Gentoo Foundation Web Site Redesign Contest

Message

Given M. Sur · Post by **Given M. Sur** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 4:58 am

I like the update shift.

The pic with the eye and the fingerprint doesn't seem to fit though. I like the concept of the eye and fingerprint, but the I don't like the pics of the eye and fingerprint, or maybe it's just the way they are arranged (they seem very flat compared to the other two pics).

Good work!

jonemi · Post by **jonemi** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:49 am

I liked the girl, don't take her away! I think it humanizes the site (like you said it would).

I'm not too sure if I like the way you've revised it, though. It looks more like some flash animation that would change based on what you put your mouse over than a static rotation.

What if you arranged the images so they would each be aligned differently instead of all to the left?

shift · Post by **shift** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:55 am

I'll try to find better photo for the versatility theme for the production version if the design gets selected. For now, I will leave them as is and move on to improving other areas (and making the sub page!).

Time spent tweaking that one small part of the design has exceeded my original allocation of time for it in the project timeline.

There is much work left to do, but I will always accept comments regarding any aspect of the design though some will be put on the backburner until the general framework is complete.

viperlin · Post by **viperlin** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:09 am

shift wrote:Ok an update based on the feedback that I've been getting.

old:
http://aaronshi.com/gentoo/gentoo-front.png
new:
http://aaronshi.com/gentoo/gentoo-front1.png
http://aaronshi.com/gentoo/gentoo-front2.png
http://aaronshi.com/gentoo/gentoo-front3.png

Now the images are more "related."

1) The speedometers relate to performance.
2) The eye/fingerprint relate to uniqueness and every user (every system) being different.
3) The carabiner is a piece of hardware that connects things together. Mostly well-known application is for mountain climbers to connect two ropes together. It is extremely strong and often supports a climber's weight... This relates to the unity of Gentoo users and the strong support provided by the community.

In reality, the 3 different main graphics would rotate based on page load, each refresh randomly selects a different characteristic to load (easily done server side or client side). Rather than pushing a lot of Gentoo characteristics at once, it focuses on one characteristic each time. The message presented to the visitor is simple and clear.

Issues addressed in this update:
- the image of the women being non-related to Gentoo (I still stand by my original philosophy, but for the sake of moving on...)
- simplicity (To a certain degree, it would be backward if we made the new website a text intensive site that seemed like it was made in the early 90s. Gentoo is a cutting-edge and innovative distribution, it wouldn't really fit that core value if the site went to a Debian-ish site just like everyone else. Key here being Gentoo isn't just like another Linux distribution, rather it's a pioneer. Plus, Gentoo now have resources and help available to it that other distributions might not have to break away from the traditional text intensive design...did other distributions ever put up a contest asking for help from the community for a new site? Smart move by Gentoo.)

amazing

shift · Post by **shift** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:10 am

jonemi wrote:I liked the girl, don't take her away! I think it humanizes the site (like you said it would).

I know it would. Small clients often do not have the expertise to realize all the different aspects of design and if they do they lack funding to conduct proper marketing and human interaction & behavioural research, but every major client that I did work for always emphasized humanizing the site. Most had that within their top 5 priorities.

I guess taking such a giant leap is too sudden for some users who are used to the "traditional non-corporate software sites." Most of those don't use much colors, let alone graphics (gasp!). Let's take this one step at a time. Gentoo is cutting edge, but it doesn't have to be on the tip of the blade overnight.

Some transition is always nice.

zubauza · Post by **zubauza** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:43 am

davideads wrote:http://www.invisibleinstitute.com/gento ... mockup.png

now forget the banner and your design sucks

jk

Given M. Sur · Post by **Given M. Sur** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:32 am

davideads wrote:http://www.invisibleinstitute.com/gento ... mockup.png

Nice!

calande · Post by **calande** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 12:35 pm

davideads wrote:Hi everybody,

I've been using Gentoo on my desktop for about 8 months, and it's the best distro I've run across for what I do.

I've got a draft of my submission to the contest up:

http://www.invisibleinstitute.com/gento ... mockup.png

David

Hi David, I was looking at your mock up again, it's not bad at all actually, however I think there are other things you could add to make it a little less cold - I know it's hard to create a hot web site with gentoo having a predominant purple preference - Maybe you could change the background to lighter shades of purple and white, and add a warmer image in the main frame with two young people smiling.

