Kubuntu Website Sprint

Thu Feb 26 20:50:21 UTC 2015

Nah, it really *is* "tl".

So tl;dr:

Advertica Lite good for a news site, which might be different from the main
landing site.

Landing site should contain "call-to-action": a simplified way to download
Kubuntu; feature tour should either be a cta or be the main page.

Not included in original message: people scroll more, click less than
before [citation needed, although I've seen some research on this].

Good examples of distro sites: http://www.ubuntu.com/ ;
http://elementary.io/ ; good for its purposes: https://getfedora.org/ ;
good usability, not quite good design: http://www.linuxmint.com/ (not incl.
in orig.) ; BAD EXAMPLES: https://www.archlinux.org/ ;
https://www.debian.org/ .

Make it more vivid ( ;) ) by showing a photo with a Kubuntu-running Linux
in a good-looking environment.

And yeah, I forgot to mention mobiles: instead of call to download - "let
us send you an e-mail with a download link".

Everything for now, I think.

2015-02-26 21:48 GMT+01:00 Paweł Abramowicz <pawelabrams at gmail.com>:

> Hey,
>
> This is Paweł 'Avras' Abramowicz here, the Quintasan's flatmate from
> earlier discussion; together with a bunch of my friends we're designing
> websites for some time now.
>
> To add my two pennies worth; I see Advertica Lite as a very refreshing
> proposal, but as it is a multi-purpose theme, it would need some serious
> tweaking to fit Kubuntu perfectly. Its text pages are really good, and it
> would be a neat theme for Kubuntu News, obviously, but rearranging the tour
> and main page using Wordpress and Wordpress only (even with theme options,
> but without struggling with editing the theme's CSS and PHP) might prove
> difficult. I have minor concerns about the parallax, too; it must be done
> right to achieve any effect, and not just be a pure decoration – and when
> it is, it must be a bit more subtle.
>
> Browsing through other distros' sites I've observed a few features worth
> discussing. I'll drop the links on the end of my e-mail.
>
> To start with, the first page a potential user sees of Ubuntu [1],
> Elementary OS [2] or even Fedora [3] to some extent, are optimised for
> newcomers; they have either a feature tour right on the first page, or
> there is a big button (or, as marketers say, a Call-To-Action) to download
> or see for yourself if you are not yet convinced. Debian [4] tried, but the
> only thing they did is a white button, not big enough for a 1366x768
> screen, not to mention Full HD ones.
>
> There is a trend to delegate the news section to a dedicated blog [2n],
> [3n]. It might be a fad, but I think it's a good idea, and you can use a
> distinct, but similar theme for the blog. I think that's where Advertica
> Lite should go, as its typography is perfect, but the landing page is not
> convincing enough. A different look for a news site allows for a few
> modifications, too; you can expose RSS feed and category listings, and hide
> irrelevant options from the menu. The main page and the rest of the site is
> mostly about visuals; the news site is all about text.
>
> The question if Advertica Lite won't just be maintaining a status quo in
> people's reaction (except from the change from "oh, it's old" to "oh, it's
> new") is not about what it does right, but about what it doesn't, and
> what's wrong that it doesn't avoid. It's basically another do-all news site
> without a strong feeling of what you should do next. I know Kubuntu is not
> a commercial project, and we don't need to bait people into buying
> anything, but it would be beneficial even for a veteran user to have a
> visual cue to locate the download button; the download process itself
> should be straight-forward and amount of clicks needed should be minimised.
> A new release, or just a current number of a version the download button
> points to, should be easy to spot. The intent of the page – here, we have
> the best Linux for both casual and experienced users, that is good for
> every environment – should be clear.
>
> The bad practices are now easy to point in ArchLinux' site[5] - a KISS
> distro that has a reddit-type, complex website, where there is only one
> download button, hidden from plain sight. Debian[4] is not good either -
> it's engineer's interpretation of good practices in design, that turned out
> badly. The 16-colour-palette blue is not a pleasant hue, the download
> call-to-action is tiny on Full HD screens, and while the site is
> responsive, it is certainly not mobile-friendly (links are densely packed,
> the colors are too contrasting and hurt eyes in the long run).
>
> To end on a positive note, there are a few features worth using :) The
> double menu (static big one in header and fixed top when scrolled down) is
> a good idea, but its execution could be a bit better [6]. The header image
> is OK, but it can contain a call-to-action within it, and be more
> attractive. To look modern, we could use a photorealistic presentation of
> the system's desktop, using a ready-made mockup [7][8] or take a photo
> ourselves; Quintasan and I could try doing that on our balcony with my HP
> or his Thinkpad, but I'm not sure about possible results.
>
> That's all for now; sorry for "tl", and I hope you don't resort to "dr".
>
> [1] Ubuntu - http://www.ubuntu.com
> [1d] Ubuntu Desktop Download Page - http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop
> [2] ElementaryOS - http://elementary.io/
> [2n] ElementaryOS' blog - http://blog.elementary.io/
> [3] Fedora - https://getfedora.org/
> [3n] Fedora Magazine - http://fedoramagazine.org/
> [4] Debian - https://www.debian.org/
> [5] ArchLinux - https://www.archlinux.org/
>
> [6] one of my coding jobs – the design is not mine, and I don't really
> take pride in it - http://oderpaare.de/
> [7] a free mockup; we could use this one on CC-BY, or shoot our own -
> http://www.blog.domdesignonline.de/kostenlos-laptop-mock-up/
> [8] two collections of mockups, unfortunately, free versions are of no
> value to this project: https://placeit.net/ , http://place.to/
>
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