Re: demo site access (long!)

On June 28, 2005 12:13 pm, Michael Brown wrote:
> Hi Folks!

Comments in line and back to the list.

> Just a few comments to Helge and the others.
>
> You can do a lot with the presentation of the site's
> layout.  As Chris mentionned, it's basically a "stock"
> site with some features turned off to improve
> presentation and make it look less "Plone-like". The
> CSS and page templates can be redone to make it look
> more like the old site, or even better.  I'm not
> talking eye-candy, I'm talking more about organizing
> related content together and making it easier to find
> stuff people are looking for.  Note: none of this is
> meant as criticism of the existing site, it's more to
> address duplicated information or "busyness" in where
> to look for stuff.

Thats the same approach I used in web development. First the structure, then 
content, then UI, all based on required business logic and currently business 
practices sometime referred too as workflow. UI is definitely last, then once 
aproved speed optimizations. I have found this process to work well with my 
existing customers. 


> For example, the current site has the following stuff
> in the navigation bar:
>
> Home
> About
> Applications
> Support
> Mailing Lists
> Docs
> Screenshots
> Developers
> Install
> Instant OGo
> Download
> Projects
> Related
>
> Those are major headings, with sub-menus underneath.
> Now, in the Support Sub-menu for example, it lists
> Mailing lists again.  I would think that Install would
> belong as sub-menu of Download, not necessarily an
> item on it's own.  Stuff like that...  Personally, I
> would also consider using the Plone tabs to
> differentiate the "user's site" from the "developer's
> site", with www.ogo.org defaulting to the user's site
> (obviously).
>
> Now, I took a look at the Kolab website, and the way
> they've got things broken down seems to make more
> sense from an end-user's point of view.
>
> Information
> - About Kolab Server
> - About Kolab Clients
> - Screenshots
> - Download
> - Getting Involved
>
> Support
> - Documentation
> - Wiki
> - Support Forums
> - Kolab-Konsortium
>
> Users
> - User Discussions Mailinglist:
> - Archive (old) | Subscribe/Manage
> - Announcement Mailinglist:
> - Archive | Subscribe/Manage
> - Bug/Wish Tracker
> - HOWTOs
> - Mini-Howtows in CVS
>
> Developers
> - Development Mailinglist:
> - Archive | Subscribe/Manage
> - Kolab Format Discussion List:
> - Archive | Subscribe/Manage
> - CVS Commit Mailinglist:
> - Archive | Subscribe/Manage
> - Browse CVS
> - Testing-Utilities in CVS
>
> That's more for an example than for the way I would
> see us doing it.  I would recommend looking at the
> CONTENT first, finding a structure that makes sense in
> broad strokes.  Then I would look at grouping like
> material together.  I figure presentation can be done
> last, because it's just eye-candy.

The comments are valid. I hope to have the current demo (clone structure of 
existing OGo) completed tonight and moved off the laptop to the server. 
Should be available for comment tomorrow. 

> The project has been growing fast and lots of material
> has been added to the website over time.  I know with
> my business, I've got the same problem.  I'm now
> having to re-do my website and make sure that things
> are easy to find, while keeping material logically
> grouped and "backwards compatible" with Google
> searches which are very important for a small
> business.  This may be less of an issue with the OGo
> Plone website, which will get more traffic than my
> little business (thus more recent indexing by search
> engines).

Well that is why I like this system so much, structure layout changes are as 
simple as moving a folder. Once logic and presentation are seperated this 
becomes trivial. 

> Hopefully this spurs some ideas... should we return
> this to the discuss-list?

We are...:)

> Have a good one!

Yup I did, now back to OGo..:)

/ch
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