Comment 1 Ryan Abel 2009-04-24 15:34:03 UTC

*** Bug 4370 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 2 Dave Neary 2009-04-24 16:06:22 UTC

Going back to our starting point for the redesign, the use cases we wanted to
address, in order of important, were:

   1.  A new tablet owner wants to install some software on his tablet.
   2. An interested application developer comes to maemo.org to learn how to
write a new application for the tablet.
   3. An existing application developer comes to maemo.org looking for
information on modifying his application for Maemo.
   4. A Maemo Community member is looking for the latest news from around the
world of Maemo
   5. An interested user wants to know how he can help make Maemo better or
give feedback
   6. A tablet user has a problem which they would like to resolve. 

On the front page, in the viewframe at 800x480, we have the top menu, with
"Development", "Community" and "News", and two big images "Get help", "Get
involved", and two screenshots of applications that are new  or popular.

In a finger-friendly website with those space constraints, we've addressed all
the main use-cases. The #1 use-case (wanting to install applications) takes up
the most space.

If we swapped the screenshots with the news items underneath, would the website
be more or less useful? I'd suggest it would be less useful.

In a normal desktop screen (1024x768 or bigger), news is visible at the bottom
of the first page when the site loads.

I'm interested in suggestions of how we could fulfill those core 6 use-cases
better. Until then, lowering priority & changing title (the screenshots are not
"promotional items", they're links to downloads).

Comment 3 Tim Samoff 2009-04-24 16:32:02 UTC

Changing severity to ENHANCEMENT.

(In reply to comment #2)
> Going back to our starting point for the redesign, the use cases we wanted to
> address, in order of important, were:
All right, let us look at them one by one:

>    1.  A new tablet owner wants to install some software on his tablet.
In this use case, the new tablet owner will only see TWO pieces of software,
one of which does not change frequently (HOT) and another one is pretty random
(FRESH). The new tablet owner will NOT see the lists of latest/popular packages
as they are obscured by the two huge promotional items.

>    2. An interested application developer comes to maemo.org to learn how to
> write a new application for the tablet.
In this use case, the HOT/FRESH promotional items are absolutely useless for
the application developer as they do not serve any of his immediate needs.

>    3. An existing application developer comes to maemo.org looking for
> information on modifying his application for Maemo.
In this use case, the HOT/FRESH promotional items are absolutely useless for
the application developer as they do not serve any of his immediate needs.

>    4. A Maemo Community member is looking for the latest news from around the
> world of Maemo
In this use case, the Maemo Community member will not immediately see the news
at the maemo.org top page. Instead, he will see the HOT/FRESH promotional
items, which do not serve any of his immediate needs.

>    5. An interested user wants to know how he can help make Maemo better or
> give feedback
In this use case, the HOT/FRESH promotional items are absolutely useless for
the user as they do not let him make Maemo better or provide feedback.

>    6. A tablet user has a problem which they would like to resolve. 
In this use case, the HOT/FRESH promotional items are absolutely useless for
the user as they do not resolve his problem.

Have I been thorough enough showing that these two huge ads do not help in ANY
of the use cases you are considering, including the first one?

> In a finger-friendly website with those space constraints, we've addressed all
> the main use-cases. The #1 use-case (wanting to install applications) takes up
> the most space.
Only showing two promoted items basically limits the user to installing two
promoted pieces of software and this your use case #1 is not satisfied well.

> If we swapped the screenshots with the news items underneath, would the website
> be more or less useful? I'd suggest it would be less useful.
I suggest you either move screenshots to the column at the right side, or make
them much smaller, so that they do not obscure actual pages content. I do not
suggest that you swap screenshots with the content.

> In a normal desktop screen (1024x768 or bigger), news is visible at the bottom
> of the first page when the site loads.
It is not. Only the word "news" is visible, not the actual news.

> I'm interested in suggestions of how we could fulfill those core 6 use-cases
> better. Until then, lowering priority & changing title (the screenshots are not
> "promotional items", they're links to downloads).
See my suggestion above.

Comment 5 Tim Samoff 2009-04-24 16:46:55 UTC

A couple of open source operating system web sites:

http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://debian.org/
http://en.opensuse.org/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org

All of these first display the About/Download areas prominently and all of them
place the News in a fairly unobtrusive location.

I'm not saying they're right, but we're not so far off (imho). Of course,
they're not completely similar to Maemo, as they are asking users to download
one 'piece' of software, rather than specific applications...

Take a look at download.com:

http://download.cnet.com/

1. Downloads
2. Most Popular section
3. News

I'm fairly certain that this is a completely subjective matter and those who
want News on top will say so. Those who would rather see Downloads first would
say so.

Maybe we should take a poll?

Comment 6 Ryan Abel 2009-04-24 17:44:03 UTC

Well, I think there's a valid point in that only linking to one Fresh
application is less-than-useful, so here's my proposal.

First, we drop the <h1> at the top. That will save us a lot of space and it's
redundant to the DOWNLOADS link right above it anyway.

