Fwd: Review of the relaunched kde.org

[Sander Pientka]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sander Pientka <cumulus0007 at gmail.com>
Date: 2010/2/9
Subject: Review of the relaunched kde.org
To: KDE Usability Project <kde-usability at kde.org>


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.


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.

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

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.