New website theme, when to roll out?

[Maximilian Kossick]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 5:49 AM, Harald Sitter <sitter.harald at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2008-04-09 at 21:46 +0200, Mark Kretschmann wrote:
>  > Heya,
>  >
>  > emunkki (Pasi Lallinaho) has designed a new website theme for us. It's
>  > been worked on for quite a while and went through many iterations, and
>  > I think the latest mockup looks really neat:
>  >
>  > http://projects.knome.ath.cx/amarok/WWW/
>  >
>  > In my opinion this design is way better than our current old and
>  > trusty design, and we should roll it out ASAP (as soon as the details
>  > have been worked out).
>  >
>  > Now a heated discussion has started about the right time for going
>  > live with the new theme. I (and also Ian Monroe) would like to see
>  > this implemented soon. Let me summarize our reasons:
>  >
>  > 1) Release early, release often
>  > 2) The old site is getting *very* long in the tooth. It demotivates me
>  > just to look at it.
>  > 3) The new theme seems ready to go, design wise.
>  > 4) New site can provide us with some extra PR buzz, independent of the
>  > Amarok 2.0 release.
>  >
>  > However, some Amarokers oppose this plan; E.g. Lydia and Harald would
>  > like to wait until the Amarok 2.0 release to roll out the new theme.
>  > They believe everything has to be perfectly fine tuned (like adapting
>  > the wiki and forum themes), and that it would create better PR to
>  > release the new theme along with Amarok 2.0 final (which as we all
>  > know will take quite some time).
>  >
>  > I've become a bit tired of discussing this on IRC, so I'd like us to
>  > make a decision here. Please voice your opinion :)
>
>  Hum, I has one opinion, I guess...
>  Pasi did/is doing the mockup, Pasi does/will be doing the ports to all
>  the software we use, therefore I see no reason why anyone other than
>  Pasi should decide on this.
>
>  Sorry, but that really pisses me off, as we already discussed this on
>  IRC and explained why we can't do it now, or within the next few
>  weeks.... there is simply nothing but the mockup right now.
>
>  So instead of discussing when _other's_ work has to be released, provide
>  some feedback to the mockup.
>
Obviously we can't use the new design before it's ready. But I do not
think that deciding whether to start using it at the earliest possible
moment, or when 2.0 is released, is something only the artist(s)
should do.

An few comments on the mockup:
-the second line of links in the header is very hard to read (weekly
news, developer blogs...)
-the amarok logo in the footer is hard to read
-that thingy on the left side is a neat trick, but not really helpful.
i'd look for links to change the language at the top of the page,
usually the top right corner, not the bottom left. The "home" link is
a good idea, but i'm not sure if that corner is the optimal position
for it.
-the world map looks wrong