Website impression

Hey all,

yesterday I wrote Helge about the impression I received from the website  
and I´d like to share it with you.

I just read almost the entire thread on the new website, which was quite  
daunting even though it only spanned like 3 days, and I realise you are  
(still?) in the midst of a website change, but it doesn´t seem to affect  
the design or layout, so I think I can go ahead without being briefed on  
the status of that.

I was just browsing the opengroupware.org site and the impression I
received was the following:

- the overall impression was that of a website that is not completely  
geared towards attracting and informing users. I think the open source  
(non-commercial) world suffers greatly from this, and you can see it at  
http://www.jabber.org for a start. That website does a great job informing  
would-be developers or technical linux fans, but the unsuspecting user  
that has heard about jabber.org as a cool or good Instant Messenging  
platform just doesn´t get treated to a good show. It is not a front-page,  
so to speak. It is a news website, for people interesting in its  
evolution, as that is the first page you get treated with: a blog. The  
storyline for guiding new users in is also not really thought out, but  
that´s beside the point.

Compare with http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution.
Their interest is in informing would-be users. They state functionality  
foremost, before digressing into technicalities. Unfortunately, they do  
not provide enough immediate ´handles´ to proceed further into the page  
and get more info. (It isn´t clear to me at least. You can click on the  
´functionality image´, which isn´t an obvious choice for me, since it  
doesn´t look like it wants to be clicked, and the top bar just doesn´t  
grab the attention. You have to scroll down to get at the ´navigation  
frame´ and there is not even a download link there. I guess the  
top-navigation-bar is just at fault... but then, Evolutions reputation may  
speak for itself in the OSS world, and they don´t need to provide download  
links so obviously since every Linux user already has it. They do confuse  
things by stating that Evolution is for Gnome (¨only¨ is almost added)).  
About providing handles and other relevant information/links: the jabber  
site is much better at that. But anyhow, users don´t want technicalities.  
Not even technical users want technicalities. Not until they start using  
it, and that´s when they need user manuals, not frontpages.

- I don´t really ´get´ from the introduction material, what exactly is the  
nature of OGo. Is it a server? Is it a client/server solution? Is it a web  
application? That last impression came from the screenshots I looked at.  
It also appears to be the case now that I actually read the detailed  
´applications´ statements ;). [[[ as a sidenote: the link to the ZideLook  
Pricing at http://www.opengroupware.org/screens/zidelook/index.html is  
broken... ]]]. And now more becomes clear, after I look at more  
screenshots. That´s very good, that screenshot section. Unfortunately, I  
only now started looking at the [more info] page beneath the About  
section. ... My apologies, Helge, that I didn´t look further before  
writing you that email. However, if I initially skipped that [more info]  
link, others will too. And then you completely miss the most important  
part of all the introductory material! That is to say, I believe writing  
about the context in which a product exists is foremost, before even  
describing the applications. Telling me that OGo integrates perfectly with  
both Outlook and Evolution, among others, AND has a native webinterface  
that is just brilliant (if it actually is, haven´t tried yet ;)), is to me  
the first thing I want you to do ;). Of course, telling me that it is a  
groupware solution that provides [name many applications here] is the very  
first thing, but then comes what I just mentioned. That is the way to  
inform ppl as fast as possible about the nature of your solution. It also  
provides the reader with a good overview of its environment, and the  
environment is where the user now exists. What you did with that very  
short Mission statement and then immediately describe the History and the  
connection to SKYRiX is just not a good solution. That is to say, if  
¨About¨ is the starting point, then you should change your ¨About¨.  
Because the History and the SKYRiX connection are not relevant AT ALL to a  
new visitor to the website. So you should juggle with what ¨About¨ means,  
is it the starting point, or is it something for telling the user ¨About  
us¨?

So, it seems your cute lil´ project has more to it than I at first  
suspected. I am more than pleased :). I want to comment Helge on keeping  
the discussions I read (about the new website) so focussed. I´ll post to  
the users list (or look at some more docs) to get some answers to the last  
part of the email I sent Helge. It was about getting an ¨Opera M2¨-level  
usability email solution with central storage integrated with contacts,  
that is also able to communicate with calendar applications and possibly  
any kind of application that needs email/adressbook feeds. There is indeed  
some discussion possible for that that would belong here.

I´ll do that in another post so as to keep the threads seperated.

Bye for now,

Bart Schouten.
-- 
OpenGroupware.org Discussion [email protected]
http://mail.opengroupware.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss