History of BW.o Site Proposal
Version 1
BW.o Site Proposal
Where to from here for Bitweaver.org?
Created by: kinderlehrer, Last modification: 25 Nov 2008 (03:15 UTC) by kinderlehrer
Ok, here are my thoughts about how to implement a cleaner, simpler, more intuitive bw.o front page with wow!
Wen people come to a sites front page, they usually have questions like:
I believe that a front page needs to address those questions, in a left to right sequence.
Hence ....
Front page (mind map)
Personally I get the idea of Newtons Cradle when I look at this mind map, and therefore this could perhaps be the front page as a still image. When I see the image of newton's cradle I always 'feel' the movement and 'hear' the sound it makes. Its 'soothing' and consistent.
I like what it implies – perpetual motion – ie the project always being worked on. Perhaps the front on idea is the better as this also implies 'future' in its perspective. And taking that further you could 'watermark' the bw logo under the balls like in the image below.
If using the side on idea I would probably place the bw logo on the wooden base plate if using the entire image.
Front on
Side on
So lets take those ideas further (each tab is another depth of page structure.)
1 Features
2 Requirements
3 Sites
4 Download
5 Support
So thats just a start. What does anyone think?
I feel that much of the wiki needs to be deprecated. There are approximately 600 pages on the BW.o site. I also feel that there needs to be some more streamlining between bw.o, sf, and irc for information.
Perhaps to showcase the feature of being able to have different layouts and 'skins' that BW is capable of, the wiki, forums, etc could have a different colour of one chosen layout (all in the same tone).
Unfortunately I am an ideas and designs person and do not have the skills to 'whip up' a front page like this, but if the community is ok to go down this track I can spend some time in diagramming the downstream pages in more detail, and rearranging things (with full consultation unless you are happy to set me free on my own rampage).
Since submitting this proposal as a pdf, I can appreciate that the titles given to the drop-down menu's up the top may be substantiated as 'normal' in the development community. So the question may need to be asked - are all users developers? Or are all developers, users? And hone the titles to the master set perhaps?
I have also submitted to one of the dev's some visual ideas for the BW.o site and will include these in this discussion asap.
Wen people come to a sites front page, they usually have questions like:
- what is this
- what does it do
- how much does it cost
- what do I need to have for this to work
- what does this look like
- where do I get it
- who will help me if I have a problem
I believe that a front page needs to address those questions, in a left to right sequence.
Hence ....
- Features
- Requirements
- Sites
- Download
- Support
Front page (mind map)
Personally I get the idea of Newtons Cradle when I look at this mind map, and therefore this could perhaps be the front page as a still image. When I see the image of newton's cradle I always 'feel' the movement and 'hear' the sound it makes. Its 'soothing' and consistent.
I like what it implies – perpetual motion – ie the project always being worked on. Perhaps the front on idea is the better as this also implies 'future' in its perspective. And taking that further you could 'watermark' the bw logo under the balls like in the image below.
If using the side on idea I would probably place the bw logo on the wooden base plate if using the entire image.
Front on
Side on
So lets take those ideas further (each tab is another depth of page structure.)
1 Features
- List page of features
- Features in more details
- Plugins
- Comparison to other CMS
- Media releases
2 Requirements
- Basic list of system requirements
- Wiki page about platforms
3 Sites
- Wiki page linking to user sites (with screenshot) and also any links on this page to user profile and user blog on bw.o
4 Download
- Single page explaining open source
- Links to SF, CVS
- Previous versions
- Changelogs
- Cost / How to contribute
- Banners, buttons / promotional items
- Links to SF, CVS
5 Support
- Page detailing wiki, forums, blogs, article
- Wiki
- Current version
- Previous versions
- Forums
- Users bw.o blogs
- Articles
- Wiki
So thats just a start. What does anyone think?
I feel that much of the wiki needs to be deprecated. There are approximately 600 pages on the BW.o site. I also feel that there needs to be some more streamlining between bw.o, sf, and irc for information.
Perhaps to showcase the feature of being able to have different layouts and 'skins' that BW is capable of, the wiki, forums, etc could have a different colour of one chosen layout (all in the same tone).
Unfortunately I am an ideas and designs person and do not have the skills to 'whip up' a front page like this, but if the community is ok to go down this track I can spend some time in diagramming the downstream pages in more detail, and rearranging things (with full consultation unless you are happy to set me free on my own rampage).
Since submitting this proposal as a pdf, I can appreciate that the titles given to the drop-down menu's up the top may be substantiated as 'normal' in the development community. So the question may need to be asked - are all users developers? Or are all developers, users? And hone the titles to the master set perhaps?
I have also submitted to one of the dev's some visual ideas for the BW.o site and will include these in this discussion asap.