OFBiz - Re: Reviewing the links of the main ofbiz.org site

OFBiz › OFBiz - Dev

> I was just thinking about this today - and wanted to point everyone in
> the direction of a mighty empty Wiki page that we started a while back
> to facilitate this discussion.
> Currently I can't get to the Wiki at docs.ofbiz.org - as I'm sure that
> Confluence is probably hung up. Could someone give it a kick?
>
> Anyways, when it's back up - there is a page already started with some
> interesting questions (offered up by Si Chen a while back) that I
> think that we should answer in order to understand where we're headed.
>
> The audience will be such a large driving force in the general
> reorganization of this information - that we need to understand who
> we're talking to first. Just my two cents.
>
> Cheers,
> Tim
>
> --
> Tim Ruppert
> HotWax Media
> http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
>
> o:801.649.6594
> f:801.649.6595
>
> David E Jones wrote:
>>
>> I very much agree that the ofbiz.org web site could use some
>> improvement, although I rather think that at this point it needs more
>> of a planned re-design rather than iterative improvements.
>>
>> First maybe some background of the current site:
>>
>> 1. the structure of the site, except for reorganizing and adding some
>> color to the home page about a year and a half ago (looks like April
>> 2005), has not changed in a few years and is basically the original
>> structure of the site
>>
>> 2. the intent of the web site from the beginning of the project has
>> been to serve the needs of developers and hopefully attract
>> contributors, ie people that are detail oriented and have the skills
>> and/or interest necessary to be able, and likely to, contribute to
>> the project in a meaningful way
>>
>> 3. the project is now reaching a point where we do want to attract
>> more end-users that will likely not contribute directly to the
>> project, or even interact directly with it, but that are certainly
>> still extremely important to the long term success and stability of
>> the project
>>
>> 4. the web site has been created and maintained by a single person
>> (yours truly and sincerely) with little feedback except for
>> occasional small mistakes or needs for change or contributions like
>> testimonials and case studies (which we could use a LOT more of); the
>> person who has created and is maintaining the site has done quite a
>> bit of research on web site usability including reviewing various
>> case studies (the current "big page" design for the home page was
>> based on a case study of amazon.com) and studied human-computer
>> interaction in his one semester of graduate school, and so he knows
>> very well that one of the big problems with the current site is that
>> it has had no usability studies, and not enough feedback from actual
>> users to substitute for that; he is also not a graphic designer and
>> has demonstrated this by creating the current layout and color scheme
>> of the ofbiz site
>>
>> Because of this history of the site and the changing direction of the
>> project, my opinion is that instead of starting with what we've got
>> and talking about moving things around, perhaps we should start with
>> more of a blank slate and talk about what we'd like the site to look
>> like, and then after something is in place there review the current
>> stuff and decide where everything should go (including a trash bin
>> option...).
>>
>> With iterative changes at this point, like the ones you've proposed
>> which are individually good, I think it could hide resources or make
>> the site more difficult to navigate for a while, ie until it finally
>> settles down, and during that period it could be even worse than it
>> is now in terms of usability, find-ability, et cetera.
>>
>> -David
>>
>>
>> On Sep 15, 2006, at 4:31 AM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> what about simplifying the main page of the OFBiz website:
>>>
>>> http://incubator.apache.org/ofbiz/
>>>
>>> ?
>>>
>>> I've started reviewing the links in the left column (that for your
>>> convenience I've copied at the bottom of this message), and I think
>>> that some of them are unnecessary and can be removed or at least
>>> moved to a new web page named "Misc Resources" (or something like
>>> this).
>>>
>>> In detail:
>>>
>>> 1) the section "Cool Sites" could be removed
>>>
>>> 2) the sections "Apache OFBiz Communities" and "Apache OFBiz Related
>>> Blogs" could be moved to the new "Resources" page
>>>
>>> 3) in the "What is OFBiz?" section, the links "Brochures",
>>> "Conference Videos" and "Framework Intro Videos" should be moved to
>>> the http://incubator.apache.org/ofbiz/documents.html page
>>>
>>> 4) in the "Download OFBiz" section:
>>> 4a) the links "Getting And Using OFBiz", "Production Setup Guide",
>>> should be moved to the
>>> http://incubator.apache.org/ofbiz/documents.html page
>>> 4b) the "Documentation" link can be removed
>>> 4c) the "Release Notes" link can be removed (or hidden) because it
>>> the referenced document is too old
>>> 4d) the "Download Releases" link should be hidden or should point to
>>> the new (temp) folder where the RC1 is stored: I think that the
>>> reference to the OLD sourceforge release can be very confusing for
>>> new users
>>>
>>> 5) in the "Resources & Tools" section:
>>> 5a) add a new link to the new "Misc Resources" page (that needs to
>>> be created)
>>> 5b) move the "Old Mailing Lists", "The Old Java.net Site",
>>> "The Old SourceForge.net Site", "Old Wiki" links to the new "Misc
>>> Resources" page
>>> 5c) remove the "Old Jira (Issue Tracker)" link
>>> 5d) all the following links can be moved (they are already in the
>>> "documentation" page): "Documentation (Confluence)", "Production
>>> Setup Guide", "Documentation" (maybe we could leave just this),
>>> "Conference Videos"
>>>
>>> Thanks for your time,
>>>
>>> Jacopo
>>>
>>>
>>> ===================================================
>>> ***What is OFBiz?***
>>>
>>> General Overview
>>> Is OFBiz for Me?
>>> Feature List
>>> Features Coming Soon
>>> Brochures
>>> Documentation
>>> Conference Videos
>>> Framework Intro Videos
>>>
>>> ***Demo Site***
>>>
>>> Extended Demo by Open Travel System
>>> eCommerce Demo
>>> Management Console
>>> Hotel Frontend
>>> Hotel Backend
>>>
>>> ***Download OFBiz***
>>>
>>> Getting And Using OFBiz (PDF)
>>> Production Setup Guide
>>> Source Access (Recommended)
>>> Release Notes
>>> Download Releases
>>> Weekly Builds
>>> Documentation
>>> Copyright & License
>>>
>>> ***Resources & Tools***
>>>
>>> Apache Incubator Status
>>> dev Mailing List
>>> user Mailing List
>>> commits Mailing List
>>> Old Mailing Lists
>>> Apache OFBiz - Jira (Issue Tracker)
>>> Old Jira (Issue Tracker)
>>> SVN (Source Repository)
>>> Documentation (Confluence)
>>> Docs Site: Wiki
>>> Old Wiki
>>> Production Setup Guide
>>> Documentation
>>> Conference Videos
>>> The Old Java.net Site
>>> The Old SourceForge.net Site
>>>
>>> ***Apache OFBiz Related Blogs***
>>>
>>> OFBiz and Open Source by David E. Jones
>>> What's New in OFBiz by Si Chen
>>>
>>> ***Apache OFBiz Communities***
>>>
>>> Locales
>>> United Kingdom
>>> Germany
>>> France
>>> Netherlands
>>> China
>>> Industries
>>> Government
>>> Travel
>>>
>>> ***Cool Sites***
>>>
>>> Java.Net
>>> SourceForge
>>> FreshMeat
>>> NewsForge
>>> Slashdot
>>> JavaLobby
>>> TheServerSide
>