[opensuse-marketing] website improvements for new users
Hi, I suggested some improvements for the WIKI to Zonker and he told me that the marketing mailinglist would be most probably the best place to turn to. All my suggestions here deal with the WIKI startpage (not the general "get it", "discuss", "create" doorpage although I support the discussions about a general browser-default-page centric page). IMHO the WIKI startpage needs prominent linked screenshots and something like a "desktop" tour. The Ubuntu website is a good place to get inspiration. :-) openSUSE 11 has succeeded in becoming one of the best (if not THE best) distros around, but the website is optimized for users who already know what openSUSE. The website though should reflect much more the needs of new, interested users. Therefore, we do not need to overthrow the existing design, but we need to add some informations more popular, such as screenshots, a "what can i do with openSUSE?" section and the like. The current text ("openSUSE is a project sponsored by Novell [...]") is quite gibberish for people who never hat contact to openSUSE. Even worse: In my opinion, its even not very obvious that openSUSE is a Linux-distribution and a very user-friendly one too. At least this page should much more promote the product and put the community thought in second place (without emasculating it). The text on the boxed version is a good text to show here and some really visually compelling artwork would catch the design-lovers. A "user-screenshots" section would also be nice. Spread the word how SEXY openSUSE can look. Here I made a first mockup: http://www.andreas-demmer.de/opensuse_website_mockup1.jpg It features a screenshot slider which shows some screenshots of openSUSE in action so the visitor intuitional gets an idea of what openSUSE is and what he can do with it. Here the saying is true: A picture is woth a thousand words! The slider could be implemented in JavaScript and Flash. Zonker noted, that Flash would not be such a good idea and maybe he is right. But I thought that Flash allows much more stylish effects than one can achive with JavaScript. The people we want address in the first place are most likely Windows users and therefore impressible by visual bling-bling. Maybe Flash is not such a bad idea after all. Nevertheless, I am a web-professional and can help implementing in whatever we come up here. In fact: I would love to do that! :-) My major skills are (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and the like but I have access to a whole bunch of professional screendesigners, flash developers and others. I await your feedback eagerly! Greets, Andreas -- Andreas Demmer Skype: andreas.demmer ICQ: 103 924 771 http://www.andreas-demmer.de
Andreas- I really like the ideas and your mockup. I disagree with one point, Flash is a horrible idea. Trust me on this one. As part of Novell's web development team, we had a lot of anger on the Linux front last Spring when the designers implemented a Flash-based login page for Novell Partner accounts. Flash carries some inherent security risks, and many Linux users have Flash disabled in their browser in general. I even got a worm through a random flash that targeted users of a specific program, only a few weeks ago on a Windows box. Javascript has several libraries that are just as flexible as Flash. Jquery is a great place to start. Also, another example - I didn't create this page, but http://www.novell.com/solutions/ is completely Javascript running Jquery. There are other options such as Mootools. In fact, tomorrow we're having a developer meeting to discuss these advanced Javascript code functions. I'm all for the changes, that's one of the reasons I signed up for this mailing list. I think openSUSE is a great OS and needs to be more friendly to the average user if it is to gain any marketshare in the open-source market. Keep me updated, Chris Coray
Andreas Demmer <mail@andreas-demmer.de> 7/31/2008 12:31 AM >>> Hi,
I suggested some improvements for the WIKI to Zonker and he told me that the marketing mailinglist would be most probably the best place to turn to. All my suggestions here deal with the WIKI startpage (not the general "get it", "discuss", "create" doorpage although I support the discussions about a general browser-default-page centric page). IMHO the WIKI startpage needs prominent linked screenshots and something like a "desktop" tour. The Ubuntu website is a good place to get inspiration. :-) openSUSE 11 has succeeded in becoming one of the best (if not THE best) distros around, but the website is optimized for users who already know what openSUSE. The website though should reflect much more the needs of new, interested users. Therefore, we do not need to overthrow the existing