday's version!
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/emmajane/3903764440/)  I laughed
when I saw them.  I like the look of them on the page, and I
*really* like the playful way they riff off the bzr logo.  The
latter is not nearly as obvious with the new buttons, despite the
diamond shape of some.  I much prefer the ones from Wednesday's
mockup.

On the other hand, the "Getting Extras" one was just the standard
"merging traffic" logo; how about something more plug-in'y.  And
green for the download button makes sense.

Having changed those two as described, I find the "guy with the
'i'" get-help button growing on me.


> 4. more yellow.

I like that in the main page area (though not, as already
mentioned, in the utility nav).


> 6. nicer screenshot in the carousel area (thanks Gary!)

Which made the banner section even huger than the too-huge it
already was.  I know that particular banner is only for the home
page, but still, I find it most excessive.


> 2. The yellow "action" panes are based on the initial wireframes. They
> are: Download, Extend, Get Help. Are they the right "actions" for the
> front page of the site?

Martin Pool suggested that the middle pane should be "Get going",
linking ultimately to a fan-out page for docs, plugins, etc.  I
like that.  Of course I didn't read it till after I'd wasted a
couple of hours making a "plug-in" extend icon that will no
longer be useful if this suggestion is adopted :-(

And as Stephen Turnbull says:
|   "Get Bazaar", "Get Going", "Get Help".  I like that, it's got
|   rhythm, and it says "we give".  Good message.

To be honest, though, I'm less fussed at this point about what
those action panes get populated with than I am about the overall
page design.  The individual panes can be reassigned pretty
easily -- the hardest part is doing up a new icon -- and so
what's in them can evolve.

Note also that once Martin's fan-out page gets implemented, a lot
of the pressure on the home page will be relieved.


In today's version, the "Bazaar is used by" logos are back.  I
like them in their current location.


+1 on this idea of Paul Harris's:
|   if you want to "sell" bazaar to people who dont use it, perhaps
|   two small links under the big "Bazaar" title+logo (in the
|   dead-space)
|   * What is a DCVS ? (for those who come from CVS / SVN / floppy disks
|   * How does it compare to other DCVSs ?


Here's what most[*] of those suggestions result in:
    screen shot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/86666232@N00/3912524403/
    mockup HTML: lp:~eric97/+junk/bzr-home-page-mockup


[*] I haven't done Paul's what-is-it buttons or Martin's "Get
    Going", 'cause there aren't enough sunny days left in the
    season to spend *all* of this one indoors :-)

  - Eric