Re: New LilyPond website

[Paul]

On 11/29/2016 11:47 AM, Karlin High wrote:

> You're not alone in this. Here's Basecamp's Jason Fried writing in Inc.
> magazine. To me, it seems like an echo of LilyPond's text-centric design
> philosophy.
>
> "I've always found it interesting that some of the most popular sites on
> the Web--Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, Wikipedia, to name a few--are often
> very heavy on the text and very light on the imagery. These sites won't
> win any design awards, but they seem to communicate very clearly to
> their intended audience. They don't try too hard; they just are what
> they are. There's no shame in that."
>
> Full article:
> http://www.inc.com/magazine/201404/jason-fried/do-not-overdesign-your-website.html
>
>
> And, the non-overdesigned Basecamp website: https://basecamp.com/about

There's also something to be said for setting appropriate expectations.  
A fancy website (with animations, parallax effects, etc.) suggests a 
fancy app, which text-based LilyPond is not, at least not in the mind of 
your average web surfer.

I like the Guile site which (IMHO) strikes a good balance of text and 
images that communicate well and reinforce the overall message.
https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/

All of that said...  John, I don't want to discourage you.  There are 
some nice aspects to your proposed design and there's a lot that could 
be done to improve the current website (a responsive design for viewing 
on small screens, for example).  So thanks for your initiative and 
willingness to help out in this area.  I hope you will not be deterred 
by the complexities and constraints that are currently involved when 
working on LilyPond's website.

-Paul