Re: GO Website testbed

On Thu, 2004-07-08 at 03:43 +0200, Marc Maurer wrote:
> Hopefully, this will be the starting point we need (and hopefullu I
> don't offend any efforts done by other people getting us a nice new
> site) ... !

Good stuff.  And it's what we need.

I certainly take no offense.  I personally feel that all our efforts
thus far have (apart from being incomplete) not been up to the standard
deserved by the GO suite of applications, they all needed much more work
but it just hasn't happened yet.

I think we should take the following approach:

1. Simplicity first

A simple layout; CSS w/ colours only (logos excepted).  This will be
quick to make, easy to tinker, easy on the eye, and functional.  It
won't be spectacular or impressive.  But accurate and easy to discern
information, that comes across the same irrespective of platform
(browser/os), is of the upmost importance.

I'm thinking along the lines of the new gimp website (www.gimp.org) or
the Inkscape site (www.inkscape.org).  Simple, but very effective.

2. Separate out content and presentation with an effective back-end

This is vital for long term site maintainence and organisation.  It will
also ease the transition to a more visually impressive layout.

3. A long term, lovely layout

Since (1) is out the way there'd be no time pressure.  Since (2) is out
the way there'd be no content pressure.  It'd be a simple matter of
design with a simple way to prototype it by overlaying the simple design
with any new proposals.
-- 
- Charlie

Charles Goodwin <[email protected]>
Online @ www.charlietech.com