Re: [Chicken-users] Homepage design proposal - part 2

[Daniel Ziltener]

Hi All,

I don't even know if I ever participated actively in this list yet, but I'm an 
occasional Chicken user (also I'm the guy behind the still-unfinished EDN 
egg).
So I dare jump in and state my opinion :)

First of all, thanks for the work so far for designing the current mockup and 
coordinating the discussion.

Am Samstag, 24. Januar 2015, 15.27:14 schrieb Tim van der Linden:
> Design
> ------
> 
> 1. Images of real life chickens
> 
> The image I used on the homepage is a random image of chickens (not from
> Alaric) but carries a creative commons license which allows free commercial
> use. The only thing we need to do is to add some sort of credit to the
> photographer on the site.
>
> Yaroslav pointed out that the picture is currently a bit attention
> demanding, so I will see to tone it down a bit. Maybe a different
> (brighter?) picture might seek less attention.

To be honest, I don't like the idea of having a background photo very much. It 
is pretty much the opposite of a lightweight webpage, no matter how toned down 
it is. Why not use the current logo as on call-cc.org and put it side-by-side 
with e.g. the "Why Chicken?" list?

> 2. Still much text
> 
> As some have correctly pointed out, there is still a load of text (amount
> did not change that much over the original), yet I intentionally did not
> touch the actual content. I am in no (technical knowledgeable) position to
> edit the text.
> 
> I am fully aware that the text, especially the bullet points and feature
> listings, is much too long. They are not "punchy" enough, not (dare I say
> it) commercial enough. A powerful bullet I like (short, to the point) is:
> "Very supportive community, with a wide intellectual background.". I think
> this should be an example for the other points.
> 
> So I reach out to you guys to help reshape these texts into a more
> to-the-point and accurate form. Mario already provided some good
> alternative texts.

This could be solved by taking the main point to the beginning of the bullet 
point and making it bold, e.g. "<b>Extensions:</b> Many libraries and 
extensions are availabel at Eggs Unlimited" or something like this.

> 3. Colors
> 
> Almost everyone pointed out that some texts are not very readable with the
> current color scheme. I agree (sorry for that ;) ). Also, Mario, yes I
> tried to incorporate the colors of the logo into the site, simply because I
> like both the logo and its colors. It just feels right. It's playful and
> yet professional.
> 
> I feel a bit uncomfortable with picking a different color scheme as I think
> this would fight the logo very quickly. On the other hand...my main focus
> is not design...so I could just be talking gibberish here.

The current mock-up-Design has way too many colors in my opinion. The current 
webpage by contrast is very light and has a well-fitting color scheme.

> 
> Features
> --------
> 
> 1. Interactive shell
> 
> As I understand it this would be not as feasible as I first thought, and, in
> hindsight, for good reason (Thanks for pointing out why everyone). So, let
> us assume we do not get an interactive shell...yet I do find it important
> that we show some code examples right on the front page.

There's also "Spock" which compiles Chicken down to JavaScript, and iirc this 
also includes providing "eval". Though I personally prefer showing meaningful 
code samples.

> Maybe three or four (or more!) samples depicting typical features of
> CHICKEN. These samples could be easily "flipped" through with a few
> navigation buttons, they would carry a clear title per sample and a few
> comments inline of what this code is about. Programmers love to see
> beautiful code...right?

Right! I haven't seen this on pretty much any other language page yet! Most 
have a meaningless "Hello World"-code at most that doesn't say much.

> 3. Latest changes
> 
> Mario was not very favorable about the "Latest changes" section on the
> homepage...yet this is something I see with a lot of languages and end-user
> tools. To me, it shows that there is progress going on. If I see no version
> numbers/release dates I tend to get suspicious. If there is a clear
> timeline that shows that the project is alive, however, it boosts my
> confidence in giving it a try. Or does that sound too naive?

I think the "Latest changes" section is a good idea.

> 4. Eggs list
> 
> Peter mentioned a link to the eggs list...actually I did not think about
> that at all, but it is indeed very important to show some major eggs right
> on the front page. Eggs are what can make the language more interesting to
> more higher level users and to show that a lot of tooling is already
> available. CHICKEN is not only a compiler for/dialect of Scheme, but an
> impressive tool belt as well.

Yes, it should be probably moved to the navigation bar at the top, like on the 
current page (btw why does the current page doesn't have the navigation bar at 
the top on the landing page, like the wiki does?). If there's an easy way to 
do this it would be nice to have a list of the best eggs in the same manner as 
the list of examples, so people can "flick through".

> General
> -------
> Finally, I also agree that only reforming the homepage, only to fall back to
> the current design for the remainder of the site, only adds insult to
> injury. I too think it is therefor important to try and get a picture of
> how the site is currently structured (sitemap?) and see how we can (and if
> we need to) restructure the information to be better accessible and
> digestible.

In my opinion the current Chicken page has an absolutely stunning, minimal 
design and it would be already enough to incorporate our ideas into the 
current design. The changes can fit in nicely since it's so minimal - like 
Chicken itself! :)

> Moving the Download button more in sight and presenting more apparent top
> links to relevant parts of the site was my feeble attempt at restructuring.
> Yet, again, I agree this has to be done in a more structural way. Any ideas
> anyone?

Add the current top navigation bar (as it is on code.call-cc.org and 
wiki.call-cc.org) to the main page, and voilà, there's the download button.

> 2. Gathering it all
> 
> Do you all think the mailing list is the perfect spot to discuss and
> progress with a possible new site overhaul? As many different topics may
> need to be discussed, ideas presented and alterations made...it may be
> difficult to keep everything organized with mail. Ideas?

Maybe first figure out the "sub-topics" and then make mail threads out of 
this. In the end no matter what's used it'll still end up in a mess if the 
task isn't taken apart for discussion.

-- 
Daniel Ziltener

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