I think that Martin raises some good points. A few small changes can go a long way.
- The list 'Hot Sites' probably shouldn't be on the front page, for all of the reasons that Martin lists. It would be more appropriate to add a 'Links' or 'Hot Sites' or 'Projects using Squeak' link to the navigation bar on the left.
- The order of the links in the navigation bar makes no sense. 'Seaside' comes before 'Documentation'?!? Seaside is very cool, but it does not define Squeak, and probably shouldn't be in the navigation bar at all (just put it under 'Links'/'Hot Sites'/'Projects using Squeak').
- If the 'Hot Sites' list is moved from the front page, we need to put more stuff to replace it. I suggest adapting the opening text from the 'About' link:
Squeak is an open, highly portable Smalltalk implementation with powerful multimedia facilities. Squeak is the vehicle of a wide range of projects, ranging from education platforms to commercial web application development and beyond. <'beyond' could link to 'Hot Sites' page> Squeak runs on a virtual machine that is written entirely in Smalltalk, making it easy to debug, analyze, change, and port to new platforms.
Squeak is available for free via the Internet. Each release includes complete source code, and has platform-independent support for color, sound, network access, and more. A more complete description of what Squeak is and what makes it uniquely powerful can be found here <'here' links to 'About' page>
- The '
Get the Squeak CD or the Squeak DVD distributions' line might go in another green box under 'Download' on the right. After all, they are just other ways of getting Squeak.
- The 'Documentation' section should prominently list the Squeak Swiki at Georgia Tech. SmallWiki documentation does not belong in the documentation section. Perhaps add a new link at the end of the navigation bar on the left ('This Website'?).
This list is not exhaustive, but I think that making the above changes would greatly improve the new site.
Regards,
Josh
On Jul 2, 2005, at 5:42 AM, stéphane ducasse wrote:
The visitors perspective looks similar, a visitor of squeak.org wants to be informed about Squeak and not be sent away.
Regarding the style I have to say that I like the old site much more. It has an idiosyncratic charm, the new site looks like thousands of other sites. Even the font and font size of old "crappy" squeak.org is more inviting for a further read.
Excellent. We are all really happy to know that!!!
....But may be you are the only one.
I'm not saying that the new one is the one I expected but some people do not dare to say that they are doing Squeak because people laugth at them. I know companies that are fighting to be able to use Squeak and Smalltalk and they do not mention Squeak because of the web-site and we have to help these people.
...But may be you do nothing really serious with Squeak to have these kind of problems.
I'm not sure that this is a chance.
My goal is to help people willing to build any kind of software artefacts in Squeak to be proud of it and have less barriers and the web site is a huge one.
Stef