OTT I maintain my position, you should use anti-alising fonts on your desktop, or sans-serif fonts when you use them for plain text (not images). Keep it up

Charles.

calande · Post by **calande** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 12:48 pm

shift wrote:Ok an update based on the feedback that I've been getting.

old:
http://aaronshi.com/gentoo/gentoo-front.png
new:
http://aaronshi.com/gentoo/gentoo-front1.png
http://aaronshi.com/gentoo/gentoo-front2.png
http://aaronshi.com/gentoo/gentoo-front3.png

Now the images are more "related."

Shift, I like the speedometer image a lot, but the two other images don't really fit IMHO, or maybe they're too static, I don't know.

I maintain my position, I agree with you, the image of the girl is what attracts people's attention and makes linux friendly to many people that think that Linux is just a command-line based OS for geeks only.

I doubt however any other distro has gone that far in "corporate" image. We've all had a look at Debian, Mandrake, Red Hat, SuSE, most of them show a logo + text, and it's clearly aimed for geeks. Novell is a lot better, as it shows a woman meditating, showing the peaceful state of people who use their product. Why shouldn't Gentoo also just break the rule? Technologically Gentoo clearly stands out from other distros. Why not using technics that great corporations use, in terms of professionalism, keeping in mind that Gentoo is a foundation driven by its own community.

Gentoo is pretty smart asking its users for clear contribution. That's the way it's boosting its development, and after all, who wouldn't like to contribute for fun for a useful and excellent project?

pihta · Post by **pihta** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 1:17 pm

my 2 cents:

I like shift's design a lot. Cool. But. As for me it looks too corporate. It doesn't look like driven by community - it looks like driven by corporation

. I dont feel that that site is a site of Linux distribution. No freedom, no fun. Only corporate offers.

And may be we need less graphics ?

Again, design is cool and professional. But not about linux.

Good luck !

calande · Post by **calande** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 1:25 pm

pihta wrote:my 2 cents:

I like shift's design a lot. Cool. But. As for me it looks too corporate. It doesn't look like driven by community - it looks like driven by corporation . I dont feel that that site is a site of Linux distribution. No freedom, no fun. Only corporate offers.

And may be we need less graphics ?

Again, design is cool and professional. But not about linux.

Good luck !

Mmmh... Just a matter of taste IMHO. I think if it looks less corporate, if it has less graphics, and if it's still a great web site, then, you have a good example here: www.gentoo.org

Then, no need to change the web site

brokendemo · Post by **brokendemo** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 4:30 pm

I think what the site needs is a combo of professionalism and clarity. I agree that Shifts design is for more of a insurance company and that it doesnt really look at all like a community. Those are the main ideas behing not just Gentoo, but Linux. What does it say about Gentoo if it site looks like it could easily be for a Windows application? I think things can look professional without looking like everything else. Which is my main problem with all the designs so far. they all look great, but they all look like something else.

If gentoo is diffrent, shouldnt its site show that?

Im not trying to bash the designs, just trying to make the designers defend their work.

calande · Post by **calande** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 4:59 pm

brokendemo wrote:...Which is my main problem with all the designs so far. they all look great, but they all look like something else.

If gentoo is diffrent, shouldnt its site show that?

Im not trying to bash the designs, just trying to make the designers defend their work.

I don't agree. Gentoo has a strong identity with the purple color, the gentoo font, and the "G" chrome logo.

What I've seen here are site that so far integrate pretty well the Gentoo graphical identity. This make these sites quite different from other web sites based mainly on text. What makes the difference between two web sites is the color scheme, the logo, the fonts and graphics.

We could for sure use a super dynamic flash movie, but this is not the point because we want a site that goes right to the point, and we want open formats.

If you have ideas to differenciate more the gentoo web site, go ahead and let us know

I think, according what pals have told me so far, the current gentoo web site quite outstands from other distros'web sites. Genfolks want an even better web site and that's great

PS: The SevenL ad on the Gentoo web site looks like a microwave oven

davideads · Post by **davideads** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:02 pm

[quote="In a spirit of kindness, calande]
Hi David, I was looking at your mock up again, it's not bad at all actually, however I think there are other things you could add to make it a little less cold - I know it's hard to create a hot web site with gentoo having a predominant purple preference - Maybe you could change the background to lighter shades of purple and white, and add a warmer image in the main frame with two young people smiling.
[/quote]

Agreed on the image. I'm searching for an appropriate set of images. One of the things I don't like about Shift's designs is that they're a little too stock-photo-y for me.

