[Koha-devel] Koha Website Design

[Russel Garlick]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to get my 2 cents worth out there before the IRC meeting 
tomorrow.

First a (re)introduction.
Russel Garlick
Operations Manager
Katipo Communications

My day to day work is managing website and web application development 
projects at Katipo. I was responsible for the current Koha web design 
which was done 3 years ago. I am not precious about it and agree that an 
update is required.

Ok, in the IRC meeting I mentioned that I have a vested interest in the 
Koha website. Not because of the design, but because one of my other 
roles is manning the Katipo stand at the various conferences we attend.

The conferences that we choose to have a stand at are carefully chosen. 
We are trying to target the decision makers at libraries. In New 
Zealand, these people have normally heard of the Koha project, but 
dismiss it because they think Koha is "free ware" or "shareware" for 
small libraries with no money. So we spend a lot of effort trying to 
convince them that this is not the case.

And this is the crux of the matter: the feedback I am getting is that if 
we want to succeed in this matter then the product and the website need 
to look more professional.

Ok so how to go about this?

Firstly I think before we put pen to paper, we need to think about what 
is the purpose of the Koha website? Who is the target audience and what 
are they after?

I would break it up into two main groups:

1) People looking to procure a library system (The Head Librarian, and 
their IT Manager or CTO)

2) The Koha Community (all the users, developers and enthusiasts)

At the moment it doesn't really cater to either.

If we consider the Community for a moment, there are a number of sites, 
blogs, wikis and other resources that you have all created and maintain. 
And that is fantastic. I think we should continue to foster this. I 
really like Slef's idea of a blogger agregator for the Koha site.

So we need an element of the Koha site for the Koha Community that is a 
portal to the rest of the Koha world. The challenge will be to make sure 
that it is kept up to date (automatic tools like the blog agregator can 
help with this).

Ok back to the People looking to procure a library system - The Head 
Librarians, their IT Managers or Chief Technical Officers.

We need to direct this audience to

- "brochure ware" type content that explains the features (with the 
least amount of technical jargon possible)
- to case studies/ white papers so they can read about the success stories.
- testimonials so they can see that this is an established product

Along with a good demo, support pages etc that we have now.

These people are used to spending lots of money on library systems, and 
will continue to do so. So if we want them to take notice, we need to 
look professional.

I think this has been done well by the following Open Source software sites

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
http://www.oscommerce.com/
http://phpadsnew.com/two/

So that is our challenge, how do we get there? Before we bust straight 
into design I think we need to sort out the content.

Here is a link to the process that we use for building a site.

http://www.russandsarah.gen.nz/rants/nr1116971338.html

I think we need to sort out a brief and get our architecture sorted.

I have put up a site map for the current site as a reference

http://www.koha.org/current-map.jpg

And I have worked up a draft site map for the new site for discussion

http://www.koha.org/koha-sitemap-draft-may05.gif

I would like to see fewer links in the top nav (much like the sites i 
mentioned earlier).

Looking forward to the meeting Friday morning (NZ time)

Cheers

--

Russel Garlick
Operations Manager
Katipo Communications
Ph  +64 4 934 1285
Fax +64 4 934 1286
Mob +64 27 537 1377
Web http://www.katipo.co.nz