design, but we need to add some informations more popular, such as screenshots, a "what can i do with openSUSE?" section and the like. The current text ("openSUSE is a project sponsored by Novell [...]") is quite gibberish for people who never hat contact to openSUSE. Even worse: In my opinion, its even not very obvious that openSUSE is a Linux-distribution and a very user-friendly one too. At least this page should much more promote the product and put the community thought in second place (without emasculating it). The text on the boxed version is a good text to show here and some really visually compelling artwork would catch the design-lovers. A "user-screenshots" section would also be nice. Spread the word how SEXY openSUSE can look. Here I made a first mockup: http://www.andreas-demmer.de/opensuse_website_mockup1.jpg It features a screenshot slider which shows some screenshots of openSUSE in action so the visitor intuitional gets an idea of what openSUSE is and what he can do with it. Here the saying is true: A picture is woth a thousand words! The slider could be implemented in JavaScript and Flash. Zonker noted, that Flash would not be such a good idea and maybe he is right. But I thought that Flash allows much more stylish effects than one can achive with JavaScript. The people we want address in the first place are most likely Windows users and therefore impressible by visual bling-bling. Maybe Flash is not such a bad idea after all. Nevertheless, I am a web-professional and can help implementing in whatever we come up here. In fact: I would love to do that! :-) My major skills are (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and the like but I have access to a whole bunch of professional screendesigners, flash developers and others. I await your feedback eagerly! Greets, Andreas -- Andreas Demmer Skype: andreas.demmer ICQ: 103 924 771 http://www.andreas-demmer.de
On Thursday 31 July 2008 02:31:12 Andreas Demmer wrote:
... openSUSE 11 has succeeded in becoming one of the best (if not THE best) distros around, but the website is optimized for users who already know what openSUSE. The website though should reflect much more the needs of new, interested users.
Therefore, we do not need to overthrow the existing design, but we need to add some informations more popular, such as screenshots, a "what can i do with openSUSE?" section and the like. The current text ("openSUSE is a project sponsored by Novell [...]") is quite gibberish for people who never hat contact to openSUSE. Even worse: In my opinion, its even not very obvious that openSUSE is a Linux-distribution and a very user-friendly one too.
At least this page should much more promote the product...
I agree, Andreas: openSUSE is considered one of the best Linux distributions. (In my opinion, it's the best.) But, most consumers would not consider the "Discover it" page of the openSUSE web site to be attractive or informative. It's "inaccessible" to the consumer, frankly. This condition isn't a problem, unless one has ambitions of openSUSE - or Linux - gaining significant market share at the expense of the only two consumer brands in this industry sector. Thanks, cserv300bc -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org
By the way There is a bug open for this ;) https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=405773 Regards -- Ing. Alejandro Rodriguez || @LeX Usuario Linux # 379802 openSUSE 11.0 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org
Am Freitag 01 August 2008 schrieb Alex Rodriguez:
There is a bug open for this ;)
Actually, the bugreport deals with improving the fontpage to make it an homepage for more browsers. My proposal aims to improve the "next" page to make it more attractive for new, unexperienced users. Greets. Andreas -- Skype: andreas.demmer ICQ: 103 924 771 http://www.andreas-demmer.de
Am Freitag 01 August 2008 schrieb Andreas Demmer:
Actually, the bugreport deals with improving the fontpage to make it an homepage for more browsers.
Forget my last mail, I was mistaken when I quickly scanned the topic. Now, after having a look at the PDF mockup attached to the bugreport, I see that this bugreport has quite some similarities to my proposal. Greets, Andreas -- Skype: andreas.demmer ICQ: 103 924 771 http://www.andreas-demmer.de
Moin, On Friday 01 August 2008, Andreas Demmer wrote:
Am Freitag 01 August 2008 schrieb Andreas Demmer:
Actually, the bugreport deals with improving the fontpage to make it an homepage for more browsers.
Forget my last mail, I was mistaken when I quickly scanned the topic. Now, after having a look at the PDF mockup attached to the bugreport, I see that this bugreport has quite some similarities to my proposal. Yes, there are similarities in we should work jointly on both.
