Calligra website (Re: "Marketing Message for Calligra")

[Cyrille Berger Skott]

On Thursday 22 December 2011, Inge Wallin wrote:
> On Thursday, December 22, 2011 11:35:53 Cyrille Berger Skott wrote:
> > I also seriously doubt the front page need an overhaul, yes a new layout
> > for the bottom part is needed (and almost done as seen in
> > http://www.calligra.org/homebeta/, and I am hopping to find time to work
> > on that next week). Same for better use of the "banner" area. We need a
> > better catch phrase than "The integrated work applications suite", to be
> > honest, it was place holder for when I started the website last yer.. I
> > do like the "Desktop", "Tablet", "Mobile" and "Engine" buttons, but
> > first we need the pages to go with it. However...
> 
> I think the front page does need an overhaul.  The reason is that it only
> shows parts of what Calligra can deliver and not even the strongest part.
> But you will notice that the differences between the two versions are not
> that large.

The concept behind the current front-page is to be minimilastic, and thus 
follow the example of ubuntu.com and apple.com (among others). A big image, 
with a single message. And then you go down you get the details. Which is what 
we get currently.

I personnally would really want to avoid all the screenshots we have seen in 
this thread, they are just messy, you get 3 or 4 area of attention, which is 
very distracting for the website user. You want to show one message at a time. 
I have yet to see a good website that does not follow that rule.

Since we have multiple messages we want to relay "a suite of application", 
"multiplatform"... The solution would be to use a slide-show, and have 
multiple banners. When I started working on the front page design last year, 
here is what I had come up as idea:

http://cyrille.diwi.org/tmp/koffice/website/banner.png

Instead of those banners, we could have:
first slide: the applications matrix, to present calligra suite
second slide: takes calligra everywhere with you and then an icon for desktop, 
tablet and mobile
third slide: embedd calligra in your own application (and I guess here we 
would need some screenshots of that, we could use konqueror, for instance) and 
Harmatan Office.
(and we can imagine other slide, like fourth slide: join a vibrant, active and 
welcoming community with a link to the accademy page).

> > ...what is really bad is the content under the surface. And maybe the
> > presentation. Most (all ?) our applications pages are really bad, none of
> > them give the feeling of "I want to try this application". I have not
> > given a lot of thought about it yet, and I would be very open to
> > suggestion and people giving time to work on it ;) (something like iwork
> > website could be an option http://www.apple.com/iwork/numbers/ , which is
> > a combination of "catch- tile/paragraph/screenshot", which is close to
> > what we do, but we miss the title and the layout is not as good).
> > 
> > We also really need a good tour of the application, not something as
> > complicated as the ubuntu one (http://www.ubuntu.com/tour/). But
> > something very catchy, like a slideshow, with screenshots, and little
> > text.
> 
> I and Stephanie are working on a new tour now.  If we have time we will
> also look at the individual application pages and make them more likeable.
>  My problem is that I am the opposite of a graphics designer.  We need
> somebody who can do a good graphics design.  In fact I think Jaroslaw
> could do that but does he have the time?

I can help with the presentation and design part. I will try to find tonight a 
good existing application tour, that we can be used as an example. But 
basically, a succession of screenshots, with very small captions would be very 
good.

-- 
Cyrille Berger Skott