Second, drop the orange HOT and FRESH headers, they consume too much vertical
space and seem like they're a part of the screenshot when they're not,
replacing them with some sort of sticker badge or a header.

Third, change the Fresh entry from a single entry with a large screenshot to
3/4/5 entries with smaller screenshots. Individually, Fresh entries tend to be
less interesting than Hot entries, but a list of them is about on par.

These changes should reduce the amount of whitespace and improve the amount of
content that fits vertically onto the page.

(In reply to comment #5)
> A couple of open source operating system web sites:
> ... 
> All of these first display the About/Download areas prominently and all of them
> place the News in a fairly unobtrusive location.
I do not know why you are even citing these as references, as the bug report
relates to maemo.org website, not to the above websites. Please also notice
that there was a second bug report about the Downloads section that was
basically a duplicate of this one: the Downloads page also has those two
promotions obscuring useful content.

> Maybe we should take a poll?
No problem, as long as it is two polls with the following questions (please, do
not change the wording of the questions):

1. What would you rather see at the maemo.org main page:
  a. Latest news from the Maemo community
  b. Screenshots of two Maemo applications, labeled HOT and FRESH

2. What would you rather see at the maemo.org Downloads page:
  a. Two lists of Maemo applications: the latest and the most popular ones
  b. Screenshots of two Maemo applications, labeled HOT and FRESH

If you agree with the wording, please, create appropriate polls on iTT (for
some reason I have no such option). If you do not agree with the wording, let
me know what exactly you do not agree with.

Comment 8 Ryan Abel 2009-04-24 18:01:00 UTC

(In reply to comment #7)
> No problem, as long as it is two polls with the following questions (please, do
> not change the wording of the questions):
> 

A poll is, unfortunately, useless. Because the respondents are going to be
self-selecting and the representation in the first use case is going to be
excessively low compared to the others.

> If you agree with the wording, please, create appropriate polls on iTT (for
> some reason I have no such option). If you do not agree with the wording, let
> me know what exactly you do not agree with.
> 

I disagree with the bias shown in option b.

(In reply to comment #8)
> (In reply to comment #7)
> > If you agree with the wording, please, create appropriate polls on iTT (for
> > some reason I have no such option). If you do not agree with the wording, let
> > me know what exactly you do not agree with.
> I disagree with the bias shown in option b.
Please, propose an unbiased alternative but make sure it correctly reflects the
current state of affairs (i.e. two applications only, with screenshots).

Comment 10 Niels Breet 2009-04-24 18:16:33 UTC

Why don't we let the dust settle a bit and then think about changes? I'm pretty
sure that redesigning things right after a launch is not the best thing you can
do.

Comment 11 Tim Samoff 2009-04-24 18:47:05 UTC

> I do not know why you are even
> citing these as references...

Only because I don't think we are doing it any better or any worse than other
sites that are used by members of this same community.

Comment 12 Dave Neary 2009-04-24 19:02:25 UTC

I agree with Niels in comment #10: I don't think it's appropriate to make
drastic changes straight away given the time & effort to get to where we are
today.

We need to get the designers involved in changes of this magnitude.

Let's leave the bug open, with low priority & severity, and revisit in a month
or so.

(In reply to comment #11)
> > I do not know why you are even
> > citing these as references...
> Only because I don't think we are doing it any better or any worse than other
> sites that are used by members of this same community.
All right, for the purpose of entertainment, let us visit each and check what
its main page shows:

http://www.ubuntu.com/
"About Ubuntu" text + two links to download server and desktop versions of
Ubuntu.

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Main_Page
A paragraph about Openmoko and a "Get Involved" paragraph.

http://debian.org/
A paragraph titled "What is Debian?" and a "Getting Started" paragraph.

http://en.opensuse.org/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org
"Getting OpenSUSE" paragraph and news.

http://download.cnet.com/
Some huge event advertisement, then a list of top 20 downloads.

Now, returning to my original question, why have you cited these web sites?
None of them contain two large screenshots of semi-random applications at their
main pages.

Comment 14 Tim Samoff 2009-04-24 19:07:46 UTC

To show that News is not the top priority. Info and Downloads are always first.
News comes second.

I will no adhere to the guidance in Comments #10 & #12.

(In reply to comment #14)
> To show that News is not the top priority. Info and Downloads are always first.
> News comes second.
This bug report relates to specific information being presented (two
semi-random promotions) and the way in which it is presented (two screenshots
taking almost the whole page). It does not relate to the bigger, philosophical
picture of things. In other words, if you put a list of recently updated
applications or a terse "What is Maemo" item on the main page, that would
effectively resolve this bug.

Please also note that, unlike the main page, the Downloads page should
explicitly show as much relevant downloads as possible, not just two downloads.
That is what the visitors expect, don't they?

> I will no adhere to the guidance in Comments #10 & #12.
I do suggest that you consider addressing this report rather than making me add
a "Revisit bug #4369" item to my schedule one month from now.