[KDE Usability] Review of the relaunched kde.org

[Ben Cooksley]

On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 10:12 PM, Sander Pientka <cumulus0007 at gmail.com> wrote:
> The kde.org website just got relaunnched and I must say that I'm very
> impressed. It's fresh, bright and not cluttered. Well done!
>
> There are, however, some usability issues.

All KDE Website discussion belongs on kde-www, where the webmasters are.

>
>
> First of all, the KDE logo is shown only twice. In the favicon, and at
> the top. Both are minuscule. I think the logo should be visible more
> prominently. What about showing it next to the "Experience Freedom"
> text below the banner?
>
> Which brings me to the following issue. The huge banner. I think it's
> pretty, but slightly too high. Users with low screen resolutions need
> to scroll too much in order to read the actual textually content.
> Also, items shown in the banner are not clickable. I would like to
> know more about Akademy, but I can't click the corresponding slide.
> Also, the KDE slogan reads "Experience Freedom" according to the
> title, but the banner reads "Be free"? This inconsistency should be
> fixed in my opinion. Also, the Be Free slide lacks a KDE logo. I think
> a kde logo on the bottom-right would be pretty.
>
> The menu is pretty, but has some issues. First of all, every section
> has it's own color, but when hovering over all those links, they all
> have the same hover-over color: blue. If I click a link in the menu
> and I want to use the breadcrumb bar in the top-left to get back to
> another page, I have to move my mouse around the menu in order to
> leave it unopened. This is clumsy in my opinion. Once hovered, the
> menu should be leaved open, at any time. Except for the home page,
> because it takes up too much space there. Maybe the menu should slide
> over the banner at the homepage? A last issue of the menu bar is it's
> "Toggle menu" button at the top-right. Why not use a green arrow
> button?
>
> Then, the Get KDE Software button. It would be pretty if the arrow
> would lighten up in green when hovered over.
>
>
> I don't see the point of dividing the news in "Announcements" and
> "Latest news". Announcements are news, right? And news is always new.
> So "latest news" sound like a contamination to me. "Other news" would
> be better.

News is material from the Dot, Announcements are usually releases or
major events.

>
> The Forum section is empty, but I suppose it's being worked on.

This is actually a bug, being worked on ( file syntax error precisely )

>
> The Latest Application section is pretty and allright. The "Read More"
> link below it, though, points to kde-apps.org, while the apps listed
> above are hosted at opendesktop.org. Why?
>
> The footer is nice, but I'm wondering what those two squares are doing
> at the bottom-right. I'm seeing them everywhere, at planetkde.org,
> etc... Maybe a KDE logo centered at the bottom-border would be nice,
> just like planetkde.org does.
>
> And last of all, lots of KDE pages don't have the new lay-out yet, for
> instance, the wiki. Will the new theme be ported to the wiki (which is
> MoinMoin, probably)?
>
> These are some of my thoughts on the new KDE homepage. I hope it's
> useful to you.
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>

Regards,
Ben