Re: GNUstep.org front page change

[Scott Stevenson]

On Jun 20, 2004, at 11:07 PM, Alex Perez wrote:

> I've changed the front page, removing the completely redundant 
> "Getting Started" and "Developer Tools" sections. All but two of the 
> links in the "Getting started" section were already in the side 
> navbar, and the "developer tools" section seemed very out of place on 
> the front page. The information in the devtools section was redundant, 
> and I integrated what little was not (a few words) into 
> experience/DeveloperTools.html . If anyone has any strong objections 
> to the change, please voice them here. I personally don't have any 
> problem with other, more pertinent stuff being added to the start 
> page, but I felt what was there was not serving a useful purpose.

I know I'm a bit slow responding to this, but just wanted to clarify my 
reasoning for that original design.

The idea for having "getting started" right on the home page was to 
assist in the first impression process for new visitors. To people 
already familiar with GNUstep, it's easy enough to find what you need. 
But that intro section on the home page was designed to walk somebody 
through the basics.

If you click on "getting started" in the side bar, what you really get 
is a long list of all of the GNUstep documentation. This doesn't 
address the issue of "what the most important stuff I need to know 
about GNUstep?" I personally think there are too many choices here to 
make the introduction process smooth. You'd have to be pretty dedicated 
to sift through all of it yourself. In addition, the "getting started" 
link isn't prominent.

The key, I think, is to take yourself out of the context of knowing 
what you know about GNUstep, and look at the home page as a new 
visitor. Does the current home page do enough to walk you through the 
understanding process?

That said, I'm not upset or anything about the changes. Just trying to 
provide another perspective.


    - Scott

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