Re: PostgreSQL website redesign

On 19 November 2011 14:29, damien clochard <damien(at)dalibo(dot)info> wrote:
> Le 17/11/2011 01:10, Thom Brown a écrit :
>> Hi all,
>>
>> As you will no doubt be aware, the PostgreSQL website is overdue for a
>> fresh lick of paint,
>
> First of all, thanks to the people who handle this. This website needs
> love that's for sure :)
>
> Here's a few ideas :
>
>  * I think target audience is new users. The website should focus on
> providing simple answers to basic questions :
>
>   - What is PostgreSQL ?
>   - Where can I get help ?
>   - Where's the download link ?
>   - Who uses PostgreSQL ?
>   - How can I contribute ?
>
>  * Regular and advanced users don't need to go on the pg.org website
> everyday. For them the website should only be a gateway to the various
> community websites : the wiki, the planet, the pugs, pgxn, the mailing
> lists, etc.
>
>  * Be more international, connect with local communities. If the main
> website is not translated, at least it should make it clear **on every
> page** that there are local websites in other languages (pg.fr, pg.jp,
> etc. ). New users that are not comfortable with English should have a
> chance to read content in their own language (when possible of course).

We can certainly bear that in mind. However, that's more of a website
content issue rather than design. This is an issue that needs
addressing though. While the project's default language is English,
we have large German, French, Japanese and Portugese-speaking
communities, so sign-posting users to sources of information in their
own language would be useful. But the designer won't want to hit a
moving target, so we will be freezing structural changes to the main
website at least until the design has been implemented. They can,
however, provide their idea of how that would be presented though.

>  * If think the message should be that PostgreSQL is free, innovative
> and used by very big companies. A slideshow on the front page could
> illustrate these 3 points : talk about a new feature in 9.1 , display a
> use case, advertize an event such as pgcon, etc.

I like that idea.

>  *  I don't think the website should be optimized for tablets and mobile
> phones...

Agreed. The site isn't for casual browsing, so no extra effort should
go into catering for touch-friendly interfaces.

>  * There's way too much information on the front page. People don't want
> to spend 3 minutes reading everything. Instead the front should drive
> users based on the 3 major needs : download / help / contribute
> For instance the Google Think website has very effective design for that
>  : http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/
>
>
> That being said i have a few questions :
>
> a/ In 2009, a web design contest was launched... what happened to this
> initiative ?

It failed to produce any useable candidate unfortunately.

> b/ Who's in the design committee ? and who choosed them ?

The design committee was selected and approved by the core steering
team and consists of Gavin M Roy (being the CTO of a very successful
website company), Josh Berkus (advocacy guy and -core), Dave Page (web
guy and -core), Magnus Hagander (another web guy), and Selena
Deckelmann (very user focussed).

> c/ Sorry but I'm not a huge fan of the Postgres Open website :-/ It's
> full of HTML and CSS errors everywhere. The meta tags are pretty poor.
> Basic files like sitemap.xml or robots.txt are missing. There's no
> favicon either....  On what basis is this an "excellent job" ?

Problematic meta tags, dodgy HTML and CSS and sitemap.xml and
robots.txt aren't a designer's job. Here we're talking about visual
design, although I expect some structural changes may potentially
happen, but nothing major. In my opinion Postgres Open's site is
entirely appropriate for a conference site, giving bold, simple and
direct information, and "branding" the conference with a certain look.
The designer will, however, be producing the necessary CSS
amendments. The site is already XHTML-compliant, the CSS is generally
fine, and we'll make sure it stays that way.

> d/ Seems you have already choosed the web designer, right ? Can somebody
> else propose his services or is this too late ?

Well, I haven't selected anything myself. A professional designer was
selected and approved by the core steering committee.

Thom