The ideas from Andreas I share completely. openSUSE needs to become more user friendly for people new to Linux or anyway not so computer savvy as most of our community guys already are. And I fully agree with Zonker & Christopher Flash shouldn't be considered due to the downsides it has. Robert Lihm is our guy here doing such web design and I'm kind of sure he's happy to get some addtional support ;-) M
Greets, Andreas
-- Michael Löffler, Product Management SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - Nürnberg - AG Nürnberg - HRB 16746 - GF: Markus Rex -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org
Hello all, I think redesign of the site is pretty important, so lets unite to great newcomers in a warm way ;=) May i ask a question ? i'd like to understand / learn about how the work is done amongst the open source world (Guis, distributions ...) on the market. Is there a common work to offer possibilities to the users in order for them to have more OS choices ? Whatever is their final distro choice, this meaning we internally do our best for them to pick up once own distro but do not compete with others *Nix distro, at the opposot we help each other and exchange ideas. This 'd be a key . And also we allow each own to take ideas from the others . Or is there a copyright or licence on ideas ? This for i was wondering if it'be possible to have something similar to what i found at ubuntu or fedora, i 'm fond of the thumbs design : it's simple , neat and really convenient , plus easily done , is it not ? : check out and compare these : http://www.fedora-fr.org/ (the blue ones) http://www.ubuntu-fr.org/ (the brown ones) http://fr.opensuse.org/Bienvenue_sur_openSUSE.org (the green ones) the suse site mentions : "Ici, vous trouverez une communauté d'utilisateurs et de développeurs qui ont le même but en tête - créer et distribuer la distribution Linux la plus facile à utiliser au monde." this means : here'll find a community of users and developers with one goal in mind : create and distribute the easiest to use linux distribution. Well then, it's not yet the case for 1st access to the distro is oftentimes the site and one's 1st opinion is very important. I think as the openSUSE distro effort has been to make things easier and beautiful (and a BIG success) , now that v11 is on tracks it gives more time to improve the "Discover it" page. We need somthing visual and comfortable at 1st sight. My opinion is that the actual "Discover it "part of the site site is too detailed , it's very close to "perfection", only a few things are missing. It needs to be simplified , then -for those interested- is an available access to the detail. This does not mean skip the left column, but a bit less informations and links, a bit bigger police (or even only a different police, seet the one at the fedora link i gave : the left colum is easier to read than the one at the suse link ). A big plus would be adding thumbs above to make different platforms access clear and neat : Home/Forums/Documentation/Planet/Association/Shop at Fedora reminds what's on the left column , and helps a lot to visualise it all. Fabrice Michael Loeffler a écrit :
Moin, On Friday 01 August 2008, Andreas Demmer wrote:
Am Freitag 01 August 2008 schrieb Andreas Demmer:
Actually, the bugreport deals with improving the fontpage to make it an homepage for more browsers.
Forget my last mail, I was mistaken when I quickly scanned the topic. Now, after having a look at the PDF mockup attached to the bugreport, I see that this bugreport has quite some similarities to my proposal.
Yes, there are similarities in we should work jointly on both.
The ideas from Andreas I share completely. openSUSE needs to become more user friendly for people new to Linux or anyway not so computer savvy as most of our community guys already are. And I fully agree with Zonker & Christopher Flash shouldn't be considered due to the downsides it has.
Robert Lihm is our guy here doing such web design and I'm kind of sure he's happy to get some addtional support ;-)
M
Greets, Andreas
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org
Am Freitag 01 August 2008 schrieb Michael Loeffler:
Robert Lihm is our guy here doing such web design and I'm kind of sure he's happy to get some addtional support ;-)
How do I get in touch with him? Greets, Andreas -- Skype: andreas.demmer ICQ: 103 924 771 http://www.andreas-demmer.de
Am Montag 04 August 2008 schrieb Andreas Demmer:
Robert Lihm is our guy here doing such web design and I'm kind of sure he's happy to get some addtional support ;-)
How do I get in touch with him?
Nobody knows? :-( Greets, Andreas -- Skype: andreas.demmer ICQ: 103 924 771 http://www.andreas-demmer.de
Em Segunda 11 Agosto 2008, o Andreas Demmer escreveu:
Am Montag 04 August 2008 schrieb Andreas Demmer:
Robert Lihm is our guy here doing such web design and I'm kind of sure he's happy to get some addtional support ;-)
How do I get in touch with him?
Nobody knows? :-(
rlihm {at} suse [dot} de -- Regards, Carlos Goncalves -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org
participants (7)
-
Alex Rodriguez -
Andreas Demmer -
Carlos Goncalves -
Carmine R. Servidio -
Christopher Coray -
manchette -
Michael Loeffler