I don't know how bad it is for the site to be "cold" as you say -- this is perhaps something worth debating and discussing. My personal style is firmly planted in austerity and clarity. I feel like one of the dangers of site design is that the graphic design can overwhelm the functional aspects of the site. What I'm shooting for is a site that is content-centric and subliminally inviting and nice to use, so that the user hardly notices the design at all. This is especially important for a site like Gentoo's, where the user base is going to be coming to learn about Gentoo, looking for support, needing to install it, etc. Accomodating that wide variety of users is going to require a design that makes it easy for all of them to make a path to what they need to find in the site. Perhaps this isn't the best strategy for winning when the work in this contest is going to be based on how much the design pops out at the folks who are voting.

OTT I maintain my position, you should use anti-alising fonts on your desktop, or sans-serif fonts when you use them for plain text (not images).

The only place I'm using them is in headings. But, I think you've convinced me that I should change it.

dr_strange · Post by **dr_strange** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:15 pm

shift:

I like your design very much; it reminds me a bit of sites designed using EzPublish (www.ez.no), but that is a good thing to my eyes. One little thing: the main banner (the one with the eye and fingerprint) has a nice subtle 3D effect; it would be nice if the uppermost banner with the gentoo logo would repeat this effect, and maybe the hue of purple could also match.
Otherwise, very professional.

davideads · Post by **davideads** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:15 pm

Shift,

The overall arc of the design is nice -- highlighting these various aspects of Gentoo one at a time. You needn't ditch the girl to do these designs. And, that top banner could be used for all sorts of things that the Gentoo folks want to be central to the site.

Some thoughts:

http://aaronshi.com/gentoo/gentoo-front1.png

This is strong and clear.

http://aaronshi.com/gentoo/gentoo-front2.png

This is the weakest by a long shot, I think. It looks kind of muddled, and a little too thrown together. It's hard to represent versatility. Other items that are versatile: mothers, swiss army knives...

http://aaronshi.com/gentoo/gentoo-front3.png

I think this is great. But it's also not necessarily immediately recognizable to people. As someone who has done a lot of serious kinds of athletics (hiking, bike touring, a little climbing), it's a compelling image. I'm not sure how it would play more broadly. Could there be an image of teamwork that involves people instead of the technology that they use?

did other distributions ever put up a contest asking for help from the community for a new site? Smart move by Gentoo.)

I think it's a great move. I see some problems, but the designs and the discussion will really benefit Gentoo's online presence. As I said already in a slightly different context, I think it's what free software needs more of.

davideads · Post by **davideads** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:21 pm

brokendemo wrote: If gentoo is diffrent, shouldnt its site show that?

Im not trying to bash the designs, just trying to make the designers defend their work.

I don't know that Gentoo is so different as much as it is superlative. Certainly, Gentoo does certain things differently, but only when doing them differently makes things better for users. I think the best designs so far are trying to take tried and true techniques from site design and apply them to Gentoo's redesign in a way that attempts, at least, to be excellent. I suppose the question is what is the Gentoo site trying to achieve? If it is difference for it's own sake, in terms of design, I doubt that the site will do as much as it could for community and for interested parties.

davideads · Post by **davideads** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:23 pm

calande wrote: Mmmh... Just a matter of taste IMHO. I think if it looks less corporate, if it has less graphics, and if it's still a great web site, then, you have a good example here: www.gentoo.org Then, no need to change the web site)

Except that the site discriminates against the blind and sucks for users of text browsers (who might in fact be using a text browser to read the installation guide, as I had to do once). However, they needn't change the appearance of the site at all to fix this, and the site as it stands is pretty good.

brokendemo · Post by **brokendemo** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:25 pm

i dont think the gentoo site stands out at all. It kinda depends on how you look at sites, though. If you look at a lot of them for the purpose of design research, then you start to see the same thing over and over. The logo looks like google. google lookes like a simple photoshop trick. It may be purple, but that really doesnt make it stand out, just makes it a diffrent color.

Its very simple, as it needs to be, but that isnt to say it cant do more.

I dont know how to do that. But im not the one who posted stuff. Im just reacting to what was posted. And so far, everything posted to me looks like something ive already seen. Shift's site, which is my favorite, looks a lot like gateway.com. Of course youll find little things that are diffrent, but you get the same feeling when looking at both. That a big compnay made it, that they are trying to be 'human' by putting pictures of people we've never met in there, ect.

