new page layout for KDE-pages / Keramik

[marko faas]

On Thu, 2002-08-22 at 19:08, Klaus Staerk wrote to reply Marko's
remarks:
> Hm, to my mind, we should bring the navigation bar into a new order (e.g. 
> leave the section KDE-Family away; instead creating a separate page for the 
> KDE-Family, and many many more things to do here). This would be - beneath 
> creating a new layout - the only thing that would have to be done (although 
> still a big workload).
> 
> Creating five separate sections for five different kinds of users brings IMO 
> too much confusion. How do you want to decide which category of user group 
> you (or any other person) belong to?

It will show automatically. If you just found out about kde.org and you
want to know more, you surely will click on the 'Welcome to
KDE'-section. If you have just installed KDE, you will know you are a
novice user. And if you cannot find the right info there for you, then
you switch over to advanced users.

> One example for this is the webseite of SuSE (www.suse.de/www.suse.com). They 
> separate their users at the homepage into business users, private users ... 
> Sure, some information is rather adressed to business users (e.g. workgroup 
> solutions like Domino/Notes), other information for private users - but quite 
> a lot of information is for both of them.

True.So we have a document that can be placed both on the users and the
professional section. And there will be many pages that are accessible
through different sections.

> And the next thing is: many 
> visitors are business users as well as private users in one person. Do you 
> know what I mean? 

I know. Well, they can have a look at both sections. 

In the end, we will have to think about target groups. You just cannot
place a child right onto the university. For example, assume I am new to
KDE and new to Linux. I've heard about KDE and I want to know what it
is. So I head for kde.org. What do I find there?
- And introduction text that mentions 'Open Source', 'Unix workstations'
("I thought KDE was for Linux?"), 'development' (Why should someone who
is just interested want to subscribe to developer mailinglists??). 
- News about beta's. ("Cool, lets download for my Windows XP and see
what it does!" There is NO mention that it just don't work with Windows
XP).
- News: "KC KDE #43 is up" ("What the heck is KC KDE?")

Ok, there is a link " What is KDE", lets see...
'The general overview' is good, although it could be written a bit more
comprehensive for someone is new to KDE and just clicked in. The text is
very suitable for professional users btw.
Same for the 'KDE The Desktop Environment'. But I seriously doubt that
people new to KDE would want to read 'KDE The Application Development
Framework', except professional users.

But, there is a FAQ. Lets see...
Well, the section about 'About this FAQ', doesn't say anything about
KDE, so lets go to the next section. The first answers are good. Short,
clean and clear. "But what is Window Manager?" 
Next section. "Hey, here it talks about Linux, what happened with
Unix?", " Whats a snapshot?" 

Next Section.
Heeeyyy... Here we get some serious understandable answers at the
"would-be converts". But the rest of the section is scary. Actually, It
doesn't say anywere that you need Linux installed first!

In short: our site has lots of info, but it is not suitable for the
(private) user that just heard about KDE and Linux. That's too bad,
while KDE is actually designed to make things very easy for the new
user.

I could do the same for novice users, advanced users, professional users
and probably also for developers.

> > Of course, tehre is so much info already available, that most of KDE.org
> > just should be reshuffled. Some info should be rewritten with more
> > consideration to the target groups, but al in all, I think a resuffle
> > can be done fairly quick.
> 
> Yes, that's what I meant. Bringing our structure into a new, better order. And 
> rewrite the texts of our pages.

Ok, but if you rewrite the pages, who do you imagine as reader? And what
does the reader know already? As soon as you will try to put a letter in
KWord, you will have to ask yourself this question. And then, I am sure,
you will end up with similar target groups that I have proposed.

> > Only the way how to update things, that might be more complicated, and
> > for that, I hope some of you can think of something. I think that we
> > should find a way to make translations not only possible through CVS,
> > but also through a webinterface. I think it would be easier to translate
> > news too. (For example, After my work, I could check the content
> > management system through the web, translate some news for an hour while
> > I wait until the traffic jams are gone...)
> 
> Good idea, but would be a separate project. :-)

True. but I stress that the translations (and we HAVE to lose the
question mark 'i18n' when we mean 'translations' or 'localisation')
 
> I have the impression that the German web administrators (KDE.de) also agree 
> with a new design - so what do KDE.org-admins mean? (Pleas cross-post to 
> kde-www at mail.kde.org and www-de at mail.kde.org - thank you!)
>
> Hm, maybe we should start with a proposal for a new layout for the KDE pages, 
> what do you think?

I agree, but before we start designing, we should tell the designer
*what* to design. So we have to come up with an basic interaction
design. Hopefully based on my proposals ;-)

-- 
Regards,
Marko