I like shifts design and looking at his personal site i can tell he's a great designer. What i would like to see (as if i were anyone important) is shift do something really diffrent.

or course, that takes time and a lot of thought, which is why im not in on this. i just found out about it today, and im not even going to try to do something good in four days. Itd be a joke. trust me.

davideads · Post by **davideads** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:04 pm

brokendemo wrote: Of course youll find little things that are diffrent, but you get the same feeling when looking at both. That a big compnay made it, that they are trying to be 'human' by putting pictures of people we've never met in there, ect.

I think you've nailed something with that. Trying to win people over with "fake" and contrived images seems a little disingenuous. I still think Shift's design is good (I'm curious what you thought of mine), and I wonder how a design like Shift's can transcend the effect that you're talking about.

David

brokendemo · Post by **brokendemo** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:11 pm

I dont know how he can get past that feeling. I think its pretty inherent any time you use stock photography, so that would be one thing. But then what do you stick on there to make it something other then text?

To David Deeds, i like your design too but i can see how people are saying its a little cold. I think one good use of purple might be taking closer to rose and pink rather then adding black. That would brighten it up a bit. Also, im just not down with drop shadows and gradient masks in the various bars, but i think thats just my personal taste.

brokendemo · Post by **brokendemo** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:11 pm

this is fun. I love talking about design. LOVE IT!

nadamsieee · Post by **nadamsieee** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:23 pm

shift wrote:Even if you look at it now, there are still 2 prominent images with people in it...only they're both guys. One can argue that guys use Linux so those images are related, but so do women. I could put men in suits instead of a woman's face, but wouldn't that make Gentoo "too corporate"?

Go for chick pix. If most Linux users are straight males, you'll have hordes of them flocking to Gentoo...

nadamsieee · Post by **nadamsieee** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:34 pm

OK, now for a serious response to shift's work.

The design looks great. All of the banner's you made would fit nicely on the Gentoo homepage. The 'chick banner' works because of all of the point you made earlier. I would add that since Gentoo is a community based distro, making the website more human is only logical. The other three banners are nice because they highlight some technical advantage of Gentoo. And finally, all 4 banners just look 'cool'. Remember people, the homepage is supposed to grab your attention and easily lead you to the info you're interested in. So the attention grabbing banners would only exist on the homepage... duh.

Now for some critiques. It's hard to tell how you constructed your menu, but the elements should definately be text (not graphics). Also, you were right when you said that the website should scale to almost any screensize/resolution. So the cool banners need to gracefully expand to the right, and the content needs to fill the entire width of the page. The header/footer also needs to go all the way across.

Anyway, you have a very nice entry for the contest.

shift · Post by **shift** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 2:25 am

nadamsieee wrote:Remember people, the homepage is supposed to grab your attention and easily lead you to the info you're interested in. So the attention grabbing banners would only exist on the homepage... duh.

Now for some critiques. It's hard to tell how you constructed your menu, but the elements should definately be text (not graphics). Also, you were right when you said that the website should scale to almost any screensize/resolution. So the cool banners need to gracefully expand to the right, and the content needs to fill the entire width of the page. The header/footer also needs to go all the way across.

1) Absolutely, loading content pages with prominent graphics is just a waste of content area, bandwidth, not to mention it'll be a distraction to the important content that people are reading i.e. the install guide.

2) There are a number of ways you can do the menu, but I agree that the text you see in my sshot should be err...text. lol. In fact, all the text you see there will be text except the stuff in the main graphic. As for the menu, I am thinking of implementing it with CSS. You have the text links and the background of the link would be the menu bar, so using pseudo-classes i.e. hover, you can change the background to the one with the green bar. You'd give the text links a padding or something so the actually clickable area would cover the menu area, you need this to do the bg changes via CSS and also it's easier that users won't have to aim so hard for the link.

3) The design would stretch to any width, but the lower limit will be 780px for a 800x600 screen. If you make it compress narrower than that it wouldn't look very cool. Gentoo's current site has a lower limit of around 900px (I haven't actually measured it), so even people in 800x600 have to scroll horizontally (it does nicely to cut off the ads though

). My design improves on that already, but I won't go too far as to compensate for 640x480 res. since the cost (to everyone else) will clearly exceed the benefit.

Gentoo Foundation Web Site Redesign Contest

Re: A draft of my submission

Re: A draft of my submission

Re: A draft of my submission

Re: A draft of my submission